Case Study - UK

As a UK student, it seems only fitting to focus on the case study of my home country. The renewable energy of the United Kingdom would be expected to be very similar to that of Australia, as both countries are highly developed, globalised nations. However, with very different climate and geography, the two are in fact quite dissimilar.

The current situation of UK renewable energy is mixed, with 25% of electricity produced renewably in mid 2015. Current targets are to increase this to 15% of total energy production by 2020 (currently around 5%). Of this, the majority of the energy is produced via wind energy which has grown massively since the 90s (Figure 1). Nevertheless, the UK is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels imported from elsewhere, which breeds political instability. If the UK is able to diversify our energy mix, this will give us much more energy resilience.

Figure 1 - Wind power growth 1991-2011 (source) 

Current energy demand is around 210GW with 6.9GW currently produced renewably. As current renewables are far from 100% supply, it is worth focusing on how the UK could exploit renewable resources to achieve a much more sustainable energy supply. If the UK were to grow photovoltaics, systems implemented on 20m roofs would still only produce 2% of the energy demand at average efficiencies. Similarly plans to exploit tidal power in the Severn would equally only produce 1%, and biomass would require over 1 tonne of fuel per person per year in order to produce 5.5GW average power! These figures may seem extortionate, but based on our current consumption of 80 million tonnes of oil per year, we come to realise that the UK demands a LOT of energy.

It seems then that wind offers the best path to a renewable society. With considerable investment into it already, the UK is able to produce wind power at high efficiencies and relatively low costs compared to those just bringing wind power to their country. The role of wind power has been modelled for the future in the UK, which has shown than wind power could account for 21GW of total generation by 2020, eventually growing to 49GW by 2050. Without carbon capture implementation, such a high wind power production would help to achieve climate goals, and ultimately may produce up to 50% of UK electricity demand by 2050.

Wind is not a perfect solution however. As wind is not constant, nor will the supply of energy be. As a result, the UK would also need a backup of at least 50GW of other sources, such as gas power plants, in order to ensure no blackouts.

However, this turns back to traditional combustion. I believe if used alongside other renewable developments, wind power could supply energy without the need to supplement with fossil fuels. For example, fully commercialised marine renewable energy is expected to be able to produce 20% of electricity. With government policy supporting innovation and growth in the renewable sector, the costs of providing this level of renewable energy will only decrease, especially if marketised (Leete et al 2013). However, in order to attract this type of investment, the UK must have a long term support plan for renewable energy, which is suggested to help to reduce risk for investors.

The UK is one of the few countries able to provide the necessary infrastructure and resources in order to overcome the high short term cost of renewable energy, and once this is achieved, wind power in combination with other major renewable developments could lead to a renewable UK society.