Future Energy Scenarios

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

The National Grid has published its annual Future Energy Scenarios (FES).

It works around four scenarios, but I’ll concentrate on the Two Degrees one.

In particular, this scenario assumes a rapid uptake of electric cars, with 17% of all cars on the road in 2030 being pure electric (EV) and another 13% plug in hybrids (PHEV).

According to the FES, this could result in an an additional 8GW of demand at peak times by 2030, without what they call the highest consumer engagement, in other words charging cars at night. Even with this, peak demand is expected to rise by 4GW.

As we have already seen from another recent National Grid study, such hopes are little more than pie in the sky.

But let’s concentrate on the power scenarios. This is what the FES says about installed capacity:

Note how total capacity has to nearly double, to cater for inefficient and unreliable renewables.

We can break down the 2030 figures further:

8.596

5.267

0.900

41.083

27.176

4.636

3.409

18.77

4.398

2.072

3.656

8.485

18.505

146.953

Installed Capacity 2030

Storage

Biomass

CCS

Wind

Solar

Other Ren

CHP

Gas

Other Thermal

Hydro

Marine

Nuclear

Interconnectors

Total

If we exclude unreliable wind/solar, and short term storage, we are left with just 70GW. But, according to the FES, peak demand will be 65GW in 2030, even under the highly optimistic Two Degree scenario. It could easily reach 66GW.

It can be seen that capacity could be extremely tight, but worse still no allowance is made for downtime. No generation can be available all of the time, and currently my understanding is that an assumption of 85% is used for available capacity.

This would mean that we can only rely on 60GW of capacity.

But when you look at the detail, the whole thing becomes ever more frightening.

For instance, we are relying on 18.5GW of interconnector capacity, nearly a third of peak demand. As has been stated before, this is simply a cop out, and we have no idea what the source of it will be. And when wind power is low across N Europe in winter, can we even rely on such surplus power being available at all? To rely so heavily on imported power is surely playing Russian roulette with the country’s energy security.

Then we have CCS! There is little sign that any economically viable technology will be available by 2030, so how do we replace this 0.9GW.

The assumption about marine, ie tidal, power is equally risky. We know that it is extremely expensive, and even if Swansea Bay gets the go-ahead, there is no guarantee larger schemes will follow.

Quite apart from this, neither tidal nor hydro power cannot operate continuously, but there is little in the way of spare capacity to offset this.

It is assumed we will have 8.5GW of nuclear capacity as well, yet all we can rely on at the moment is 1.2GW at Sizewell B, plus 3.2GW at Hinkley Point, if it actually gets built.

All in all, there is an awful lot of downside risk, and very little room for opportunity.

Footnote

The FES rather lets the cat out of the bag when it comes to electric cars.

If consumers do what they want, peak demand from EVs will soar by 18GW.