The RHI – An Energy company’s perspective
Renewable Futures 2009
Chetan Lad British Gas New Energy 11 November 2009
British Gas New Energy
Our purpose is to help homes and businesses in Britain:
Use less energy
Use cleaner energy
We want to take ‘low carbon’ from a niche activity and make it mainstream 2
Centrica in the UK
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Centrica in low carbon energy
Upstream
Downstream
• 8 wind projects in operation, construction or under development (98 MW onshore, 1640 MW offshore) • A range of power purchase agreements with renewable electricity developers • Developing biomethane – early stages • We provide microgen to both homes and businesses • Selling integrated low carbon solutions to businesses – microgen and energy efficiency (www.semplice.co.uk) • Install a broad range of technologies both directly and via partners, often backed by LCBP or CERT funding (heat pumps, biomass, PV, solar thermal, wind) • Major UK installer of PV (Solar Technologies) • Own 19% of leading Biomass Heating installer (Econergy) • Exclusive arrangements in micro CHP with Ceres (fuel cell) & Baxi (stirling engine) 4
Econergy Ltd • UK’s premier biomass heating supplier – > 330 projects sold to date – Approx 60 schools & colleges – 13% of UK installed base – 10KW to 2MW – 19% owned by British Gas • Biomass energy – turnkey solution design & supply – district heating – biomass heat supply - sell metered heat • Leading supplier to public sector • Delivering direct & via network of partners
National Star College , nr Cheltenham 500 + 320 KW wood chip boilers
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What is renewable heat?
• • • •
Biomass Wood fuel heating Carbon neutral Potential for 8% of all heat by 2020 Widely deployed in Europe
Heat pumps • Take energy from ground or air • Well established technologies – 650k installed in Sweden
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Solar Thermal Straightforward Widespread in UK - ~130,000 Potential for 3m by 2020 Widely deployed in Europe
Biogas to Grid New technology Uses existing infrastructure Potential of 48% of domestic gas by 2020 Already used in Germany
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How to make RHI a success • •
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•
•
Easy to understand and simple to access for consumers All technologies and scales of installations must be supported – Don’t try to pick winners – no technology is right for all cases – Micro scale installations should not miss out Tariff levels high enough for mass deployment Level playing field between heat and power – Biomass could be used in both sectors – Food waste biogas to power or injected to grid Financing up front costs will be key – Tariff payments should be assignable in perpetuity – Tariff lifetimes in line with loans available All should contribute to the funding of RHI 7
How to get it right Lessons from the German PV market 1,600
1,400
1,200
120
1,000,000 Roofs 1999
100 80 60
1,000 Roofs 1994
Feed-In Tariff 2004
1,000
800
600
400
40 200
20 0
19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08
0
19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03
Annual Installed MW
140
Annual installed MW
160
[email protected] 8