Green power production in the Netherlands runs out of steam
Monday 25 June 2012
Unless the Netherlands increases its investment in sustainable energy, the country will fail to meet targets on green power production, according to a report by Rabobank, quoted in Monday's Volkskrant.
In 2011, just 4% of Dutch energy was produced from sustainable sources and without a new strategy, that will rise to just 9% by 2020. The EU target is 14%.
'The greening of Dutch energy production has stood still for years,' Rabobank analyst Clara van der Elst told the paper. 'Thanks to the household waste imported from Naples, we went up to 4% last year.'
The report - An Outlook for Renewable Energy in the Netherlands' - also criticises government policy for being ineffective, partly because it is altered every year.
Costs
'The industry needs a long-term vision,' she said. 'Companies which invest in ships to place wind turbines [at sea] need to know they will recover their costs.'
RWE chief Peter Terium said in Saturday's AD that the shift towards green energy could lead to poorer households struggling to pay their bills.
Van der Elst criticised that position, saying the German energy giant is focusing on biomass as a source of green power. 'Biomass will not become cheaper, but sun and wind power will,' she said.
© DutchNews.nl
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It probably has a good reason things are this way.Everyone wants cheap renewable energy but probably these technologies are not yet good enough or mature enough to invest in them.Countries who hold strictly to EU norms and targets without looking at reality are doomed to failure. You need a measured realistic approach on the individual country level and their energy need/mix,anything forced through by the Brussels bureaucracy is going to cost a lot of money and end in tears.
By Roland | 25 June 2012 8:46 AMI would like someone to explain how burning garbage is a source of green energy...despite the fact that the by product of the combustion are not environmentally neutral (clinker), the transfer of those waste from italy to NL also has a non-negligible carbon footprint.
By Yann | 25 June 2012 9:17 AMIt has a reason yes, and those reasons are Shell and the gas supply of Slochteren.
By tim | 25 June 2012 9:19 AMLuckily most parties are willing to take some serious measures in the future, with the exception of VVD and PVV.
The only way for the Netherlands to succeed in this is to make the people to understand the benefits. A clear example is the cost of Solar systems. A 3KW system that costs 5000-6000 euros is enough to cover the needs of a Dutch household for the next 25 years. Grid parity has been achieved in Holland!!
By Anubiss | 25 June 2012 9:27 AMWhy go green when you have Shell?
By Lynn | 25 June 2012 11:50 AM"Oooohhh, Germany, blah blah." Germany is one of the greenest countries in the world as far as energy production is concerned. So many average Joes have solar panels and are feeding the grid and collecting pay for it. They're dumping all their Nuclear power plants. (Or, at least this is the plan to date.) I'm looking forward to moving to Germany in the near future, and not just getting off of the dependency of the grid, but to feed it and profit from it. This is what the true 'green' thinkers are doing. Not blindly following some carbon tax scheme which equals pollute all you want, pay a small bit, raise prices to consumers. Not green.
By Bubba | 25 June 2012 1:31 PMGood point Roland. There are so many ways to encourage green energy investment and innovation. Of course subsidies and liberal tax policies can attract investors but the real long term driver of growth in renewable energy would be stable and consistent government policy with a clear, long-term vision. It's ironical how that seems the easiest thing to achieve yet the politicans fail. It would deliver the bonus of green employment, a green skills base and mitigate carbon emissions for the benefit of all. Can we add the cost of adapting to predicted sea level rises in the Netherlands too? Seems like a good long term deal for the public and the planet!
By Christopher | 25 June 2012 4:25 PM@Roland: you'd probably be right, if there were any longterm alternatives. But there aren't. Better start getting used to it now, than hit the wall in 20 years. Can't say "no" to everything unless you have an alternative solution.
By Hans | 25 June 2012 4:57 PM1 - Biomass is not really renewable energy.
By Phil | 26 June 2012 4:14 AM2 - The cost to the economy now will be much less than the cost of global warming in the future, especially in the NL & with sea level's rising.
3 - Countries like China are building new green industries & if we do not keep up we risk being an old fossil fuel industry driven economy in the future & being left behind.
4 - Everyone should be willing to pay more as climate change is the biggest moral issue of our time, poor people like old age pensioners should be compensated.