With the continuing increase in efficiency of renewables and the decrease in price, why is it that they are not more wide spread in the UK. It can be argued that there are many reasons for this. They are not competitive with fossil fuels, humans are not responsible for climate change so why bother, they are ugly and best of all they keep sheep awake at night. It also happens to be that recently there have been many policies in the UK that have been made for the detriment of the renewable energy industry. These policies have come after the Conservatives came to power on their own without a coalition, but also after a few donations from fossil fuel energy companies.
The conservatives have recently received more than 500,000 pound in donations from two executives of the energy trading company Vitol. Around the same time the government starts to back new forms of gas extraction such as fracking. A lot of fossil fuels companies are touting hydraulic fracking as a way to bring cheap energy prices back to the UK. Vitol believe that it could be a major source of energy using America as an example that it will bring huge benefits like it has over there.
The UK have higher land prices and stricter environmental policies than in the USA that would drive up the price of drilling on UK soil. This would mean that gas prices and subsequently energy prices would not decrease much if at all. Vitol chief executive was also an intimate guest of David Cameron in his downing street flat.
The latest price comparison is showing that renewables are very close to being at the same levels as many of the fossil fuels. With some performing better than fossil fuels. These finding are in America where there are a lot of subsidies given to fossil fuel companies so it goes to show that prices are falling. Also as technology is getting better renewables can only become more efficient. This will lead to cheaper installation and cheaper energy prices.
The UK has done very well in meeting its CO2 reductions but it is unlikely to carry on doing this as the policy and schemes for efficiency in the home are being cut. This was a way for many people to reduce their energy bills and also a way for the UK to reduce its household emissions. Another schemes that is set to be scrapped is the small scale energy subsidies. It is set to end by 2016. The government is saying that it is to protect consumers and to stop rising energy bills that it blames on subsidies for renewables. The cost of solar continues to go down and the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise. This graph shows how over the last four decades the price of solar energy continues to decrease.