A new government with renewed “green optimism” being put to the test
Labour returned to government in the UK in July 2024 after 14 years in opposition, and they are publicly promoting a greater seriousness to tackle the UK's response to climate change and carbon emissions. Tempered optimism abounds but the devil, however, is always in the details, or rather, the execution. The UK is acknowledged to not be on track to reach its interim 2030 target for decarbonisation of electricity generation. Change in policy and attitude from the government is necessary to close the gap. Here are some thoughts.
Great British Energy (GB Energy)
A key part of the plan to get back on track is this newly created, publicly owned clean power company made in the spirit of a sovereign wealth fund aimed at ensuring the UK's green energy resources benefit the people living in the UK. (It will also invest in less proven green technology, such as tidal, partnering with business.)
GB Energy now has a website: great-british-energy.org.uk (Brace yourself for liberal usage of the adjective "Great British".)
The setting up of GB Energy by the Labour government is touted as being the solution to get the UK back on track for 2030. However, plenty of commentators are raising a sceptical eyebrow, saying that this is not impossible but certainly a stiff challenge. This, of course, is limited to decarbonising the UK’s electrical energy generation and distribution and has nothing to do with other major areas of decarbonisation such as domestic transport, aviation, food production, construction and building insulation that the government cannot ignore.
Due to "the market" being allowed a free hand, Labour points out that non-UK taxpayers currently benefit more from the UK's energy market than people living in Britain do and that this measure will address the fact that other countries have bought into the UK's energy systems more than the UK government has. Labour are funding Great British Energy with £8.3 Billion of taxpayers money and hope to reduce those “foreign profits”. Over the last year 11% of UK energy has actually been imported from abroad (France, Norway and Belgium, mainly). As the UK’s old nuclear power stations wind down, the pressure to import electricity has increased.
The setting up of GB Energy is also touted by Labour as giving the UK energy security from "foreign dictators", an obvious reference to Russia. However, our dependence on foreign hydrocarbons for our electricity is due to our dependence upon gas as a means of ramping electricity supply up and down responsively. (We also do this to a less significant extent with nuclear.) More renewables will not really fix that problem since they can't be ramped up when needed. The solution could be found in new Nuclear but this is unlikely to come online until the mid 2030s which the new government are quietly committed to. Watch out for announcements this year regarding continued investment in small modular reactors. The other option is storing renewable energy which has been done for decades in pump storage or hydro schemes but these are initially expensive and environmentally disruptive.
New Energy Storage Options
Although not much talked about by national news outlets, a newer alternative for energy storage is Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) being colocated next to sources of green power, extending the time period over which they can contribute energy to the grid. These are large installations of electric batteries that get charged up during high wind or sunshine and release the energy to the grid when it is dark or not windy. Significantly, the UK has been rated as the third most appealing market globally for investment in BESS. BESS installations are already appearing in the UK and NatPower is set to invest £10 billion in BESS in the UK by 2040.
Sufficient BESS by 2030 seems unlikely however, and turning excess electricity into stored hydrogen is a solution that will need big investment. The EU is making that investment but the new Labour government doesn't seem to have changed any policies from the previous government’s target of 10GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030. Converting renewable energy to hydrogen for storage is noticeably less efficient than doing so via BESS. There was a plan under the previous government to replace gas boilers by ones that would burn hydrogen but that seems to have been put on the shelf during the last parliament and a plan to trial this in 1,800 homes in Redcar was cancelled at the end of 2023. The new government has a decision to make here and without a strong commitment, efforts for green hydrogen production, distribution, storage and consumption will stall.
Summary
It is clear, as further announcements about what shape GB Energy will take are made, a line needs to be walked between providing benefit to the people of the UK and not discouraging private investment who will argue against any competition. Whether the decarbonisation of the UK grid by 2030 is achievable or not remains to be seen. Hopefully this will not rely on the current habit of importing electricity from overseas. The UK has no control over the associated carbon emissions there. Perhaps it will have begun to be a net exporter of 100% “green” electricity or even provide free electricity to some at times (as suggested, here by Octopus' boss). That would certainly be something to celebrate.
