As much as any announcement from the EU can generate enormous anticipation, the proposed renewable energy targets for member states has been eagerly awaited by our climate change team. It's been pretty much public knowledge for some time what the target for the UK is expected to be but never the less, being told to produce 15 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 will necessarily kick-start a clean energy revolution - currently our renewable energy total is less than 3 per cent, just behind Malta in the EU league table.
The targets are being proposed for each country using a formula based on a number of factors such as current renewable energy capacity and gross domestic product, and while 15 per cent might not sound like a great deal, remember we're talking about total energy, not just electricity.
Total energy includes heating and transport and, because the potential for introducing renewable sources into these sectors is much more limited, the bulk of our share will come from generating electricity. That means that in 12 years time, the UK will have to produce 40 per cent of its juice from wind, wave, tidal and the rest.
This will be a massive challenge - even though we have the greatest potential for renewable energy in Europe, we generate less than 5 per cent of our electricity from renewables - but it can be done. Last month, business secretary John Hutton said he wanted to put policies in place to encourage the development of 25 gigawatts from offshore wind by 2020. There's 8GW already planned plus a further 8GW from onshore wind stuck in planning hell, so that's 41GW in total. If all of that comes into play, 30 per cent of our electricity would come just from wind power.
And then there's wave and tidal power. Figures produced by the government indicate that 12-13 per cent of our electricity could be produced from marine sources (as estimated in a 2006 report by the Carbon Trust and in the 2003 energy white paper - pdf). Add that to the wind figures and we're already well over 50 per cent by the magic 2020 date, even without other sources such as biomass, solar and geothermal. So the EU's target is not the quantum leap it might appear, and we have to exceed it to bring greenhouse gas emissions down even further.
What about the expected 'energy gap'? There's a panic in some circles caused by the inevitable closure of antiquated fossil fuel stations that don't meet modern air pollution standards and nuclear power stations at the end of their working life; this gap is expected to represent around 30 per cent of our total electricity supply, so the 40 per cent target will leave us with change to spare. We won't need those new coal-fired power stations then.
Neither will we need the nuclear power stations the government is so keen to build. The first of these won't be ready until 2021 at the earliest, so if that 40 per cent target is reached by 2020... well, you can do the maths. Don't worry unduly about rising fuel bills, either. The recent upward trend has been mainly caused by rocketing wholesale prices for gas and oil, whereas a greater abundance of renewable energy installations will protect us from the vagaries of the global energy markets.
Despite attempts to scupper the deal (as revealed in leaked government documents), Gordon Brown has since reaffirmed his commitment to the EU targets, however there is the danger that the government could try to buy its way out of any shortfalls. By trading with other countries to take advantage of their excess renewable capacity, there's the chance that the 40 per cent target could severely undermined. But the embarrassment at not being able to make the target, not to mention the further damage to any pretence at global leadership on climate change, will hopefully make Brown and any successors think twice before making any attempt to cook the books.
Even when the proposals are announced later today, they won't be set in stone as yet. The proposals - which also include reforms to the EU emissions trading scheme and standards for carbon capture and storage (CCS) plants - need to be formally adopted before they go to the European parliament to be debated and amended. We can expect an agreement anytime between the end of this year and next, but that's no reason to wait until then before putting clean energy policies in place.
