Talk:Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology

Requested move 14 September 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology per Necrothesp's policy-based arguments. No such user (talk) 11:23, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

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Association for Renewable Energy & Clean Technology → The Association for Renewable Energy & Clean Technology (REA) – clarify link between name and acronym SFREA (talk) 15:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Mcmatter and SFREA: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Not the proper naming convention for organizations per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies). McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 17:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Not how we title articles and see WP:THE. Move to Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology per MOS:AMP. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dispute criticism biofuels

I revert paid contribution by SFREA at [1] seemingly correcting/balancing facts about a criticism. At brief scan some, and possibly all, of that possible good faith contribution might be acceptable as a requested edit. Treating current content as disputed-inline until resolved. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Request edit on 8 December 2021

• What I think should be changed:

Addition of a campaigns section.

• Why it should be changed:

Current page has little information on actual company activities.

• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

All References listed at the bottom.

Please do remove any objectionable parts, and don't accept or reject this proposal as a single entity.SFREA (talk) 16:04, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Campaigns

The REA has played a significant role in the delivery of support for renewables in the UK, helping design and implement a number of schemes and support mechanisms. The REA acts on behalf of its members by keeping them informed of relevant British government policy changes and consultations, and by feeding in expertise, evidence, and collective consultation responses back to the British government.

In its time, the RPA and REA has been critical of the lack of early Government support and ambition for renewable energy in the UK, often giving a unified voice alongside other trade associations to the grievances and priorities of its members. In more recent years, as the Government has made significant statements of support for the decarbonisation of the UK economy, the REA has criticised the lack of direct action and supporting policies following high-level ambitious commitments.

The REA puts an emphasis on the diverse issues that exist in attempting to decarbonise the UK economy, and consequently, that a diverse range of solutions will be necessary to reach the UK Government target of net-zero by 2050. To this end, the REA has supported biomass, solar PV, energy from waste, home heating efficiency improvements, energy storage, renewable transport fuels, and many more technologies, as well as clean technology innovation.

In addition to campaigning for Government support for the organics sector, the REA provides information on health and safety at operational sites, and improving the quality of organic outputs.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the REA aimed to support its members and others by making the UK Government aware of the impact of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions on industry, networking between members to dispose of additional food and drinks waste caused by the closure of restaurants, and providing details to members of financial support available.   

Below is a list of key campaigns which the REA has worked on since 2001, including under its previous name as the “Renewable Power Association”, and of various organisations who were later integrated into the REA.

• The Renewables Obligation, designed to encourage electricity generation from eligible renewable sources in the United Kingdom.
• Feed-in Tariffs, which are payments made from energy suppliers to a property or organisation who generates their own electricity using technology such as solar panels or wind turbines and feeds any surplus back to the grid. The REA led the campaign for Feed-in Tariffs in the UK with Friends of the Earth EWNI.
• The Renewable Heat Incentive, which is a payment system in England, Scotland, and Wales for the generation of heat from renewable energy sources.
• Contracts for Difference, which are contracts offered by the British Government to protect project developers facing high upfront costs and long lifetimes from volatile wholesale electricity prices.
• The Green Gas Support Scheme, which provides financial incentives for new anaerobic digestion biomethane plants to increase the proportion of green gas on the grid.
• The Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, which is a requirement on transport fuel suppliers to ensure that a certain percentage of all road vehicle transport fuel is supplied from sustainable renewable sources.
• The British Standard’s Institute (BSI) Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) 100 & 110, concerning compost quality and anaerobic digestate quality.  
• The Quality Protocols (QPs), which explain when a waste derived material can be regarded as a non-waste product and no longer subject to waste controls. The REA collaborated with other UK trade associations to fund the revision of the QPs as required by the Environment Agency in 2020/21, and is part of the task-and-finish group.
• The Compostable Packaging Certification Scheme, established under the Association for Organics Recycling (AfOR, which became the Organics Recycling Group (ORG) in 2013 when it merged with the REA), and now run by Renewable Energy Assurance Ltd (REAL) as the Compostable Materials Certification Scheme.
• The Green Gas Certification Scheme, run by REAL.
• All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Energy Storage, for which the REA was the secretariat between its founding in July 2015 and its last registration in November 2019.
• All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Electric Vehicles, for which the REA is the secretariat since November 2017.
• The Keep on Track project, which was co-funded by the European Union’s (EUs) Intelligent Energy Europe Programme, and aimed at monitoring the actual development of renewable energy in the EU against the trajectory outlined in the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) Directive.
• The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Hydrogen Business Models Working Group, which will advise on topics in relation to a consultation on the design of a business model for low carbon hydrogen.
• The Energy Networks Association (ENA) Gas Goes Green Advisory Group, providing early input to the programme aiming to accelerate the switch from natural gas to hydrogen for household heating and power.
• Green Gas Day, which is the UK’s largest green gas industry gathering, organised in collaboration with CNG Services Ltd, and hosted since 2012 at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, UK.  
• The campaign for net-zero aviation in the UK, led by the Jet Zero Council, which is a partnership between industry and the UK Government with the aim of delivering zero-emission transatlantic flight within a generation. Dr Nina Skorupska CBE is a member of this council in her capacity as the CEO of the REA.

SFREA (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

@SFREAI will attempt to tidy up the page first and then look to include some of the information above. Bartleyo (talk) 20:24, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I have completed editing as per the edit request above. I have ignored statements which are uncited and re-structured into what I believe is a more sensible structure for a Trade association as the above reads more like an advertisement than a wikipedia article.

I am unable to access the Ecologist article as it is blocked by my ISP family friendly filtering. I do not know why but as I am unable to access the citations I can not verify them so have left the BIOMAS heading as it was.

My work here is done :) Bartleyo (talk) 22:20, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Bartleyo, thank you so much for integrating some of these edits! For the vast majority of course I defer to you on what is adequately sourced, and on the appropriate tone for Wikipedia. I may make some edits to the page directly exclusively related to typos and syntax - I hope this is okay, but of course please reject any edits you feel are in conflict with Wikipedia Conflict of Interest policy.

The one section I have to protest is the Biofuels section, for a number of reasons discussed below. I also give suggested text.

- Biofuels isn't completely accurate - the plants cited and the article in question (theecologist) is based on biomass.

- The source used is a single blog post. Even aside from radically misconstruing the REA position (specifically in reference to "instead of campaigning for genuine renewable energy" - it takes half a second of research to see the amount of effort that goes on in support of other technologies; and in not commenting on Government support for wind and solar), and the misleading comments on the environmental damage of biomass (damages from emissions from biomass power stations; there are mitigating measures in place, its not like burning wood in your back yard), and on the source of feedstocks for biofuels - the article states that the REA "undermines any attempts to limit the amount of etc. turned into fuel". While still misleading, the implication is that our support for biofuels may limit possible action on reducing reliance on the resources listed (that is, a missed opportunity); not, as is currently written in the Wikipedia article, that we were "criticised for [...] lobbying to expand the use of food crops as biofuels including palm oil and soya". So while the source itself is inaccurate on multiple points, the Wikipedia article as currently written is still not faithful to the original text of the source.

- As shown in the suggested text below (with a link), the REA has explicitly stated its support for sustainable (ie. not soya, palm oil) feedstocks for biomass and biofuels. Of course I appreciate that Wikipedia policy means that sources, when used as justification for a topic/party warranting an article, must come from third-party sources; however in this case, when it is a claim of the party's (REA's) position; surely statements from the party take precedence over an unsourced blog post? And at the very least, the burden of proof (in this case, hypothetically proof that we only nominally support sustainable feedstocks) should be with the accuser (theecologist)?

As shown in the text below, I personally don't think that the accusation should be removed. The existence of the article speaks to the fact that our position faces opposition. I am contesting that the REA position on biofuels described is based off of the article, rather than REA sources - specifically regarding a) "support for non-renewable energy companies" (obviously we don't support what we believe to be non-renewable companies, but it is true that there is academic debate on the renewability of biomass energy - though the latest IPCC WG3 report is a good description of the latest and most commonly agreed position on the potential role of bioenergy in achieving net zero); and b) that The REA "[lobbies] to expand the use of food crops as biofuels including palm oil and soya" - this is blatantly false.

Please see the suggested text here:

The REA represents bioenergy technologies including biomass power, biomass heat, energy from waste, and anaerobic digestion. Some stakeholders in the energy industry disagree with the use of bioenergy technologies for the purposes of decarbonisation. As such, in 2014, the REA received criticism for representing bioenergy companies. The REA has stated its opposition to the use of palm oil.

Thank you again for your efforts in editing this page @Bartleyo. Please let me know if you need any specific pieces of evidence to support my above claims. SFREA (talk) 11:22, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

References