Mike O’Brien, the UK energy minister, has admitted the government is concerned at the state of the cogeneration industry. Speaking this week at a London seminar – Energy: The Future – O’Brien said: “CHP companies are struggling and we need to get the economics right.”
But in a speech targeting the potential of renewables and the government’s climate change strategy, the minister also highlighted the importance of future CHP technologies, saying that home-based micro-generation schemes using Stirling Engines “realistically, can be around in 20 years”.
Addressing the need for the country’s generation fuel-mix to diversify, O’Brien pointed to the huge investment that the UK government has ploughed into the renewables sector, particularly the wind-power market. He said: “Wind is the most advanced and cost-effective renewable energy but investment is also significant in other sectors – wave and tidal power, for example, which are longer-term objectives.” The UK has a target of renewables providing 10% of total generating capacity by 2010, with offshore wind farms alone accounting for 3%.
Opposition spokesman Tim Yeo said, however, the government was not tackling the twin problems of climate change and security of supply in the right manner, claiming “ministers have their heads in the sand – hoping that the energy problem will go away”. Citing a need for more energy support at domestic levels, Yeo said that there should be greater incentives for home generators and that fuel poverty was not a utility but “a social service problem”.
