A Guide to Renewables

The UK Government has made a commitment to renewable energy by signing international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. This involves the UK proposing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 12.5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. It has also set a target that by 2010, 10 per cent of the UK’s electricity will come from renewable energy and an aspiration that this will increase to 20 per cent by 2020.

In 2005, 4.2 per cent of the UK's electricity comes from all renewable energy sources, so there is still a lot of work to be done. The Government website - http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/ - is part of it’s campaign to:

• give you more information about renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, wave and tidal power
• tell you why they are so important to the UK
• tell you how they help us to meet our international commitments and to become a more sustainable nation.

The technologies explained are:

Solar	Wind	Geothermal	Hydroelectric