Tony Lodge: We need new policies to secure power supply

THE UK has two looming problems regarding electricity production. Firstly, up to 40 per cent of our conventional generating capacity is due to disappear before 2020 as 14 of our major nuclear, coal and oil-fired stations will close on EU emissions, safety and age grounds.

Secondly, the power industry is legally committed to generating 34 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 while slashing carbon emission by 32 per cent. Just six per cent of electricity is now generated from renewables.

This means the UK needs to build new cleaner generating plant that can deliver the equivalent of a third of demand from these traditional sources, plus a huge slice of new renewable electricity in just under 10 years. This is a huge and arguably impossible task unless energy

policies change.

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The Government is suggesting that most new conventional plant will be nuclear with some clean coal. Most new renewable power would come from wind with some wave and tidal capacity. It is increasingly obvious and clear to most energy analysts that both this ambition and timetable is severely flawed.

The statistics highlight the realities which the Government must face regarding its apparent blind support for more wind energy. If subsidies were withdrawn, the industry would become grossly uneconomic. If a coal or gas plant operated at just 22 per cent capacity, it would be forced to close on efficiency grounds.

Wind's dismal performance is there for all to see and the capacity figures are not going to improve, irrespective of how many turbines are built. In June, National Grid revealed it had paid wind farm operators not to supply electricity and switch turbines off. The network operator

is reluctant to take supplies from erratic sources which can unbalance the grid.

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In Yorkshire, the figures are worse. The county's 10 onshore wind farms averaged 19.5 per cent capacity throughout 2009. Those at Dotterel Farm, near Malton, achieved 13 per cent capacity and at Chelker reservoir, near Ilkley, the wind farm managed 5.3 per cent capacity. The county's coal plants, on the other hand are always there when we need them.

If we assume that most of the Government's target of up to eight gigawatts of renewable capacity is to be wind based, this would require about 7,500 new giant three megawatt turbines. There will be little wave or tidal power available in the next five years as the sector is immature and needs a robust policy lead. Importantly, as these statistics show, wind is an intermittent and unreliable renewable and requires baseload plant to remain on standby. Wind must be complemented with more reliable green sources of energy.

The only proven near-zero emissions and reliable technologies that can provide green electricity and help to meet the 2020 renewables target are biomass and bioliquids. These are organic plant-based fuels from forestry and agriculture, either in solid or liquid form.

But, unlike wind, these reliable renewables need greater policy support and clarity from Government. For investors to take long-term decisions with certainty, Ministers must now provide a renewable support strategy for these energy crops.

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Drax power station, near Selby, has recently shelved plans for three large biomass plants due to Government foot dragging.

Importantly, new bioliquid power plants can allow quick replacement of the three vital oil-fired plants which must close by 2016. These old but important plants, which represent three per cent of supply, cover the UK's peakload demand and have been crucial in dealing with high energy demand during cold snaps. They can be quickly started from cold and their output increased rapidly as required.

One argument used against biomass or energy crops for electricity generation is that any spare land in third world countries should grow crops for food not fuel.

Clearly, no-one will argue it is right for forests and peat land to be sacrificed to create new sources of fuel for western energy generation. Nor should anyone argue that land producing food should be converted to fuel production.

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However, there is a significant amount of unused savannah and scrub land that can be put to positive economic use to improve the living conditions of some of the poorest people in the world.

As the UK emerges from recession and more fossil fuelled-plant is brought back online, then Britain's overdependence on intermittent renewables, like wind, will be further exposed.

Economic recovery will require additional power generation. Unless a lead is taken to support biomass and bioliquids then Ministers will be forced to keep dirty plant running for longer, thereby breaking EU rules.

The stakes are high and the Government must move now to support Britain's energy diversity, while meeting its green obligations.

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Tony Lodge is chairman of the Bow Group Energy and Transport Committee and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. The Case for Energy Crops – How developing countries can help themselves and boost UK energy security is published by the Bow Group.