Renewable energy jobs in UK plunge by a third
By Paul Homewood
From the Guardian:
The number of jobs in renewable energy in the UK has plunged by nearly a third in recent years, and the amount of new green generating capacity by a similar amount, causing havoc among companies in the sector, a new report has found.
Prospect, the union which covers much of the sector, has found a 30% drop in renewable energy jobs between 2014 and 2017, as government cuts to incentives and support schemes started to bite. It also found investment in renewables in the UK more than halved between 2015 and 2017.
The drastic fall in jobs came as the government effectively shut down schemes that rewarded consumers for buying solar panels, withdrew subsidies for onshore wind and reduced incentives for low-carbon energy. Ministers have argued that as the costs of renewable energy have fallen sharply in recent years, the industries should no longer rely on public subsidy, but multiple redrawings of government schemes in recent years have helped to create turmoil and a lack of certainty for companies.
Government support has taken the form of various schemes across the last decade, including feed-in tariffs for consumers with solar panels, a renewables obligation forcing the big energy suppliers to invest in renewables, and most recently, contracts for difference. The latter were meant to overhaul the whole energy sector by setting up auctions by which companies would bid for generation contracts favouring low-carbon energy, but early troubles meant dirty energy such as diesel generators were often the inadvertent winners, and while the scheme still operates it has enjoyed little support from successive chancellors.
Between 2016 and 2017, there was a sharp fall in investment in UK renewables, which fell 56% to the lowest level since 2008, according to the as-yet-unpublished Prospect report that has been seen by the Guardian. Last year, the annual rate of addition of renewables capacity fell to its lowest level since 2012, which the union said was driven by the collapse in solar and onshore wind deployment. Without the significant rise in bioenergy capacity that took place in 2018, the fall in new renewables would have been much greater, the union said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/30/renewable-energy-jobs-in-uk-plunge-by-a-third
The Guardian still has not worked out that subsidised jobs aren’t real jobs.
They also have not worked out that payments to “dirty diesel generators” have nothing to do with any of the subsidy schemes for renewables, but are in fact for standby capacity, which is only needed because of intermittent renewable generation.
Most of the increase in bioenergy capacity during 2018 was, of course, at Drax, which has no further plans to switch remaining capacity over.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Developers of ‘dirty diesel generators’ try to justify their deployment, when putting in planning applications, on the basis that these backup plants, although neither renewable nor low carbon, are facilitators of renewable energy schemes. You couldn’t make up the twisted logic of the developers when they try to fool planning officers and planning committees into granting planning permission for these highly polluting and inefficient plants.
So, your solution is no dirty deisels and blackouts. Got it.
More likely: No dirty deisels and No unreliables.
Fred has it right; no unreliables. We need nuclear and coal for baseload, gas for load follow and pumped hydro for peak load.
Several of those STOR backup generator sites run on Natural Gas, which makes them much cleaner. But I have to wonder what would happen in the event of a major electrical blackout lasting for days – the gas network relies on electricity to distribute and maintain pressure…
Cleaner?
Then there is the flow on effect of the withdrawal of subsidies; a drop in the number of expensive cars bought, multi-million houses bought, to say nothing of the most expensive champagnes beig consumed.
However will Lord Deben manage to sustain his lifestyle.
I have been predicting this for a long time.When the subsidies end so will the green energy. There is already a solar farm close to where I live in Canada that is in bankruptcy proceedings and another wind project is in insolvency court in Germany. Green energy sounds nice but when it has to be backed up with fossil fuels for reliability,then what is the point.
All the low hanging renewable energy fruit has been picked. With subsidies being scaled back there’s no incentive to expand more. Those who could live with the charging requirements and afford an EV bought one. You can only install so many solar panels privately or on businesses. Wind machines are proving to be troublesome, poor performers, and eye and ear sores. Solar and wind farms are producing expensive electricity that wastes cheap standby power generator output by demanding renewable energy takes precedence for usage. And we accept that!
“Wind machines are proving to be troublesome, poor performers, and eye and ear sores.”
It is not just the eyes and ears, but various other organs of the body as well. The paucity of high value research into the effects of low frequency (<20Hz) noise on the human body generated as blade pass air compression belies its seriousness.
The authorities grant permission for windmills after declaring that the sound level in dBA outside nearby habitations will be far below the levels set as safety limits. This totally misses the point that dBA is a measure of acoustic noise and the damaging frequencies are therefore excluded. These lower frequencies are also amplified by the structure of a building causing considerable discomfort and long term distress from sleep deprivation to the occupants
The Beeb recently made a great fuss about a Week Without Coal but did not mention subsequent five days without wind (4%). Watch for ‘excess winter deaths ‘ this winter.
Nor did they mention anything about dependency on the BritNed interconnector which is supplied by the coal and co-fired power stations at Maasvlakte, Rotterdam. Have a peek
Piles of coal on the left, power station in the middle, BritNed inverter houses and switchyard on the right.
We are of course in summer, when demand is much lower than in winter – peaking at just 35GW instead of close to 50GW. Moreover, summer is the one time when there is a contribution from solar that cuts into the need for other generation.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
Drax would happily convert the remaining capacity to burning wood pellets in return for some more taxpayer cash.
Jobs are a cost, not a benefit.
Those able to be bilked, will be bilked. The numbers run into the millions and the politicians are highly skilled in the bilking business. Maybe renewables will decrease. Maybe. But, the profit from bilking won’t decrease. They will find a means to do so.