Government commits to supporting new cleantech

According to Alan Banks, CEO of EnviroBusiness, addressing a seminar next to Gatwick Airport on November 16th, the "Clear priorities are electrification and jobs." Projections show that if present trends continue, there will need to be an additional 25GW of generating capacity by 2020 and 40GW by 2030. Because of the commitment to try to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, this cannot be achieved by building more, conventional coal fired power stations. At the same time, he said, the government wants to grow private sector jobs to replace the public sector jobs that are being cut. On the large scale, he said, "Nuclear is going ahead" as is the scheme to capture more than two million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the Longannet Power Station, in Fife, and transport it for storage under the North Sea. As regards micro generation, the feed in tariff is to continue, although there is to be a review in 2013 and support for photovoltaics is expected to be cut back. The two big new ideas are the Green Investment Bank, which will become operational in 2012, and the Regional Growth Fund which is to replace the Regional Development Agencies. Capital funding for DECC – the Department of Energy and Climate Change is to increase by 41%, but that channeled through BIS the department of Business Innovations and Skills is to decrease. The Technology Strategy Board is to be given £200 million to set up six Advanced Technology Centres. These are to focus on commercializing research. All 50 or so publicly funded venture capital funds are to be merged by April 2011. European funding remains untouched, but also remains exceedingly complicated to access. Nick Rawling of Pera observed that on their own, applicants had an approximately 5% chance of success, but that his organization had won €200m of grants over the last three years, had 100 projects running at any one time, and had a funding success rate four times greater than the average. In the private sector, Zafar Kanani of the Forbury Investment Network said that there was, "A lot more appetite in the cleantech sector than a year ago" and Peter Tahany, MD of Fraser Finance predicted a "Thaw" in 2011 and described finance for the sector as a "Slowly increasing positive environment." Banks summed up the meeting by observing that, "Many funding sources remain", but the notice period for calls seems to becoming much shorter, only a month or two, often before the rules have been finalised, on the US pattern and there is a strong push on collaborative working. On the private side, "Deals are being done" and the "Appetite is improving", however, he advised inventors, academic researchers and SMEs to "Find a large partner early in the development process".