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New UK energy scenarios

Renewable energy has developed rapidly in the UK. It now supplies over third of grid electricity, and there have been a range of proposals for expansion as part of the zero carbon energy transition.  For example, trade lobby group  Renewable UK (RUK) has produced Powering the Future, outlining its vision of the energy transition. It predicts that wind capacity could surge six-fold to more than 120 GW by 2050. With the right policies, it says that UK offshore wind could reach 40 GW by 2030, which would cover one-third of UK's electricity demand, rising to 90GW by 2050.

RUK notes that, since 2010, the UK has attracted 48% of the roughly £80bn invested in offshore wind in Europe, and with the US and China as yet not very active in this area, the UK was the largest offshore wind market in the world. Continued expansion looked likely: the 40 GW by 2030 goal would require a further £54bn of investment. In addition to the parallel expansion of on-shore wind, RUK says that solar, marine energy, and energy storage technologies are also set to grow exponentially in the years to come. And overall, it sees renewables providing 76% of the UK's power needs by 2050, aided by green hydrogen use and flexible grid system development. 

The report notes that green hydrogen, produced using renewable electricity, holds ‘huge potential’ as a zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, in particular in heavy industry, shipping, and heating homes. It says the fuel could become cost competitive in the UK more quickly than in other countries, due to strong climate change policies & high renewable capacity.

Greenpeace plan

Greenpeace UK has outlined a post-C19 Green Recovery plan which includes a clean power section that has much in common with RUK’s vision, although it is more politically focused. In addition to wanting to go beyond the Conservative Party manifesto pledge of 40 GW of total offshore wind generation by 2030, Greenpeace call for a government commitment to targets of at least 40GW of solar and 30 GW of onshore wind by 2030.

Overall it wants to see ‘a strong pipeline of onshore wind, solar and offshore wind projects throughout the 2020s by ensuring that the planned CfD auctions go ahead without delay, at least every two years, and that no capacity limits are placed on any of the competing technologies. For offshore wind, at least 4.5GW of projects per year should be contracted at the next auction, expected to conclude in the second half of 2021, & annual build-out levels should be increased even further in auctions beyond that. Throughout the 2020s, around 2GW per year or more of onshore wind, and around 4GW per year of solar should be contracted’.

Specifically, Greenpeace wants the government to ‘take a more strategic approach  to offshore wind grid infrastructure, including increasing the number of grid connections to land shared between several offshore wind farm’, since ‘this will save costs, minimise onshore impacts by requiring fewer substations to be developed, and reduce planning delays’. And on solar PV it says the government should mandate, and where necessary provide additional funding (through capital loans) for, ‘the procurement of solar installations on the roofs of all public sector buildings where feasible, enabling operational cost reductions & improved taxpayer value for money, while boosting sector deployment’. It says ‘Quick action here could deliver private investment rapidly, supporting the recovery’.

To help move things on, it wants the planning regime streamlined for all renewables, so as ‘to optimise opportunities for developing new low cost energy projects while avoiding harm to wildlife or important landscapes’. And to back it all up, it wants ‘a clear policy for transforming the electricity grid so that, by 2030, it can deliver a reliable, flexible system with 80% renewable generation & additional power use by electric vehicles and renewable heat systems. This should include goals of around 15 GW of interconnection, 38 GW of storage and 18 GW of demand side response (DSR) capacity by 2030.’  

It also looks to innovative policy and funding mechanisms to stimulate markets and support technological development and cost reduction for renewable hydrogen.’ It says ‘Renewable hydrogen capacity would make use of excess renewable electricity generation and enable challenging sectors such as shipping & industry to decarbonise. Support should be prioritised for the installation of electrolysers, which use electricity to produce hydrogen from water, especially along the east coast, where much power from offshore wind comes ashore & where there are nearby industrial facilities that could use the hydrogen, offering opportunities for economies of scale.’ And finally it says that we should ‘avoid further investment in nuclear energy, which drains policy attention & time away from more deliverable & cost-effective solutions’.

So it’s somewhat more radical than the Renewable UK’s scenario. Whereas, in that, renewables generation increases to 76% of the UK power mix by 2050, with gas and nuclear making up the rest, Greenpeace want to have renewables supplying 80% of power by 2030 and also some heat, and to avoid new nuclear. By 2050, in line with earlier Greenpeace scenarios, renewables would then expand up to nearly100% in a zero carbon post-2050 future. 

Looking ahead

Long term projections along those lines are always tricky, as are predictions of social impacts, but a new WWF report, Keeping us Competitive, produced by Vivid Economics, suggested that transitioning the UK to net zero emissions could create at least 210,000 jobs in 2030 and 351,000 in 2050 from sectors such as green buildings, electric vehicles and power. It also calculated that the net zero transition could yield over £90bn of annual benefits to the UK through improved health and living conditions, delivering economic gains that significantly outweigh any costs.

There have been many reports saying the same sort of thing for the UK and elsewhere- a zero carbon renewable future is the way ahead, with significant social and ecological benefits. It’s not surprising then that the pressure is mounting to take action on this, perhaps along the line  proposed  by IPPR’s Environmental Justice Commission, which has called for UK Recovery programme with  £30 billion a year allocated to shovel ready green projects.


In the event, nothing on that scale emerged from the government, just a one-year £2 bn ‘green homes’ domestic  energy saving grants scheme, and £1 bn public building energy efficiency programme, as part of a wider ‘plan for jobs’ recovery programme. That’s not to say it isn’t valuable.  In terms of economic recovery, installing better insulation and the like has the virtue of being a fast way to create work. And in terms of climate policy, it cuts energy demand and hence emissions from fossil fuel use. But to get to net zero emissions, there will be a need more green energy supply, and that means upgrading the support system. RenewableUK says that if the Government lifts the capacity caps it has imposed on the contracts for difference, the next CfD auction round (due next year) could see renewables accelerating ahead, with over £20bn of investment.  That’s more like it!

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