麻豆传媒

鈥淚f you want to create employment and innovation in your own country, you should go ahead and tackle those renewables challenges鈥� (Image: Fraunhofer IWES)

Could the UK鈥檚 power supply become 100 per cent renewable?
Definitely. The UK could base its power supplies primarily on solar panels and wind turbines 鈥� the cheapest technologies for renewable-energy generation. But of course the sun doesn鈥檛 always shine and the wind doesn鈥檛 always blow, so those sources would have to be balanced with some backup. One backup option would be biomass that is used to produce biomethane, which can be stored, sent into the gas grid or burned to generate electricity on demand.

Aren鈥檛 solar cells still too inefficient?
The important issue isn鈥檛 efficiency so much: the main thing is the cost per kilowatt generated. Solar panels are so cheap now that their efficiency has become less important. There are so many rooftops in the UK and Germany that we could power our countries many times over if we installed solar panels on every single rooftop.

Is the UK particularly suited to renewables?
The UK has amazing potential and it is exploiting some of it wisely by putting wind farms offshore. It could do even better by putting them onshore, although then it becomes more political. And while it doesn鈥檛 make sense to have tidal power plants in my country, because Germany has a tidal difference of just 1 to 2 metres, it makes sense to do it in Wales, where it is as much as 10 metres.

Is the politics around renewables changing?
It certainly is in Germany. We are doing a fairly good job of getting to the target of 80 per cent renewable electricity by 2050. We Germans like to plan things well in advance, but we cannot know all the challenges that will come up by 2050, so we are taking a very 鈥渦n-German鈥� approach and assessing our progress on a rolling five-year basis.

UK government subsidies for things like home power generation are so popular that .

We had the discussion about the costs associated with introducing renewables two years ago in Germany. What people often don鈥檛 realise is that although you have an increased cost to bring renewables online, the wholesale price of electricity declines as a result, virtually offsetting that initial increase: changing the energy economy is not easy, but it gets cheaper the faster you do it. Now in Germany, even though renewables are still being added, the price of electricity has already stabilised.

Are there other things that people might not think of when considering renewables?
You have to look at the bigger picture. About two-thirds of the money required for conventional power plants goes abroad as fuel costs, whereas the money you pay for renewable power will stay in the UK economy. And the infrastructure of renewables will create jobs in the UK for many years to come. If you want to progress and create employment and innovation in your own country, you should go ahead and tackle those challenges.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淣othing but renewables鈥�