Energy Handbook 2011 - GBR

P o w e r S u m m i t - T h e E n e r g y H a n d b o o k 2 0 1 1
C o u n t r y P r o f i l e : U n i t e d K i n g d o m
United Kingdom in Focus
As the UK Power Sector undergoes its biggest reforms since
market liberalization, an industry once considered “dull, almost risk
free, the sort of place people might put their pensions” now leads
the charge towards “a pivotal turning point in human history.
Article by:
Joseph Hincks and
Vanessa Acuna
Above:
Vattenfall attests
to the success
of the offshore
wind programs
of the UK; Photo
courtesy of
Vattenfall
On 17 October 1956, Queen
Elizabeth II pulled the lever that
would direct power from Calder
Hall, the world’s first nuclear power
station, into the National Grid. Under the
shadows of the Windscale plant’s vast
chimneys, where plutonium was made for
Britain’s first atomic bomb, Her Majesty
addressed the thousands in attendance
– members of the public come to see the
making of history, scientists, ministers and
dignitaries from more than 40 countries.
“This new power,” she said, “which
has proved itself to be such a terrifying
weapon of destruction, is harnessed for
the first time for the common good of our
community.”
facilitated mass production and helped
end the age of post-war austerity; a
power cut on 7 December 1970 plunged
Britain into darkness and revealed the
extent of the nation’s dependence on
electricity; through the 1970s and 1980s,
coal miners’ picket lines and pitched
battles outside power stations redefined
our political landscape. At a time when
global warming is all but universally
acknowledged, and as it prepares to
undergo its biggest reforms since market
liberalisation, the UK power sector is
again at the forefront of its ontological
condition: simultaneously a “terrifying
weapon of destruction” and a force for the
common good. We are poised, according
to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond,
at “a turning point in human history, on a
par with the move from hunter-gathering
to settled agricultural communities or the
In a bid to mitigate the environmental
damage caused by, among other things,
the UK power sector, the UK’s Climate
Change Act 2008 set a target of cutting
greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent
by 2050, with an interim target for carbon
dioxide reduction of at least 26 percent
by 2020. The European Union has signed
up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
by at least 20 percent by 2020. The
implications of these targets on the way
the country generates, distributes and
uses power are immense.
The UK Government and the European
Union have set a number of targets
to advance the decarbonisation of the
economy. These targets are already
shaping the electricity market.
The Large Combustion Plants Directive
effectively requires Britain to close a
third of its existing generating capacity
by 2016. The new Industrial Emissions
Directive is likely to result by 2022 in the
closure of all the UK’s coal-fired power
stations, some of its gas-fired plants, and
the nuclear stations built in the 1970s.
Perhaps the most significant piece of
legislation with regard to climate change,
the Renewables Obligation, came
into effect on 1 April 2002. Its initial
target for public electricity suppliers to
source 3 percent of their supplies from
renewable energy sources in 2003 has
risen by 0.7–1.3 percent each year, to
reach 10.4 percent by 2010–11. “We
have to rebuild the energy infrastructure
of this country in the next 10–15 years,”
says Charles Hendry, Minister of State
for the Department of Energy and the
Environment. “We will have to have
a much greater focus on building new
plants, and on the network of wires and
pipes that connect them. We have to sort
out the need for energy security. We are
in a situation where we have an absolute
mountain to climb for new energies.”
“The good fortune is that at a time when
we have to rebuild our infrastructure,
we also have the need to move to lowcarbon
technologies, so there’s a real
opportunity for us to build a truly lowcarbon
energy structure in this country,”
Lifting the Anchor
The reform of the energy sector has a
vital role to play in Britain’s economic
rejuvenation in the wake of the global
financial crisis. Chris Huhne, Secretary of
State for the Department of Energy and the
Environment, has said that the UK could
undergo a third industrial revolution, one
that will “lift the drag-anchor of budget
cuts”.
Achieving its 2020 targets could provide
Britain with £100bn in investment
opportunities and up to half a million
jobs in the renewable energy sector by
2020, according to statistics from the
Department of Energy and Climate Change.
“On a medium- and long-term view,
countries which have decarbonised their
economies through electricity, transport
and the built environment will be at an
advantage,” says Tim Yeo, chairman of
the Energy and Climate Change Select
Committee that monitors the work of
the UK Government’s Department of
Energy and Climate Change. “Countries
that fail to do so now may find the costs
and the disruption caused by the need to
do it very quickly and more expensively
will put them at a big disadvantage in
15 years’ time. My view is that Britain
should do this not only because it is right
environmentally but because it is right
economically.”
In Scotland, the potential for job creation
is vast. In the 1970s, Scotland began
a process of de-industrialisation and
moved from a manufacturing to a more
service-orientated economy. Average
unemployment in the country is slightly
lower than in the UK as a whole, but in
areas such as Barrowfield in Glasgow,
and in Shettleston and North Ayrshire,
the closure of much of the country’s
manufacturing industry scarred the local
economy: relics of the old shipbuilding
industry still haunt the banks of the river
Clyde.
If progress continues according to the
Scottish Government’s plans, the Scottish
renewable energy industry could help
to revive the country’s role as a hub for
manufacturing. In 2008, the low-carbon
energy industry supported over 70,000
The capacity of the power sector to bring
about social and economic change has
been demonstrated throughout the UK’s
68
history. The creation of the National Grid discovery of the New World in 1492.”
Hendry concludes.
jobs in Scotland. This has almost doubled
69