LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday the global economic downturn would not affect a government drive to reduce the country's carbon emissions.
However, an industry executive cast doubt on the ability of the UK's existing power transmission network to cope with planned increases in wind power output.
Brown told a wind energy conference in London ministers were committed to meeting a target to produce 15 percent of the UK's energy supply from renewable sources, such as wind and wave power, by 2020.
"You may have heard some people say that these difficult economic times should or will reduce the government's commitment to building a low carbon economy. They should not and will not," Brown said in a recorded statement shown by video to delegates at the British Wind Energy Association's (BWEA) conference.
Doubts have been expressed about the UK's ability to meet its renewable energy targets, with investors warning that companies need more financial incentives to develop wind farms.
A report in Britain's Observer newspaper at the weekend said delays in gaining planning approval for farms, long delivery times, escalating costs, and technical problems were all threatening to derail government plans.
But BWEA Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said in a news conference on Tuesday the industry was confident it would be able to meet the targets.
"It's an area where there is tremendous positivism and confidence," she said.
However, the UK's power transmission grid system is not capable of dealing with the output from planned new wind farms, said Keith Anderson, director of the renewables division of Scottish Power, part of Iberdrola SA.
The grid is between 30 to 40 years old and needs immediate modernization and investment, Anderson said at the news conference.
A proposed upgrade of the main Beauly-Denny transmission line in Scotland, which would allow a significant increase in renewable energy capacity in the far north of the United Kingdom if it gets the go-ahead, was likely to take 10 to 12 years to carry out, he added.
"We need more upgrades of that size and scale," he said. "We cannot afford for that process to keep taking 12 years. If you start the process now for the offshore and marine sector, you'll already be in 2020. It needs to happen now.
"Scotland contributes a huge proportion of the onshore target to the overall target and if you don't start building the transmission lines, you block some of that development and reduce its potential."
BRITAIN OVERTAKES DENMARK
The United Kingdom would achieve three gigawatts of installed wind energy production capacity this week, up from one gigawatt in 2005, with the completed construction of Centrica Plc's Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms near Skegness in eastern England, the UK's Department of Energy & Climate Change said in a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, Centrica said it had gained approval for another 250 megawatt project off the Lincolnshire coast and was exploring the possibility of constructing two further wind farms totaling 1,000 MW.
Britain had now overtaken Denmark as the world's largest producer of energy from offshore wind, with 597 megawatts of capacity fully built, the government said.
Offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom now have the potential to power the equivalent of about 300,000 UK homes, it said.
"What this means is the creation of an unprecedented 100-billion-pounds market for renewable energy sources in just over a decade," Brown told the conference.
"That will create huge new business opportunities - and around 160,000 jobs."
(Reporting by Phil Waller; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, David Cowell and Simon Jessop)
