Review

The UK Electricity Gap in 2015:  review of contrasting books

Reviewed by Max Wallis

Wind Chill; Why wind energy will not fill the UK's energy gap  by Tony Lodge, Centre for Policy Studies (2008)

Implications of the UK meeting its 2020 Renewable Energy Target Pöyry Report, August 2008 [1]

"Wind Chill" is sadly an advocacy rather than an academic report.  It gives costs of wind power and nuclear power taken from the Royal Academy of Engineering report of 2004 [2], without considering the reliability and the strong criticisms of the figures (nor noting the source is a pro- nuclear organisation).  The RAE's figures were basically the same as those the industry to the submitted to the Cabinet Office's PIU Energy Review - the PIU examined both current and future costs in great depth and concluded costs would be much higher than the nuclear industry's.  The RAE failed to consider the PIU's and other independent analyses.

Lodge's thesis is "wind energy will not fill the UK's energy gap", which is easily demonstrated - Britain faces an electricity generation gap of 30-40% (up to 32 GW of today's 76 GW, he says, rather than the real figure of ~20GW) by 2015 as old coal and nuclear power stations are closed.  The "energy gap" could be much higher as UK gas and oil production dwindles and we rely on increasing imports, though Tony Lodge probably meant "electricity gap" (a mistake common to political commentators). 32 GW capacity with 32% average of rated production (peak capacity applies to winter when the stronger winds give higher than the ~25% annual capacity figure) requires 20 000 of the largest 5 MW turbines.  Tony Lodge considers only 10 000 new turbines, but still reckons that is unfeasible.

The Pöyry report takes renewable energy projections from the government programme that require 20 to 29GW installed by 2015, up from 5 GW at present.  Pöyry calculate a capacity margin for 3 projections of electricity demand and taking a 40% capacity factor for wind (on-shore and offshore wind together account for over two thirds of the renewables) as between 11-25% at the2015 electricity 'gap', but increasing to 19-40% by 2020 as more renewables (especially marine current and tidal) come on stream.  Since a capacity margin of ~20% is considered necessary in the present system, Pöyry see a 2015 'gap' as real or the worst scenarios. But even on those scenarios the gap is short-lived, so they propose it is met by load-shedding (managing peak demand).

The second big hole in Lodge's argument comes with his trick in changing the goalpost from 2015 to 2020.  That is so he can say - the solution is "to expand aggressively our nuclear, clean coal and renewable supplies of energy such as tidal energy".  For no nuclear stations could be built for the 2015 gap and, even by 2020, only a few GW.  Logically Lodge should have concluded nuclear power can only be marginal and that Gordon Brown is badly wrong to promote nuclear as keeping the lights on.  But to a nuclear advocate, logic is an encumberance.  And conservation with electricity reduction is beyond his horizon.

Don't buy Lodge's lightweight book - read it for free on http://policystudies.cps.org.uk/ And go to the Pöyry report [1] if you want proper figures and methodology from experts in the field.

 

[1] Implications of the UK meeting its 2020 Renewable Energy Target, Report by Pöyry for WWF and Greenpeace, August 2008

[2] 'The Cost of Generating Electricity', Royal Academy of Engineering (March 2004)

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