Target 10 by 10

Targets for generating set amounts of energy from renewables are easy to set - and much harder to achieve. Oliver Tickell talks to Nick Fleming to find how TXU Europe is determined to do just that.

"It won’t be long before companies are investing in renewable energy simply because it’s the lowest cost generation option."

Striking talk from a company that has, until recently, been best known for its coal and gas plants. But it’s talk that reflects the investment that TXU Europe (formerly the Eastern Group) has made in renewables, with the aim of generating 10% of all its electricity from such sources by 2010.

Renewables project manager, Nick Fleming, is convinced it makes for a sound business strategy.

"The technologies are improving rapidly, with huge differences in cost, quality and efficiency coming up year by year. Some renewables are already on the verge of being commercial. If wind power carries on as it has, we could soon have large-scale offshore wind farms that will be economic in their own right, even without taking [the environmental costs of] carbon dioxide into account, or the need to reduce pollution in general. We will always need to explore new potential businesses, and the more you look at renewables the more you realise they have to be part of that process."

TXU Europe’s 10% target was set in 1997, before the government went on to set a similar target for renewables in the UK as a whole. The target was a bold one, since the company was beginning from a starting point of six large coal-fired plants (with a combined capacity of 7GW), two smaller gas-fired plants (700MW) and no renewable generation at all.

To meet the target, it will have to install at least 600MW of renewable capacity. No small task. But Fleming insists that TXU Europe are working hard to meet it. "We are unique in having set such a target and we will be judged on how we deliver," he says. "We will have to ramp the scale of the operation up very quickly. Fortunately I am getting strong support to drive my projects through - and that support is coming all the way from the top."

The company already has a single 1MW wind turbine in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and two larger projects are in various stages of development in Devon and the Cambridgeshire fens, where clusters of 1MW wind turbines are to be installed. Larger scale projects are planned for the Western Isles. In the case of Cambridgeshire, TXU Europe has launched a pilot scheme so that local communities will benefit. "We believe in appropriately-scaled developments that strongly recognise the views of local people, and as part of that we are looking to sell a proportion of the plant to local people," says Fleming.

TXU Europe has a number of other renewable generation schemes in preparation, with research focusing on wind, biomass, small-scale hydro and landfill gas. None involve waste incineration - a technology seen by government as ‘green’ but considered ‘brown’ by environment groups. It also has a strong interest in combined heat and power (CHP) plants, designed to make use of the waste heat from electricity generation - normally given up in steam from cooling towers - in nearby buildings or industries. Here TXU Europe has a separate target, additional to that for renewables, that 10% of its power generation will be produced from CHP plants, also by 2010. Its portfolio includes several CHP-oriented companies, including Citigen, a CHP generator in the City of London. TXU is commissioning a 215MW CHP plant to serve Shotton Paper’s mill in North Wales (see Letters, p54). Further afield, it has stakes in CHP plants in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Entirely separate is the EcoPower electricity tarriff run by Eastern Energy, which is part of TXU Europe. Customers opt to pay a 5% or 10% premium on their normal electricity bill, which is then matched by Eastern and paid into the independent EcoPower Trust. The Trust then invests the money in renewable projects, additional to TXU Europe’s own 10% target. Projects funded to date include a small wind turbine at an Essex vineyard, and solar panels on the roof of an Oxfordshire primary school.

These diverse efforts, says Fleming, are all linked by the theme of sustainability. "If companies are to survive and prosper in the long term, they have to make sure that they are sustainable through and through. That is an integral part of the company’s philosophy and its promotion comes very high on our agenda… We have a long-term vision. Of course it is hard to look forward 20 years and know what the power market will be like, but we are certain of one thing: renewables will be an essential part of it."

Oliver Tickell is a freelance environmental journalist and a senior correspondent for Green Futures.