§ Lord Hunt of Chestertonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What are their plans to provide higher support levels, international centres of excellence and demonstration projects for research and development to assist United Kingdom industry develop programmes in renewable power technology including wind, wave, tidal and photovoltaic. [HL3044]
§ Lord Sainsbury of Turville:The Government have allocated £348 million for capital grants and support for research, development and demonstration programmes in sustainable energy.
The Government have in addition allocated a further £28 million to the Research Councils in last year's spending review to support a new cross-council programme, "Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy" (TSEC) which should more than double Research Council investment in sustainable energy research by 2005–06. This will enable the UK Research Councils to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to research issues in the sustainable energy field, including the development of a UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) of high international standing.
The TSEC programme will build on new cross-council programmes such as the SUPERGEN and Carbon Vision Programmes. SUPERGEN involves the engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Economic and Social Research (ESCR) and the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) which will jointly invest £25 million over five years in a range of sustainable energy research including marine, biomass, hydrogen, photovoltaic, fuel cells, and future networking projects. The £14 million Carbon Vision programme will be supported jointly by the Research Councils and the Carbon Trust.
The DTI provides capital grants for offshore wind, bioenergy, and photovoltaics projects, and supports demonstration projects in wave and tidal energy through its Renewable Energy R&D; Programme. It supports small-scale community and household projects in a variety of renewable energy technologies through its Clear Skies programme.
The Government are setting out their plans more fully in their response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry, Towards a Non-Carbon Fuel Economy: Research, Development and Demonstration.