Pennon Adds to Calls for Six Percent of UK Energy to Come from Waste

26 November 2010 UK water and waste specialist, and parent company to Viridor, Pennon Group, has voiced a stinging criticism of the government's "wedded to wind" renewable energy policy, calling it neglectful of projects to generate power from waste report Reuters. The company, which combines South West Water and waste management company Viridor, unveiled a target to increase the capacity of its Waste to Energy (WtE) plants to 300 MW by 2015, from current levels of around 130MW. Pennon claims that that level of capacity would be roughly equivalent to Europe's biggest windfarm, the 322MW Whitelee site in Scotland. Yet Colin Drummond, chief executive of Viridor, is reported to have said it was being held up by the UK's onerous planning process for waste-fuel plants. "The government seems completely wedded to wind. Obviously they have got a localism agenda, but it seems to me quite wrong that in economically difficult circumstances I have got approaching 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) of energy facilities that are held up in planning and that would be readily financeable immediately," Drummond told Reuters in an interview. The Viridor division, which accounts for a third of Pennon's profits, already has two waste-fuel plants in the country and permission to build two more, but the group sees a huge opportunity to expand further. Echoing an earlier call from the Confederation of British Industry, Viridor is also calling for the government to raise the proportion of total electricity in the country derived from waste to 6% by 2015 from current levels of around 1.5% as the division continues to shift its focus from the management of waste to its recycling. Waste is produced all year around and needs to be disposed of, while wind, Drummond added, is only strong enough to be productive for around a third of the time. The UK currently generates 25% of its renewable energy from waste, according to Pennon. High prices for so-called brown energy, which have grown to account for around 45% of Viridor's profits.