The use of renewables has expanded dramatically in the UK- supplying around 50% of its power over the year. But it’s not always available. As part of a consultation on Electricity Market Arrangements, the UK Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has set out a plan to use unabated fossil gas plant to enhance energy security and avoid the risk of power blackouts due to the increasing use of variable renewables.
The aim is to boost gas power capacity by ‘broadening existing laws requiring new gas plants to be built net-zero ready and able to convert to low carbon alternatives in the future such as carbon capture and hydrogen to power’. In her presentation she said: ‘We know that with around 15GW of gas due to come off system in the coming years we will need a minimum of 5GW of new power to remain secure. That might mean refurbishing existing power stations, but will also mean new unabated gas power stations until the clean technology is ready’.
This is presented as ‘the latest step in efforts to reach net zero in a sustainable, pragmatic way,’ although that seems a little hard to reconcile with the plan to keep on burning fossil gas! But the Departmental press release says ‘the need for continued unabated gas generation into the 2030s as a back-up to ensure energy security and reduce costs has been recognised by the Climate Change Committee,’ and it says the plan ‘keeps the UK on track to meet its net zero targets’. It also goes on to claim that emissions will still be relatively low since ‘these gas power plants will run less frequently as the UK continues to roll out other low carbon technologies.’
However, not everyone will be convinced about the use of gas, even as an interim option, especially since there are other ways to balance variable renewables e.g. storage. But the trade journal Edie said ‘it is clear that the Government has been swayed away from energy storage and towards gas peaking as it seeks to promote a “more pragmatic” approach to the net-zero transition.’ It says that the DESNZ press release showed that ‘Ministers have consulted with several organisations with a vested interest in continuing gas generation, including National Gas, Equinor & Energy Aspects’ and that the Government was told by Aurora Energy Research ‘in a net-zero system in 2035, we will need to run gas 90% less often but we still need to maintain two-thirds of the current gas capacity to ensure our energy needs are met at all times.
So it’s gas all the way! But the case for storage as an alternative has now been argued forcefully by a report from the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. Its chair, Baroness Brown, said it was ‘disappointing that the government seems to be focused on fossil fuels as a stop gap and not long duration energy storage as a secure solution’. Instead, she said ‘a strategic reserve of hydrogen as a means of low-carbon long-duration energy storage would insulate the UK against dependence on volatile gas prices whilst allowing it to continue decarbonising the electricity system. We should be building this now rather than designing in delay by expecting the market to deliver fossil-fuelled plants that hardly be used and will rapidly become stranded assets.’
In the final analysis, it’s all meant to be about energy security, but Jess Ralston, an energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank, was not convinced that gas will deliver that: ‘The secretary of state suggesting that if we cannot control energy prices then we are not secure as a country, while announcing new gas power stations, has a real irony about it. Anyone paying an energy bill in the past two years knows that the UK doesn’t control the price we pay for gas, that international markets decide.’ It doesn’t bode well for the future...
Certainly Labour's shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, was not impressed. He said the plans were only necessary because of ‘fourteen years of failed Conservative energy policy’, including an effective ban on onshore wind, slow progress on energy efficiency and last year's failed offshore wind auction. But he rather undercut that by also backing new gas plants, saying ‘we need to replace retiring gas-fired stations as part of a decarbonised power system, which will include carbon capture and hydrogen playing a limited backup role in the system.’ Why ‘limited’? Are we really so tied to burning gas?
The consultation also includes proposals to ‘reduce people’s bills across the country’ by letting different wholesale prices be set depending on local power demand. DESNZ says ‘a significant proportion of the UK’s energy is located away from areas of high demand: for example, a quarter of the UK’s renewable energy is generated in Scotland. Different wholesale prices could better match supply & demand and bring down costs for people across the country.’ It claims that ‘the reforms could save households £45 off their yearly energy bill’. It could also avoid local wind curtailment costs.
However, it could kill off some renewables. Dr Dave Toke says it will lead ‘only to negative consequences both for consumers and the cost and extent of future renewable energy developments’, increasing the costs of new solar farms and leading existing wind farms to be abandoned. ‘Overall the rate of renewable energy development is likely to decline.’
That would partly depend on what sort of zoning scheme was set up. The minimum would be two zones, north and south (the south paying more!) but 7 or more may be viable, making it more complex and maybe creating an inequitable energy price ‘postcode lottery’, as Sky noted. Varying Time of Use tariffs are also an option, making it even more complicated, but arguably more efficient, by helping to match supply and demand dynamically, so making the whole system more flexible. In general it was argued by critics that we needed a broader but also more integrated and flexible approach, with more of a focus on the demand side, including heat pumps, and also on storage, including heat storage, with heat nets and biomass CHP too - see my next post
Claire Coutinho does seem keen on flexibility: ‘We are working hard to get new, cleaner technologies scaled up to deliver this flexible power.’ But even leaving on shore wind apart, it often doesn’t seem like it, with the emphasis arguably on the wrong options- like carbon capture and storage. The wrong sort of storage! For flexibility it should be hydrogen that’s stored, not carbon dioxide. But £20bn has been allocated to fossil gas-linked CCS/CCUS, though it will take time to happen, if it ever does.
That would be less annoying if there weren’t other arguably much greener options which have been mostly ignored or side tracked over the years, including some that are not variable and weather dependent. For example, tidal power. That keeps being put on the back-burner as too costly, but a new study has identified ways in which tidal stream technology costs might be reduced by 67%. And on a larger scale, the Mersey Barrage is being talked up again.
It’s true that things like this will take time, as may hydrogen at scale, but so will the governments other main preoccupation, nuclear power, large and small, with no certainty about its cost or it being able to balance variable renewables. You can perhaps see why, from the governments perspective, with all else taking too long, for whatever reason, Claire Coutinho says, for the moment, ‘that leaves us with unabated gas.’
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