UK set to join International Renewable Energy Agency

The UK looks to have overcome its initial reservations about the new International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and could join the group as early as next week.

Speaking at the British Wind Energy Association's (BWEA) offshore wind conference in London earlier today, energy minister Lord Hunt refused to confirm whether the UK would sign up at a meeting of the group in Egypt next week, but he insisted the government was keen to join.

"We are hoping to join shortly," he said. "We are very keen to join and take part [in the group]."

The UK and US had controversially refused to sign up to IRENA at its official launch in January amidst fears that the new group's stated dissatisfaction with the International Energy Agency (IEA) would undermine the UN-backed body's authority and could alienate oil-producing countries.

However, IRENA has subsequently grown from 50 to over 100 members, including a number of oil-producing states such as Kuwait, Iraq and Libya, and the UK now looks set to join an organisation that will have considerable clout when it formally begins work next year.

Speaking at the initial launch, Hans Jorgen Koch, the Danish deputy secretary in the ministry of energy and climate change, said that IRENA had been formed as a result of the IEA's perceived failure to provide sufficient support to the renewables industry.

"For ten years the IEA has underestimated the competitiveness of renewable energy sources," he said. "Only OECD countries can be members, and only two per cent of its budget is given over to renewables – so there is a clear need for IRENA."