Speech to the Renewable Energy Association
22nd October 2008
Thank you for inviting me to share some thoughts on the future of renewable energy with you tonight.
This is not just apposite date – Gordon Brown spoke this afternoon to Annual Meeting of BWEA and seriously pledged Britain to hold to its share of the EU target for renewable energy as a proportion of total energy supply by 2020, and indicated that difficult economic times ‘should not and will not’ reduce commitment to low carbon energy supply.
It is important that he said those things today, but we are also in an era where it becomes increasingly difficult not to say those things if you are at all serious not only about climate change, but in British context about security of UK energy supply.
The reason for this is that, as everyone knows I think, Britain will need to replace about 40% of its electricity generating capacity by the early 2020s. 11Gw of coal and oil-fired power station will close by 2016 under terms of Large Plant directive. 7Gw of nuclear power will go out of commission by 2020. And a further 7Gw of nuclear and coal plant will close during mostly the early years of the next decade. And there is the likely but not certain increase in energy demand to be thought about.
There are some decreasingly attractive ways to do it. We can let the market decide, which probably would replace power with gas CCGT power stations. But there will be the carbon budgets to think very seriously about, presently going through the Climate Change Bill –which will reduce carbon amounts in each five year budget. And of course there are the EU ETS phase three carbon trading requirements. Installing unmediated gas coal or oil would simply bust those budgets apart.
But neither will nuclear ride to the rescue. Even official sources reckon that we will be fortunate to have even one or two new nuclear power stations – perhaps a capacity of 3-4 GW- on stream by 2020, and probably none at all by then. I personally think it is unlikely, even with accelerated processes, that any new nuclear power will be on stream by 2025.
We therefore have the curious position that renewables, far from being the peripheral add-on of whim a few years ago, but regarded widely as hardly likely to add much to real overall capacity, are now the only serious show in town for filling the energy supply gap.
And, of course, as we know, our 15% target is of course a target for a renewable content in all energy - not just electricity supply. Our target will include road transport, and of course heat – a sector in which at present there is virtually no penetration of renewables, and in which, on present performance and policies there will be very little in the future. Virtually everyone – over 80% of people in domestic sector, obtain their heat by gas boilers for example, which means that some 25% of our carbon emissions arise from the use of gas to heat water and space in our homes. Now, we can either seek to decarbonise this as part of outré target for 2020, or we can load the target onto other sectors, such as electricity production, which would mean that probably getting on for half of our total would come from electricity production alone, which would be unobtainable.
The point I think that is now central is to take stock of where we are bearing in mind that we are now serious about reaching this target. It means that – first - much of our replacement plants for electricity production between now and 2025 will have to be renewable, AND that a fair proportion of our heat and road fuel production will also have to be renewable.
The future for renewables is therefore not just bright, but an imperative.
So I don’t really want to talk about whether renewables has a future, but on, as Harold Wilson would have said, the problems of success.
Now let’s shoot some canards. First, I note that on Sunday, the Observer carried a long piece stating that wind offshore and onshore will not be able to meet a target of producing getting on for 40% of electricity alone, which is probably right, except that no sensible view of how the 15% renewables target might be reached that assumes this. Indeed, Even DBERR, and I don’t mean to imply that they are anything less than sensible, has an indicative view of what that 15% might consist of – offshore and onshore wind, clearly playing a strong role, but with only a 33% contribution to the renewable energy mix between them. Other forms of renewables, biomass heat, solar heat, biomass electricity, co-firing, all play a significant role – and some I think DBERR underestimate – particularly co-firing and biogas heat.
But of course, to meet this kind of mix, substantial emphasis will have to be placed on heat from renewable sources – and as I have said, this is an area that is particularly problematic at present. Biomass heat, the production of biogas mostly from anaerobic digestion, will have to advance dramatically, and here we come up against the first problem of success – planning.
Now we will have the Infrastructure Planning Commission in place next year – good news in general for renewable planning – anything over 50mw wind onshore 100mw offshore will go in front of it. But most planning for MRFs (Material Recycling Facilities) and Digestors will not. And in any event, many onshore wind projects will continue to come in at under 50mw – which means difficulties remain both a local level, and in the approach of quangos and NDGBs.
Look at, for example, the Highways Agency apparent objection to siting of wind turbines within three times their length on the margins of motorways.
Or, look at English Heritage objecting if you can see a turbine from the curtilege of a national park.
So it is important that bills underway –the Planning Bill, the Climate Change Bill, the Energy Bill, the Marine Bill next year, cohere, and that the planning regime is robust.
Second, grid connection delays of up to 13 yrs will only increase. The ‘connect and manage’ approach is good, but greater coherence is needed in the renewal of the grid and connectability of renewables. The regime in the Energy Bill to have competition for the connection of each wind farm is, as far as I can see, a nonsense in medium term – we will be needing bundled connections. One question we might look to address is: can we use a seaborne grid to bi-pass for north-south capacity problems?
Third is materials. Inevitably wind and other renewables will have greater competition for build. This will not just happen to wind. The Carbon Trust initiative on reducing cost is welcome, and the Crown Estate offer to act as offshore partner is good, but we need to develop better domestic manufacturing capacity – e.g. more than Vestas on the Isle of Wight.
There will also be competition for resource, for example with biomass – and we will need to progress with the biomass element of waste for energy production.
All said though, these are the next rank of problem. The issue now will be, ‘can we get the train to get to the terminus in time’ – which is very different from ‘should we be setting out on the journey in the first place?’
What do you think of this story? Email Alan