So much has modified in renewable power.
Gone are the times of pricey and unreliable technology. We’re getting into a part the place constant, inexpensive, and responsive renewables are overtaking fossil fuels. You should purchase inexperienced power nearly as cheaply as its non-green counterparts, and as we make investments extra within the expertise, it’s solely going to get cheaper.
That is incredible information for future generations counting on us to bequeath them a wholesome house. And it’s an indication of hope for our crops and animals, our air and oceans, and our water and meals provide.
However such speedy progress brings misinformation and confusion. For those who lately considered going inexperienced and did a little bit of analysis, I wouldn’t be stunned if the sheer quantity of data – typically conflicting – put you off.
As stout advocates of renewables, we’d love that can assist you separate truth from fiction.
Learn on as we set the report straight by debunking and demystifying 5 frequent renewable myths.
Renewable Delusion 1
Renewable power is a con. All technology is combined up within the grid, so you may’t get renewable power.
It’s true that each one technology – soiled and inexperienced alike – is combined when distributed over the Nationwide Grid. We will’t tag particular person electrons with their birthplace. The one technique to know the technology “id” is thru a localised, closed power system, like a rooftop photo voltaic panel.
However saying you can’t provide a renewable supply of power to prospects misjudges how the UK power system works. For those who take a bunch of individuals and add their power demand to the grid, this additional draw on UK technology has to come back from someplace – often fossil fuels.
We contract with photo voltaic and anaerobic digestion websites that present us unique renewable power that matches our prospects’ demand. We now have the Renewable Vitality Assure of Origin (REGO) certificates to show it. So whereas it’s true {that a} “soiled” electron may enter a inexperienced buyer’s house, and a “renewable” one go to a non-green buyer, the online impact to the system is similar. The power our inexperienced prospects use is changed by inexperienced technology. The truth is, we generate a lot renewable power we will cowl half of our non-green prospects’ demand, too.
So, by becoming a member of one in all our inexperienced tariffs we are going to generate inexperienced power for you, changing what you utilize with a renewable supply, decreasing the demand for fossil fuels, and serving to stop local weather change.
Renewable Delusion 2
Photo voltaic farms waste agricultural land.
The federal government hasn’t launched confirmed estimates of agricultural land at present used for photo voltaic farms. However should you contemplate that the entire space for all ground-mounted photo voltaic is about 128 sq. km* (which incorporates city and residential areas), that’s solely 0.05% of the UK’s whole land space. Even when we apply that 128 sq. km to agricultural space alone, the entire is simply 0.07%.
To place this into perspective, it’s the equal of a king measurement mattress on an expert soccer pitch. And to place it additional into perspective, it’s lower than half the world put aside for golf programs (2%).
All proposed photo voltaic farms undergo rigorous planning. Finest apply is selecting low-grade land, or permitting twin use. Photo voltaic farms can co-exist with grazing sheep and different livestock with ease. They’re additionally havens of biodiversity, the place bees, birds, and different threatened species thrive, which helps pollination and improves crop yields in adjoining fields.
Removed from losing agricultural land, photo voltaic farms can assist farmers double the productiveness of grazing fields, and at last discover use for cussed land that helps native species flourish.
*Based on NFU’s Photo voltaic Photovoltaic Electrical energy in Agriculture – On Your Roofs and in Your Fields (2013) you want roughly 2 hectares for each MW of photo voltaic capability. Utilizing information from UK Photo voltaic Deployment Tables (as at Sep 2016), whole put in ground-mounted photo voltaic capability is 6,396 MW. Subsequently, a finest estimate of land space utilized by photo voltaic farms is 12,792 hectares, or about 128 sq. km. The proportion of agricultural land will likely be decrease than this because the UK Photo voltaic Deployment Tables don’t distinguish between city and agricultural photo voltaic.
Renewable Delusion 3
Wind farms destroy chook and bat populations.
Older wind farms, with poorly designed generators and poor placement, have killed massive numbers of birds and bats, significantly in the US. Inadequate analysis, insufficient planning, and a scarcity of foresight led to a rise in collisions, habitat loss, and within the case of bats, dying from passing by low strain (which exists round spinning turbine blades).
Now, conservationists and native authorities have teamed up to make sure that trendy generators are much less dangerous to wildlife. Safer designs and correct placement removed from migratory routes, breeding and feeding grounds, have dramatically diminished collisions. And on low wind days when bats prefer to fly about, wind generators are stopped to guard these nocturnal superheroes.
Even the Royal Society for the Safety of Birds (RSPB) helps correctly designed and sited wind farms, and it helps assess new initiatives, objecting to those who don’t meet stringent wildlife safety requirements. The RSPB acknowledges that the true danger to wildlife isn’t the reasonable (and bettering) one posed by wind farms. It is local weather change. And actually, in response to this preliminary comparative examine on avian deaths within the US per GWh, fossil-fuel energy station deaths account for 13 occasions as many deaths as these attributable to wind farms.
However by far the most important killer of birds and bats isn’t power technology: it’s home windows and cats.
Renewable Delusion 4
Renewable expertise is simply too costly.
Wind, Photo voltaic, and Biomass are cheaper sources of electrical energy than coal and nuclear, and solely marginally dearer than fuel*. Because the expertise develops, it’ll get even cheaper. For electrical energy prospects, it’s cheaper than many non-green tariffs – only some kilos extra a 12 months (lower than £50 normally) than the most affordable non-green plans.
This fantasy may need been true ten to twenty years in the past, but it surely’s actually not true now. Don’t imagine me? Get a quote now for our Inexperienced Octopus – it’s at present the most affordable inexperienced tariff available on the market (USwitch search 9/1/17).
*Determine taken from Electrical energy Technology Prices (Nov 2016) issued by BEIS
Renewable Delusion 5
Local weather change is a hoax.
This can be a large one – and the least credible.
97% of local weather scientists agree that human exercise is inflicting local weather change. That’s an awesome majority. And the consensus will increase the extra knowledgeable the scientist is within the subject of local weather research, so the individuals who actually know their stuff agree that we’re inflicting unprecedented ranges of worldwide warming, and we should take motion to cease it.
Listed here are some helpful infographics on the proof for local weather change.
