Civil servants accused of delaying renewable energy incentives

Alan Simpson MP, adviser to Ed Miliband, says introduction of feed-in tariffs is being held up by officials who back nuclear power

Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 July 2009 15.47 BST

Civil servants in Ed Miliband's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are trying to water down and delay the introduction of so-called feed-in tariffs designed to boost the deployment of renewable energies, according to one of Miliband's advisers.
Writing last month to the energy minister Mike O'Brien, who has since left DECC, Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, accuses civil servants of "delaying" and "frustrating" their introduction. In his letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, Simpson, appointed by Miliband this year to work on feed-in tariffs, wrote: "You asked me to play a role in 'driving this through'. It is difficult to drive if I can't even get in the car."
Feed-in tariffs work by rewarding installers of renewable energy technologies such as biomass boilers or solar panels an above-market price for the electricity or heat they produce. They have been used with great success in countries such as Germany, which introduced a feed-in tariff in 1999; it has 250 times as much solar power installed as Britain and 10 times as much wind power.
Miliband has announced that a feed-in tariff for electricity will be introduced in April next year and for heat technologies a year later. Simpson thinks both should and could be brought in together, and has come up with a plan for doing so. He accuses civil servants of frustrating this by carrying out an "industrial boycott" of meetings with himself and representatives of the renewables industry.
Critics of DECC officials say they are transfixed by the arguments of the nuclear industry. Many of the big energy companies have lobbied the DECC against feed-in tariffs.
Simpson's letter raises the issue of who governs in government since, he says, officials are obstructing the will of elected politicians, including Miliband. "Their ability to delay and frustrate is the government's greatest achilles heel," he says.
Instead, he suggests to O'Brien, "why don't we set up meetings of our own and ban the civil servants from taking part?"
A DECC spokeswoman said Simpson's fears were groundless and pointed out that on Wednesday Miliband will unveil a low-carbon transition plan.
But Philip Wolfe, head of the Renewable Energy Association, said the document would talk only about the electricity tariff for next year and not the heat tariff for 2011: "There is a lack of ambition. Delaying the heat tariff until a year later shows they are not pushing as hard as they need to."