NESO’s claim that the UK can achieve clean power by 2030 is undoubtedly bold, but it is feasible – in as much as it’s technically possible, but highly prone to political and management failures.
The newly established National Energy System Operator (NESO) has the wickedly challenging task of steering the UK’s energy providers and infrastructure through the transition to minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Its definition of a clean power system is one where demand is primarily met by low-carbon sources, with occasional use of gas-fired generation when necessary for security of supply.
For NESO’s new report to government, that means low-carbon sources provide at least as much power as the country consumes over the year, with unabated gas (ie, with no use of carbon capture) providing no more than 5% of total generation. On the autumnal day of the report’s release, gas is providing well over half of the UK’s electricity.
It’s a massive challenge, demanding changes in the way that electricity is supplied and consumed, with intensive and speedy investment in transmission infrastructure and renewable generation (especially offshore wind), as well as relatively undeveloped technologies to provide flexibility of supply such as CCS for gas and biomass, and hydrogen as an energy store.
NESO outlines two potential pathways. One is based on the highest level of renewables (50GW of offshore wind capacity) and battery storage alongside radical changes in demand management. The other has a lower level of renewables, buttressed with higher levels of nuclear power, CCS and hydrogen. I suspect the latter is more likely if we solely focus on the 2030 target – but at the risk of locking in fossil fuels (with as-yet-unproven CCS) which will create more challenges over the following decades.
Either pathway requires early electrification of heat, transport and industry, with NESO estimating an 11% increase in electricity demand by 2030. Given industry lethargy in transport and construction, and continuing consumer grumbling, that theoretically easy part of the puzzle might prove among the most challenging. The big factor for popular support is of course the effect on bills, which NESO admits is outside its remit and which will depend on effective implementation of a host of programmes.
Nuclear power “will play an important role” on the way to 2030, the report notes, through continuing generation from Sizewell B, life extension of at least one of the ageing AGR fleet, and (at arguable odds) the completion of Hinkley Point C. Given the target schedules for Sizewell C or new designs of small modular reactor, it’s highly unlikely that anything else will be complete by 2030 – potentially some very small advanced reactors for industrial cogeneration, but that’s an outside bet.
Beyond 2030, the opportunity for nuclear is to replace the rump of gas generation. This will require more flexible designs of reactor plant than previous generations, likely through combined heat and power from high-temperature reactors for otherwise hard-to-decarbonise industrial applications, and for more efficient hydrogen production.
Another new report from The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute provides more detailed insight into how nuclear and renewables can work together on the longer road to 2050.
Essentially, we need to deploy all the feasible technologies, in an appropriate and efficient way, to achieve the necessary and avoid the truly unaffordable.
And clean power is achievable. The main obstacle, as in so many areas, would be the sense that it’s all too hard and costly to bother with.