Letter: Renewable Energy Does Work

Published on: 7 Nov, 2024
Updated on: 7 Nov, 2024

From Maddie Evans

The government and the National Energy System Operator NESO are agreed that we can have Zero Carbon electricity by 2030. If we accept it is possible, should we do it?

In 2023 wind and solar provided 33 per cent of our electricity needs. Up from 8.5 per cent in 2013. Fossil fuels fell from 64 per cent to 35 per cent over the same decade. The direction of travel is clear, we are moving to renewable energy. In that time the National Grid have integrated these new resources into the system, alongside new interconnectors and all the domestic solar, without suffering any related power cuts. Power cuts in the UK are overwhelmingly due to storms damaging our power lines.

If you use the Gridwatch site, or the prettier Iamkate site, you will see that the wholesale price of electricity is below £80 per MWh, or 8p per kWh when wind is part of the mix, but whenever we use the gas back-up stations, the wholesale price of electricity spikes, this week to over £200 per MWh. So, the renewables are also helping to bring wholesale prices down.

NESO has said that getting to 100 per cent zero carbon sources (including nuclear) by 2030 is achievable. We can be sure that they mean “achievable without power cuts”, because it’s their job to keep the lights on.

Meanwhile there are current applications for approximately three times the amount of renewable capacity needed to achieve this, already waiting to be connected to the grid. So now our renewables industry is maturing we have the luxury of not building ‘everything everywhere’, and some of these proposals will never happen.

Given that renewables are already integrated into our system and bring down prices, and reduce the amount of foreign gas we must buy, what do the people campaigning to stop new renewables really want?

Do they want us to demolish all the existing capacity ‘because it doesn’t work’? Do they have an opinion on what percentage is the ‘right’ proportion of renewables or zero carbon energy? Is it 60 per cent or 90 per cent? Is it none, putting us at the mercy of overseas gas producers? How much nuclear do they want? How much storage and what sort?

Change is happening, and the renewable contribution has increased from zero to 33 per cent, and will inevitably increase further as long as the economics say it will make electricity cheaper. Yet a future zero-carbon grid doesn’t require 100 per cent wind or solar, because we have plans to still have nuclear stations and hydro.

So what is the right answer? It can’t be true that all the existing renewables are OK but all the planned ones are terrible. Make your case for what we do next from where we are today. Feel free to say you do or don’t want a particular local development, clearly there is so much change that we need to be arguing for a land strategy that is fair to everyone, but don’t say renewables don’t work, and don’t reduce wholesale prices, when the evidence they do is published every day on Gridwatch.

Responses to Letter: Renewable Energy Does Work

John Perkins Reply

November 7, 2024 at 3:16 pm

It is misleading to write about the government and NESO as if they are separate because the latter is wholly owned by the former and its purpose is to implement Government energy strategy. Of course the direction of travel is clear, that direction is what politicians decided.

Also misleading is the use of the term “renewable”. Solar and wind sources are undoubtedly renewable but the means of capture are not. Nor are those means easily recyclable as can be seen from solar panels in landfill and old turbines lying on wind farms.

Biomass included in renewable figures is not so in any sense; cutting down trees and shipping them here to be burned has a worse impact on the environment than burning coal.

If renewable sources reduce wholesale prices and provide so much of the country’s energy then why are retail prices so high? How much of the wholesale cost is reduced by subsidy?

Nobody has suggested demolishing existing renewable capacity, yet that is what is done with existing coal and gas generation.

Any plans for nuclear power are routinely delayed so should not be considered plans at all. Hydro works in countries with high mountain lakes or powerful rivers are a possibility. Tidal could work well in the UK, but not much effort is being put into it for some reason.
Maddie Evans Reply

November 8, 2024 at 8:48 am

For the last 12 months the average wholesale electricity price in the UK has been below £100 per MWh. This is equivalent to 10p per kWh, far below the 25p average rate for domestic users set by the energy cap.

Wholesale prices are likely to stay in this range longer term, as more renewables come online with contracts for difference, and so long as new CfD continue to be sold under £100/MWh.

Exceptions are the higher ones for DRAX and for new nuclear. Consumers are right to ask why they pay some of the highest electricity unit prices in Europe when there is already room for a downwards movement in retail prices. So why hasn’t it happened?

You can read more about this here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uk-retail-electricity-prices-too-high-could-much-lower-patricia-evans-g564e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via
John Perkins Reply

November 9, 2024 at 11:17 am

The two websites Gridwatch and Iamkate referred to in the original letter are personal and intended to advertise the sotware skills of their creators. Whilst the data are probably accurate they are presented in a way which could easily be misread, which is what appears to have happened with the inaccurate claim of “over £200 per MWh”.

The link above is to one person’s opinion. It’s informed, well written and worth reading, but it does not support the claim in the original letter, only that of this response, which is that UK retail electricity prices are too high. It’s a valid position and one with which I agree, but it’s a change of subject.

Although not a requirement when referring to another’s opinion it’s useful to mention whether or not there is any personal relationship.