Tim Probert, Power Engineering International
This evening I interviewed Greg Clark MP, the UK’s shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. With a general election on the horizon (expected to be held on 6 May), and with opinion polls pointing towards a Conservative victory, Clark’s ideas need to be heard.
Clark is a big believer in gas fired generation. It is his specialist subject. Cheaper and quicker to build than coal, nuclear and just about every other source of power generation, Clark views gas as the lynchpin of the UK’s energy policy over the next decade. Currently accounting for 50% of the UK’s power generation, Clark will be happy for the UK’s reliance on gas fired power to grow virtually without limit despite its growing dependence on imports (and impact on carbon emissions) - as long as there is enough storage to cover its needs.
Clark says the Conservative Party is firmly behind the current Labour government’s new-found enthusiasm for nuclear power and if elected, it will work with the European Union to look at placing a floor under the carbon price to incentivize the construction of low carbon power infrastructure. Clark is righly weary, however, that a pan-European floor price may be politically untenable, with Eastern Europe nations like Poland more than 90% reliant on coal fired power.
The Tories have frequently been attacked for their perceived negative attitude towards onshore wind farms. Viewed as the epitome of ‘nimbyism’, many such projects in Conservative-controlled areas have been derailed by local opposition. Clark’s solution is to encourage communities to sell electricity from collectively owned onshore wind farms, as seen in other Western European nations, so that Joe Public is enfranchised and so comes to see them as a Good Thing.
To facilitate this, Clark proposes that business rates levied on wind farms be handed back to communities that build the wind farms, and is talking with utilities as to how communities that site wind farms could be subject to lower electricity bills.
The full interview will be published in the February issue of Power Engineering International on 8 February.
