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News

Renewables back on the agenda with a vengeance

81% of public in favour of wind power

BWEA, the UK's leading green energy trade body, today warmly welcomes two new statements of intent on delivering a renewables future for the UK. Speaking at the All Energy conference in Aberdeen, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks re-iterated the Government's support for renewables, saying that they were back on the agenda with a vengeance, while Deputy First Minister and Enterprise Minister Nicol Stephen MSP announced a new funding package for emerging renewable technologies.

Wicks highlighted the positive findings from the first DTI commissioned NOP survey – published today – saying that "despite all the hot air and scepticism from certain quarters, 85% of the general public support the use of renewable energy, 81% are in favour of wind power and just over three fifths would be happy to live within 5km of a wind power development." The findings of this survey confirm once again the high level of public support for the development of wind power in the UK, and also the fact that wind farms do make good neighbours.

Chris Tomlinson, BWEA's Director of Operations, commenting on today's news, said:

"BWEA warmly welcomes this timely announcement from the UK Government and the Scottish Executive, both reaffirming their belief in the renewables sector, and recognising the vital role of established and emerging renewable technologies. The established technology is delivering, with BWEA's recent research showing that onshore wind able to meet nearly 5% of the UK's electricity needs by 2010.

While onshore wind leads the renewables industry in the present, this is merely the first step in catalysing investor confidence across the entire portfolio of renewable technologies, enabling them to deliver a long term sustainable energy future for the UK."

Stephens meanwhile announced a £20 million package over a two-year period, including £8 million for research, testing and demonstration of emerging wave and tidal technologies, and the previously announced £3 million boost for the Scottish Communities & Households Renewables Initiative to support micro-generation, and declared the Scottish Executive's intent to concentrate on ensuring that the jobs and economic benefits arising from renewables remain firmly in Scotland and the UK.

However BWEA's research also highlights the need for a positive planning policy and prompt decision making in Scotland to reflect the spirit of the Scottish Executive's determination for a vibrant and sustainable renewables industry in Scotland in this decade and the next.

Notes to editors:

BWEA

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) is the UK's leading renewable energy association, with over 300 company members. Formed 28 years ago, BWEA is at the forefront of the development of the UK wind industry, representing the sector to Government, business, media and the public. It expanded its mission two years ago to champion the emerging technologies of wave and tidal stream power generation. Wind energy has now started a major expansion in the UK and will be the single greatest contributor to the Government's 10% 2010 renewable energy target and 20% 2020 renewable aspiration. Together, wind, wave and tidal power can supply 21% of our electricity by 2020, resulting in over £16bn of investment in UK plc.

BWEA's full submission to the Energy Review, including all the research undertaken by the Association can be found at www.bwea.com/energyreview.

DTI Renewable Energy Awareness and Attitudes Research

DTI commissioned GfK NOP Social Research to conduct a quantitative research project to explore awareness and attitudes to renewable energy amongst the general public in Great Britain, and determine influences on their opinions of this subject.

The main objective of this research was to provide a measure of awareness and attitudes to renewable energy amongst a representative sample of the British public. More specifically, the research needed to examine the following:

• Awareness levels of renewable energy sources
• Attitudes to renewable energy
• What influenced these opinions
• Gauge perceptions of recent media coverage on renewable energy

The research was administered by telephone using CATI (Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing) via two different surveys. A telephone omnibus (GfK NOP Telebus) was carried out amongst 1,932 respondents over two consecutive weekends between 17th and 26th March 2006, providing a nationally representative sample of adults aged 16+ in Great Britain. In addition, an ad hoc boost survey of 100 respondents in the Highland & Islands of Scotland was conducted. The ad hoc survey provided a robust sample for analysis of opinions in the Highlands & Islands region. The results from these two surveys were combined and weighted so that the Highlands & Islands boost data are in the correct proportion to Great Britain as a whole (this region accounting for about 0.74% of the total British population aged 16+).

Full details are available at http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file29360.pdf

All-Energy is measuring up to its reputation of being bigger and better each year. Following the success of last year's event, which attracted 2,150 attendees and nearly 200 exhibiting companies, the 2006 show - the sixth in the annual series - will be the largest all-renewable energy exhibition ever held in the UK, with a stunning multi-stream conference for you to attend free of charge, an exciting Giant Networking Evening and much more. You simply cannot afford to miss the 'AGM of the renewable and sustainable energy industry'!

For more info on visiting the show see www.all-energy.co.uk