Commenting today on Government plans to extend the renewables obligation, Shadow Energy Minister Laurence Robertson MP said:

“We do, of course, support the use of renewables to produce electricity and recognise the need to provide some degree of certainty to encourage businesses to invest in the industry.

“However, we are concerned that the 3 per cent target for last year was not met, with only 1.8 per cent of electricity coming from renewable sources. Therefore, this begs the question as to how the government is going to achieve its 10.4 per cent target by 2010 - only six years away - let alone any higher targets, when it’s not even achieving its 3 per cent target now.

“We are also concerned that the government seems to be concentrating its renewable energy drive on wind farms. I visited a wind farm in Northern Ireland last Thursday, but recognise the shortcomings that turbines have in terms of efficiency of production.

“The government needs to reassess the realities of its policies with regards to developing the renewables sector and should start to do so immediately.”


Laurence Robertson MP