Yesterday the UK Government announced their latest Energy Strategy. It’s no surprise that in the wake of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the release of the latest IPCC report, the government are focusing on energy security and home-generated power, in an attempt to make the UK less reliant on imported energy and the fluctuations of the global economic and political landscape. So, how are the government proposing to tackle the energy crisis and increase the UK’s home-generated power supply?
It’s going nuclear
The backbone of the new Energy Strategy is a focus on increasing the UK’s nuclear power capacity, by installing up to eight new reactors across the country, many at existing or soon to be decommissioned nuclear sites. There are currently eight nuclear power reactors in operation, but seven of these are due to be decommissioned by 2030. Previous nuclear power targets worked on the goal of developing one new reactor per decade, but this plan will see a new reactor built almost once a year over the coming decade.
To facilitate this sudden acceleration, a new government body has been established. Great British Nuclear will be tasked with bringing forward new projects using a substantial pot of funding. A £120 million Future Nuclear Enabling Fund will launch this month to fund this expansion, with the hope that by 2050, up to 24GW of electricity will come from nuclear sources- 25% of predicted demand, up from the current figure of 16%.
Bold new targets set for low-carbon energy
But it’s not just nuclear that the new energy strategy is promoting. Under the government’s new plans, up to 95% of the UK’s electricity could come from low-carbon sources by 2030. The offshore wind target has been increased from 40GW to 50GW (with the current figure sitting at 11GW), with 5% of this figure coming from floating wind farms in deeper seas. Part of this growth will involve the overhauling of planning rules around offshore wind farms, reducing the application time from four years to one.
In addition to offshore wind, solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035. To make this happen, the government are planning to consult on the current rules for solar projects, particularly on domestic and commercial properties.
Increasing low-carbon hydrogen production is also a priority for the new energy strategy, with a doubling of the current ambition to 10GW production capacity by 2030. It’s hoped that hydrogen will provide cleaner energy for industry and could be used for cleaner power, transport and potentially heat. Up to a further £30 million will be invested via a Heat Pump Investment Accelerator Competition, designed to boost UK-based manufacture of heat pumps.
The government claim that by increasing capacity in these industries, a new wave of green, clean jobs will be created, with 90,000 new jobs in offshore wind created by 2028 alone. Overall estimates by the government suggest the new energy strategy, in conjunction with the Net Zero strategy, will drive £100 billion of private investment into these industries, creating 480,000 jobs in the process.
So, what are the experts saying?
There are several areas of contention in the strategy that have caused a surprised and even angry response from industry experts. One large omission from the centres around one of our big interests here at Severn Wye- retrofit. The strategy outlines no new measures for tackling energy efficiency within properties, by extending funding for improved insulation, for example. Former Ofgem boss Dermot Nolan has noted this morning that,
“Most of these decisions [such as nuclear] will take a long time to have an impact and in the short run we will continue to be dependent on fossil fuels,” adding that a lack of focus on energy efficiency is, “an opportunity missed.”
In what’s being seen as a retroactive response fuel by the need to move away from reliance on Russian gas, the government are licensing a new round of North Sea oil and gas projects. Some of the justification for this lies in the notion that it’s more sustainable to extract gas from UK sources than import is from abroad, a truth that belies the real environmental impact.
Unlike offshore wind, no specific targets have been set for the production of onshore wind, with the government only committing to consulting on new developments with, “a limited number of supportive communities.” Communities that commit to hosting wind turbines are set to be rewarded with guaranteed lower energy bills. Despite being one of the cheapest ways of producing low-carbon energy, onshore wind developments have been in decline since the government ended subsidies in 2015 and made planning regulations stricter. The omission of fleshed out targets for onshore wind production appears to be the result of Conservative in-fighting, as many Conservative MPs in rural constituencies are opposed to more turbines.
Nuclear power remains contentious in environmental terms. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency describe nuclear power plants as, “among the safest and most secure facilities in the world,” well-known sites like Chernobyl, Fukushima and Windscale show that accidents can happen, and when they do they’re catastrophic. Even aside from accidents, the day-to-day functions of a nuclear power plant produce a huge amount of high-level radioactive waste, which can remain toxic for thousands of years.
And what do you do with this waste? Like many countries, the UK favours deep geological disposal, which essentially means the construction of a sealed underground environment that is expected to last for thousands of years (due to the utilisation of natural and engineered barriers around the waste, such as clay, salt and cement). But so far the UK government have been unable to find a community that is willing to host such a storage facility, despite laying out the benefits of hosting such a site. This means that at the moment the hazardous waste already produced by the UK’s nuclear power plants is in temporary storage, with some suggestion that containers are already showing signs of deterioration.
Beyond the environmental issues, nuclear is also an expensive option. Estimated costs of eight new reactors are coming in at a whopping £13 billion, and new nuclear developments require the government to become minority shareholders to reduce the risk to developers. Having said all this, nuclear is more reliable than many low-carbon methods of energy production. It works 24/7 and isn’t affected by environmental factors such as changing wind speeds.
An announcement that has been brewing over the past week or so is the commitment to a new consultation on fracking. The practice was halted in 2019, amid opposition from activists and local communities who experienced tremors as a result of underground drilling. Research carried out in 2019 suggested current technology was unable to predict the likelihood of such tremors, resulting in the government ban. However, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has given the British Geological Survey three months to assess any changes to the science around the practice. It remains a controversial issue and if opposition in 2019 is any indicator of public feeling, it may remain an unpopular option.
The government are suggesting that because of this strategy, consumer bills will now be lower over the next decade than they otherwise would have been. However, with energy prices at record highs and another price cap increase coming in April, you might be forgiven for wondering what the government will be doing in the short term to support the millions of UK households that will be living in fuel poverty over the coming months? Beyond this, questions remain over the safety of nuclear and the pace at which many of these industry expansions can happen. Without a comprehensive plan to address energy efficiency issues, the effectiveness of the strategy remains to be seen.
