renewable energy

The Telegraph is yet again trying to pretend that Noel Edmonds’ anti-wind lobby, the cosmically ordered Renewable Energy Foundation, is a reliable source of data. In case you don’t remember, this is the organisation which produces nonsensical made-up ‘reports’ attacking wind power, whilst claiming on their home page to be in the business of promoting renewable energy.

Imagine a wind turbine so big that it would take Usain Bolt 19.32 seconds to run across the 200m diameter of its blades (before plunging tragically into the sea). This is what wind manufacturer Dong says will help bring the cost of offshore wind down to below that of new gas-fired power stations (the size of the blades, not Bolt’s premature demise).

Was it when Chancellor George Osborne called us the environmental Taliban? When he announced he wanted to build 40 new gas-fired power stations and turn the UK into a “gas hub”? When he was revealed in our undercover investigation as trying to dismantle the Climate Change Act? When he rolled out the red carpet for fracking companies across England? Or when he vetoed a 2030 goal in the Energy Bill for carbon free electricity?

Friday was a brave day for Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls to hug a solar panel. Britain had awoken to the - albeit sensationalist and misleading - headline news that households could be paying £170 a year by 2020 to fund renewable energy projects. (The reality being nearly half that cost and overall savings if we get our act together on energy efficiency). But Ed Balls, MP for Morley and Outwood, pulled up to renewable installation company Eclipse Energy in Leeds enthusiastic, engaged and ready to – literally - embrace clean energy.

If a year is a long time in politics, then 2016 is a lifetime away. Yet the government has decided not to commit the UK to clean electricity until after the next election.

The government's nuclear plan isn't going to happen. Government wants to offer ever larger subsidies trying to keep the nuclear industry afloat, but here's a 'plan B' that keeps the lights on without new reactors.

Yesterday, I joined 249 other people from green businesses, development charities, trades associations, green groups and the Women's Institute outside the Treasury. We'd come to tell the government that the green economy is working.

On a windy night in September, whilst most people were sleeping, wind power reached a record of 64.2% of Spain’s electricity demand.