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All go for UK renewables?

At the Conservative Party Conference in early October, PM Boris Johnson said that he wanted nearly all of the UK’s electricity to come from renewables by 2035, with the implication being that offshore wind capacity would have to at least quadruple and maybe get up to 60GW. Other technologies would also have to expand rapidly. The BEIS press release said ‘to ensure this ambition becomes a reality, the government will double down on efforts to deploy a new generation of home-grown technologies – from offshore wind, hydrogen and solar, to nuclear, onshore wind and Carbon Capture and Storage’. 

This 100% non-fossil power 2035 target brings forward by 15 years the government’s commitment to a fully decarbonised power system by 2050, set out in the 2020 Energy White Paper and is part of the basis of UK’s national COP26 position, to be outlined in more detail  in the promised new Net Zero plan- now expected next week! But not everyone liked the way thing were going. The Global Warming Policy Forum said ‘The extraordinary naivety of the Prime Minister’s plans for still more renewables by 2035 confirms growing fears that his weak grasp of the economic and technical aspects of energy now presents a risk to national security.’ 

However, its not just about renewables. More to the GWPF’s tastes, Johnson also wants more nuclear. He said ‘we have got to get back into nuclear, we’ve got to increase clean energy generation. That will bring the cost of energy down and bring down the cost of transport’.  But it is a little hard to see what he means here, given the high cost of nuclear, or how big new inflexible EPR plants could act to backup renewables, but, longer term, some say SMRs might be able to help- at a cost. 

The cost issue is a key driver. The recent high gas prices pushed energy prices generally up, and the proposed new renewables/nuclear mix could help insulate the UK from overseas gas price variations. However, as earlier leaks indicted, the government is also planning a ten year phased programme switching energy taxation from power to gas. The idea is to tax home heating with fossil gas, so as to meet the cost of getting to green power-enabled Net Zero Carbon. Fine for the 15% of off-gas grid homes, not so good for the rest who use gas central heating. Maybe that’s unavoidable, but in the short term, shifting green energy taxes away from power and on to fossil gas won’t do a lot to cut domestic gas prices. After all its meant to be a punitive tax to make consumers stop using gas for heating and instead invest in (electric) heat pumps. In time that may cut heating costs, but not initially, given their high installation cost. 

Most of the other options open to the government to deal with the energy/gas price crisis are also likely to be costly-  and not quick. You could say that its pay back time for all the earlier investment-dodging short cuts. For example, we should have been building more gas storage capacity, rather than assuming that the spot price gas market will always deliver via imports. 

What next?

Storage is clearly a key issue, with a recent study suggesting that underground reservoir and salt cavern hydrogen storage could enable surplus output from wind and PV to meet the UK’s winter power peak energy needs, cutting the need for so much wind capacity and insulating the UK from the cost of importing top-up energy. But while some say it’s just about credible for renewables to supply 100% of UK power by 2035, its also suggested that this would need more nuclear, and, despite its costs, that may well be followed up since it has strong political and media backing.  For example, recently, the Times said ‘Contrary to the wrong turning made by the environmental movement a generation ago, there is no viable strategy for achieving a target of net-zero carbon emissions without exploiting nuclear energy’. 

A problem with that view is that major expansion of nuclear could deflect money that would arguably be better spent on renewables and energy efficiency- delivering more carbon savings faster and at less cost. Certainly not everyone in the policy establishment backs nuclear.  For example, Lord Adair Turner, who was the first chair of the Climate Change Committee, and Director General of the CBI, has backtracked on his support for new nuclear, saying that he no longer thinks the UK needs it. 

A measure of how desperate thing are getting is that some have looked back to shale gas- currently off the UK agenda, but in theory a possible option, although with uncertain costs- and eco-impacts. Surely it would be better and safer to cut demand as much as possible and invest in green energy storage, including large-scale long-duration hydrogen and/or compressed air storage, to ensure power system security and stability. And, in terms of energy supply, push the established renewables much more, including on-shore wind, the deployment of which had been slowed by constraints imposed the government.  In addition, we should also develop the new renewables like wave and tidal power faster. So far they’ve been left on the sidelines with very little support, despite having large resource potentials. Ecotricty’s green biogas idea, using grass, which I mentioned in an earlier post, might also be worth thinking about. That would avoid the costs of switching over massively to heat pumps- and also avoid the increased peak power demand they would create. 

All of that needs facing in the promised Net Zero Carbon plan, and in the still awaited Heating and Building Strategy. Although there are still debates about heating, the basic overall energy options now seem clear, with at one pole, renewables backed up by storage and energy saving, at the other nuclear and gas, including shale gas. The polarisation may not be complete. For example, as a concession to climate concerns, some see gas plus carbon capture and storage as a middle ground interim option. But otherwise, as illustrated by the output from Net Zero Watch, the GWPF’s new incarnation, the battle lines do seem clear. 


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