The UK’s electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024

[Alan Ambrose]

While looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, electricity demand is expected to rise as transport and heat are increasingly electrified via EVs and heat pumps (see below).

According to NESO’s recent advice on reaching clean power by 2030, demand for electricity is expected to grow 11% by 2030 and to nearly double by 2050.

 

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-electricity-was-cleanest-ever-in-2024/

[SteamyTea]

I bet if we could be bothered to go back into the history on Buildhub, a decade ago, people where saying that where we are now was impossible.

Any new generation from now on will be low carbon, except for maybe some replacement CCGT.

 

I am currently condensing the last decade electrical generation data down to half hourly means, mins and maxes, it takes a while, but will be useful information.

[G and J]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

While looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, electricity demand is expected to rise as transport and heat are increasingly electrified via EVs and heat pumps (see below).

According to NESO’s recent advice on reaching clean power by 2030, demand for electricity is expected to grow 11% by 2030 and to nearly double by 2050.

 

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-electricity-was-cleanest-ever-in-2024/

Oh ok, I will put loads of solar panels on the roof then…. then I can feel all smug…. just got to build the bugger first!

[ProDave]

Electricity use will rise 11% by 2030 and double by 2050

 

Which shows we have only just scratched the surface re converting from fossil fuels to electricity.

 

So in the next 25 years, the already struggling electricity grid has to double in capacity.  That is twice as many overhead pylons everywhere, and if built where needed they will not all be following existing lines of pylons.  And consider where most of this new generation is, in the north, and most of the usage is in the south, the north / south interconnects need to more than double.

 

And we don't have enough green generation to power what we use, let alone before we double what we use.

 

And then when we reach the utopia of double the grid capacity and perhaps 3 or 4 times the renewable generation we have now, nobody has answered how the lights will stay on and our heat pumps will be powered and cars charged during a 2 week winter anticyclone.  By then all the fossil fuel stations will have been decommissioned and not even on care and maintenance for backup.

 

I am all for keeping on doing as much as we can to generate more green electricity and move what is viable from fossil fuel to electric, but I think aiming for zero fossil fuel is doomed to failure and unreliability.

[G and J]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Electricity use will rise 11% by 2030 and double by 2050

 

Which shows we have only just scratched the surface re converting from fossil fuels to electricity.

 

So in the next 25 years, the already struggling electricity grid has to double in capacity.  That is twice as many overhead pylons everywhere, and if built where needed they will not all be following existing lines of pylons.  And consider where most of this new generation is, in the north, and most of the usage is in the south, the north / south interconnects need to more than double.

 

And we don't have enough green generation to power what we use, let alone before we double what we use.

 

And then when we reach the utopia of double the grid capacity and perhaps 3 or 4 times the renewable generation we have now, nobody has answered how the lights will stay on and our heat pumps will be powered and cars charged during a 2 week winter anticyclone.  By then all the fossil fuel stations will have been decommissioned and not even on care and maintenance for backup.

 

I am all for keeping on doing as much as we can to generate more green electricity and move what is viable from fossil fuel to electric, but I think aiming for zero fossil fuel is doomed to failure and unreliability.

 

Perhaps it can be argued that our society's base assumption of 24/7 electricity is not sustainable.

[Mattg4321]

Agree almost entirely with @ProDave

 

If carbon dioxide is really the biggest problem that we face and worth spending enormous amounts of money on (not inequality, lower living standards, crumbling public services and infrastructure, inflation, social cohesion etc etc) then why are we not investing heavily in nuclear. We all know that renewables can’t operate reliably in isolation.

 

Also worth noting that in the last decade my electricity cost per unit has gone up by over 100%, with the standing charge going up by even more - far above the rate of inflation. I thought renewables were meant to be cheaper?!!

 

No doubt some will blame Ukraine war for this as the cost of gas has risen, but we have mountains of gas of our own that we for some unknown reason refuse to extract. Far better for the planet to import LNG from Qatar and the US - make it make sense. 

[JamesP]

"But we''re setting an example"

 

[Mattg4321]

3 minutes ago, G and J said:

 

Perhaps it can be argued that our society's base assumption of 24/7 electricity is not sustainable.

So there we have it. The thin end of the wedge as many of us predicted. 
 

Lucky I can afford PV and an inverter that accepts a generator input. Not sure how everyone firing up their own generators helps with reducing C02 though? Mad max here we come. 

[saveasteading]

21 minutes ago, ProDave said:

generation is, in the north, and most of the usage is in the south,

Tarrifs for power and water crossing the border?

 

8 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

In the last decade my electricity cost per unit has gone up by over 100%, 

A fairly normal rule of thumb for inflation.

 

8 minutes ago, JamesP said:

But we''re setting an example

Have you seen the amount of wind and solar in Spain. Add them to your map. And hydro in Norway and nuclear in France and....so on.

 

11 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

 The thin end of the wedge as many of us predicted

A wedge being a useful thing for stability you mean?

[Roger440]

18 minutes ago, G and J said:

 

Perhaps it can be argued that our society's base assumption of 24/7 electricity is not sustainable.

 

A succesful economy depends on abundant, sensibly priced energy.

 

What you propose is madness. I hope you will be happy with the outcome. I know i wont, and nor will most people.

[ProDave]

22 minutes ago, G and J said:

 

Perhaps it can be argued that our society's base assumption of 24/7 electricity is not sustainable.

That is on the plan, but not widely talked about.

 

I saw one video but can't find the link to re post it, that said at present 40% of homes do not have a car.  That must rise to 70% to achieve net zero.

 

So there you have it.  Most of us must stop driving in any form and just use public transport to get around our 15 minute cities, with the great British countryside only available to the few who are still allowed to live there, not in a 15 minute city, or those willing to walk or cycle to explore that great wilderness that people used to live and thrive in in small communities......

[Roger440]

14 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

So there we have it. The thin end of the wedge as many of us predicted. 
 

Lucky I can afford PV and an inverter that accepts a generator input. Not sure how everyone firing up their own generators helps with reducing C02 though? Mad max here we come. 

 

Yep.

 

Got my generator already. It was highly effective after the recent storms when we had no power for 2 days.

 

A handy reminder of what life will be like in the future.

 

Probably need to make my generator firing automatic. Once Ed's finished with us, ill wear my shoes out going to the barn to start the genny manually.

[Roger440]

5 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Tarrifs for power and water crossing the border?

 

A fairly normal rule of thumb for inflation.

 

Have you seen the amount of wind and solar in Spain. Add them to your map. And hydro in Norway and nuclear in France and....so on.

 

A wedge being a useful thing for stability you mean?

 

Where will this stability come from? We are on track to have an intermittent power supply, at the highest prices in the devoped world.

 

 

[Mattg4321]

7 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

 

 

A fairly normal rule of thumb for inflation.

 

A wedge being a useful thing for stability you mean?

Nonsense. Inflation is 35% over the last 10 years. As per the Bank of England website. Energy price inflation is at least 3 times that. It’s the road to ruin. As someone else just said, cheap and reliable energy is the main reason living standards have rapidly improved over the past 200 years. Without it - a catastrophe that would make WW2 look like child’s play. 
 

As for the last comment 🙄

[SteamyTea]

57 minutes ago, ProDave said:

That is twice as many overhead pylons everywhere

No it isn't.

We are moving towards distributed generation.  I don't often see new pylons where a new wind or solar farm is built.  Most of those cables are underground.

 

I am surprised that you keep saying this as you understand demand diversity very well: we don't put in new cables to houses when they add an extra lightbulb.

 

And show me the times, from the UK grid data, when solar, hydro and wind fail to supply because of winter high pressures.  Actually don't bother as I have already looked for it.  It does not happen.  Yes we have reduced RE output, but your installed RE capacity is still quite low.

48 minutes ago, JamesP said:

"But we''re setting an example"

As is most of the rest of the world.

The UK is not working in isolation on Climate Change policies.

 

I sense that change is the biggest problem, not the technology.

 

As for

34 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

A succesful economy depends on abundant, sensibly priced energy.

What you mean is wasteful.

Thankfully productivity and energy use are decoupled now.  We make a lot more with a lot less.

[ProDave]

21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

No it isn't.

We are moving towards distributed generation.  I don't often see new pylons where a new wind or solar farm is built.  Most of those cables are underground.

 

I am surprised that you keep saying this as you understand demand diversity very well: we don't put in new cables to houses when they add an extra lightbulb.

 

And show me the times, from the UK grid data, when solar, hydro and wind fail to supply because of winter high pressures.  Actually don't bother as I have already looked for it.  It does not happen.  Yes we have reduced RE output, but your installed RE capacity is still quite low.

There is now far more renewable generation in Scotland than we can use, particularly in the Highlands.

 

The local connection from a wind farm to the nearest large substation might be underground (one passes under my neighbours garden with a second to be added soon, they even approached me a year and a bit ago and I convinced the surveyor there were too many obstacles to putting one through our garden, thank god)

 

But the north / south grid to carry it is at capacity already with many more wind farms proposed.  In the time i have been here the one operational north / south grid has been supplemented by re conductoring and re purposing the old Dounereay line (which was unused since Dounereay shut down generation. That has more than doubled capacity (it is higher voltage and current than the existing line was).  That is still not enough.  Another high voltage overhead line is planned and the plans keep changing from a bloody eyesore out of my window to far enough down the glen to be barely noticable.  and there is talk that might not be enough.

 

While wind farms may be "distributed" it is a fact there are a lot of them in less populated windy parts of the uk and nowhere near enough in the flatter, less windy, more populated parts of the UK so there needs to be a lot more long distance delivery of electricity than the old days when there was a coal fired station in almost every county.

[G and J]

2 hours ago, Mattg4321 said:

I thought renewables were meant to be cheaper?!!

Perhaps they are in terms of the long term cost to our planet. 

[G and J]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

So there you have it.  Most of us must stop driving in any form and just use public transport to get around our 15 minute cities, with the great British countryside only available to the few who are still allowed to live there, not in a 15 minute city, or those willing to walk or cycle to explore that great wilderness that people used to live and thrive in in small communities......

I think it’s easy to forget that our society already contains many for whom the above is already true.  Running a car is expensive to those on low income.  Public transport isn’t cheap for a family and isn’t that easy to use now either.  

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

While wind farms may be "distributed" it is a fact there are a lot of them in less populated windy parts of the uk and nowhere near enough in the flatter, less windy, more populated parts of the UK

That is because we had a moratorium on building them, thanks to Cameron's 'Greenest Government Ever', it is not because of technical problems.

 

19 minutes ago, G and J said:

Perhaps they are in terms of the long term cost to our planet. 

And the medium term to ordinary people.

 

[G and J]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is because we had a moratorium on building them, thanks to Cameron's 'Greenest Government Ever', it is not because of technical problems.

This is not a complaint, but it’s been a long while since I last looked out to sea and didn’t see turbines.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

and re purposing the old Dounereay line

Is that an option? Along the railway lines which are an existing network to all areas of the country?

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Mattg4321 said:

Nonsense. Inflation is 35% over the last 10 years

Accepted. I was thinking of the bad years and construction, when costs were galloping.

 

But now, 4% annually will be about 40% in a decade.

[ProDave]

23 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Is that an option? Along the railway lines which are an existing network to all areas of the country?

No this was the Douneray overhead power line.  Originally only built with 3 conductors.  It became dead when Dounereay closed as a generator decades ago.

 

Within the last 10 years it was upgraded, the existing 3 conductors upgraded to larger and the missing 3 added, and new substations built to connect all these distributed wind farms.

 

This tied into the Beauly to Denny new overhead line down through the Caringorms built at about the same time.

 

And there is still not enough capacity, so somewhere, somehow, more are needed.

 

Perhaps it is time to say Scotland has enough, no more here until every hilltop of the Cotswolds, Chilterns, South downs, Berkshire Downs, Malvern hills etc etc is covered with wind farms like is happening in Scotland.  Build them down there instead and we might not need to many new long distance pylons?

[Mattg4321]

1 hour ago, G and J said:

Perhaps they are in terms of the long term cost to our planet. 

Possibly. But nobody has a crystal ball and experts/general consensus been completely wrong time and time again throughout history. 
 

The problem is that the choice is between carrying on as we are and doing our best to reduce emissions where possible, or net zero and near complete deindustrialisation. 
 

Renewables/air travel/heating our homes/working more than walking distance from our houses/car ownership including EV. None of them are compatible with net zero, unless we agree that offshoring our emissions doesn’t count - which is of course ludicrous. 
 

Whether or not you agree with the idea of man made climate change - I’m still somewhat on the fence - the ‘solutions’ are nonsense spun up by the very few people who will benefit from them. 

[SteamyTea]

38 minutes ago, G and J said:

This is not a complaint, but it’s been a long while since I last looked out to sea and didn’t see turbines.

Have to look 3000 miles to see one here, unless I look towards Goonhilly and see the 20 year old land based ones.

 

I have mentioned this before, but about 17 years ago, I added up the capacity of the wind turbines in Cornwall, and worked out that they could be replaced with just 1, 5 MW one.

As that was based on installed capacity, that 5 MW turbine would have  produced about 30% more energy, and been half the price.