British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has visited the Greenpeace warehouse to announce a new policy that would see householders receive a guaranteed premium price for any renewable electricity they generate. A new Conservative green paper adopts Greenpeace proposals designed to kick-start a local energy revolution by making the costs of installing technologies such as domestic solar power much more affordable, while ensuring householders who generate clean energy get a higher price for the electricity they feed into the Grid,Newbuilder.co.uk reported.
Greenpeace has led the campaign for the adoption of a ’decentralized energy’ system where energy is generated cleanly and close to where it’s used, drastically slashing emissions by cutting out waste.
A ’feed-in tariff’ for domestic green energy. That means a guaranteed elevated price for electricity from clean technology. In Germany, households with installed renewable systems are able to sell electricity back to the grid at a much higher price than the standard market rate.
A reformed planning system making it easier for individuals to install micro-generation systems by making them a form of permitted development. This will mean that owners of these appliances will not have to go through the full planning approval process before installing such equipment.
The green paper promises that further announcements detailing support for large scale renewable schemes such as offshore wind farms, and so-called Combined Heat and Power plants, will follow. A series of announcements will form the Conservatives’ complete clean energy policy. Today’s proposals are the first to be published.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK said: ’We’ve been pushing this climate change solution for many years so it’s very exciting to have a major political party take our ideas and adopt them as policy. But we really want to see this as a government priority, no matter who’s in No. 10.
Ken Livingstone has been aggressively pushing decentralized energy for London, now Cameron has joined in. The question is, where’s Brown? Guaranteed higher prices for clean electricity have kick started the green energy revolution in Europe. It’s high time Britain joined in.’
The Greenpeace warehouse building is powered by solar panels, the kind of technology supported in the new Conservative report. Cameron will be given a tour of the solar array on the Greenpeace roof.
Greenpeace believe Cameron will be lobbied by energy dinosaurs wanting him to drop his green plans but say they are encouraging him to stand his ground and develop his ideas to include:
Massive improvements in energy efficiency to reduce demand which is the quickest and cheapest way to cut emissions.
Ambitious decentralized energy programs that will cut waste from the energy system and slash emissions.
Serious development of large scale renewable energy, including wind power (onshore and offshore), wave power, tidal power, solar and sustainably sourced biomass.
Greenpeace has written to Gordon Brown urging his government to embrace the ideas in the organization’s climate change solutions reports and has invited ministers to see decentralized energy in action.

Even though wind power is mainly an energy resource that replaces fossil power generation, it can also be used for replacing existing power plant capacity.

The production of wind power varies and is harder to forecast than the fluctuations in electricity demand. Adding large quantities of wind power to power systems is therefore challenging.
The power system impacts of wind power were studied in international collaboration coordinated by VTT (Technical Research Center of Finland).
VTT is an impartial expert organization. Its objective is to develop new technologies, create new innovations and value added thus increasing customer’s competitiveness.
The results indicate that the frequently stated claim of wind power requiring an equal amount of reserve power for back-up is not correct. A substantial adjustment tolerance is already built in to the power network, and the impacts of wind power fluctuations can be further balanced through a variety of measures. Vtt.fi reported.
The collaboration within the International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreement for Wind Energy, coordinated by VTT, has resulted in the publication of the first state-of-the-art report assessing the international experience gained on the system impacts of wind power.
The impact of a large share of wind power can be controlled by appropriate grid connection requirements, extension and enforcement of transmission networks as well as integration of wind power production and production forecasts into system and market operation.
The state-of-the-art report presents the assessments of the impact of wind power on the reliability and costs of the power system conducted in different countries.
The assessments performed in different countries are often based on substantially different assumptions. Comparison of the studies showed that in particular the assumptions concerning the use of international transmission connections and the time scale of updating wind power forecasts had a major impact on the results.
The aggregation benefits of a power system covering a large area help in reducing wind power fluctuations and improve predictability. A large power system also has a larger amount of generation reserves available, and the increased regulation effort can be implemented cost-effectively. The transmission capacity between areas is crucial for the utilization of the benefits arising from large production areas.
An electricity market in which production forecasts can be updated a few hours ahead also helps in keeping down the forecast errors and thereby the costs of balance power.
The report contains a summary of the wind power impact assessments performed in 11 countries. The assessments are divided into three categories:
1. Additional costs arising from the balancing of wind power fluctuations,
2. Grid reinforcement needs due to wind power,
3. Capacity of wind power to replace other power plant capacit.
With wind power penetrations amounting to 10Ð20% of the gross electricity demand, the additional costs (per MWh of wind power) arising from the balancing of wind power fluctuations are estimated to range between1Ð4 Euro/MWh. This is less than 10 percent of the long-term market value of electricity.
Current wind power technology makes it possible for wind power plants to support the grid in the event of faults such as significant voltage drops and to participate in voltage regulation. Wind power plants are also able to limit their production fluctuations. The grid reinforcement needs due to wind power vary in different countries depending on how far from the consumption centres the wind power plants are constructed and how strong the existing national grid is.
Even though wind power is mainly an energy resource that replaces fossil power generation, it can also be used for replacing existing power plant capacity. In areas where wind power production is high during peak demand, wind power can replace other capacity by up to 40 percent of the installed wind power capacity.
However, when a larger share, more than 30 percent, of electricity is produced by wind power and in areas where the wind power production is low during peak demand, wind power can only replace other capacity by 5Ð10 percent of the wind power capacity.

The Ugandan government's long-term plan is to develop renewable energy resources, including small hydros, biomass, peat and geothermal.

Uganda’s deprived energy sector is on the verge of taking off after another company expressed interest in generating power from renewable sources such as small rivers, agricultural waste, wind, and solar.
Okhela Renewable Energy Corporation, a South African energy company with experience in producing energy from natural resources, is negotiating with the government for a power purchase agreement, Allafrica.com reported.
“The long term power purchase agreements of say 20-30 years will make it possible to bring a significant change in the market,“ Mr Jacob Mabena, the chief executive officer of Okhela Renewable Energy Corporation told Business Power.
In the first phase of the project the company plans to invest 3.5 million euros (Shs6 billion) to produce 10MW of electricity from domestic wastes before exploring other alternatives such as solar and wind energy.
The company will also develop micro-hydro power dams that produce about 5 MW of electricity on small rivers around the country.
Uganda has suffered energy deficits following the reduction of water levels in Lake Victoria that has seen the government open up the sector to allow more players.
It is estimated that the current demand for electricity is 360 MW. However, the country can only produce 120 MW from Kiira and Nalubale power stations and 100 MW from thermal power generators. Two more 50 MW thermal power plants will soon be installed in Mutundwe and Namanve.
“We believe it is important to open up the energy sector to more players and to have a clear and supportive regulatory environment,“ Mr Mabena said.
The government, in 1999, enacted the Electricity Act, which removed the monopoly in power generation, transmission and distribution, and established the Electricity Regulatory Authority with subsequent creation of Uganda Electricity Generation Company, Uganda Electricity Transmission Company and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company (UEDCL).
Umeme Ltd, a private power consortium, was granted the distribution concession in March 2005 taking over from (UEDCL). The power tariffs have since risen, hitting the peak in October 2006. Commercial, medium consumers currently pay Shs261.5 and Shs282.8 respectively. Domestic consumers have to pay 298.2 shillings, an increment of 37 percent.
Jacobsen, Electomaxx, Wanereco, and Aggreko are some of the energy power houses in Uganda.
However, the energy produced is still not enough to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for electricity.
It is projected that the demand for electricity in the next 20-years will be at 11,000 MW as the economy continues to grow at a rate of 6.2 percent.
Currently, it is estimated that only 5 percent of Uganda’s population have access to electricity. And it is this gap that Okhela seeks to address.
“We want to work with the government to produce affordable, modern and clean energy for Ugandan citizens. We want to go all around the country and not just focus on the urban centres,“ Mr Mabena said.
According to the Ministry Energy, the government’s long-term is to develop the other Victoria Nile hydropower sites, effect grid connection with as well as developing the renewable energy resources including small hydros, biomass, peat and geothermal.
OREC South Africa together with their technical partners, Venture SA, and the Stellenbosch are working on developing fourth generation large wind turbines mainly for the African market, which will also be deployed in Uganda.
“Karamoja region has with adequate wind speeds for production of wind energy,“ Mr Mabena said. “Uganda has enormous natural resources which can be harnessed to produce clean sources of energy, and significantly contribute to Uganda’s energy security.“
Although the country has abundant natural resources that could be used for clean energy production, the country currently relies on the expensive and environmental unfriendly thermal power generation.
Biomass resources in the form of the immense forests, agricultural wastes, municipal and animal waste, are some of the sources that the company will utilize to produce energy.
The combined contribution of renewable energy sources to the country’s energy consumed is estimated at 1 percent.
“We are serious about working in partnership with the Ugandan authorities to increase access to energy for both the short- and long-term,“ Mr Mabena said.