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NORWICH, England, September 28, 2005 (Refocus
Weekly)
It will cost an additional 0.61 pence per kWh to
integrate 25 GW of wind energy into the UK grid by 2020, while the
extra benefits will be 0.33 p/kWh, according to a British research
centre for climate change.
“Integrating renewables into the electricity network remains a
key technical, regulatory and policy challenge,” concludes the
Tyndall Centre, because the grid is not designed to accommodate
small generators and because the regulatory system is focussed on
the reduction of costs in a centralized system of generation and
control. “Clearly, meeting variable demand with intermittent, and/or
uncontrolled and/or inflexible generation will be a major challenge
for the secure operation of sustainable electricity systems of the
future.”
“In order to accommodate intermittent generation, it will be
necessary to retain a significant proportion of conventional plant
to ensure security of supply” under conditions of high demand and
low wind,” explains the report, ‘Decarbonising the UK,’ which
describes ways of reducing carbon emissions by increasing the
contribution from green power, green fuels and green heat
technologies. “Hence, the capacity value of intermittent
generation will be limited as it will not be possible to displace
conventional generation capacity on a ’megawatt for megawatt’
basis.”
“Intermittent generation is not easy to predict, so various forms of
additional reserves will
be needed to maintain the balance between supply and demand at all
times,” it adds.
The additional costs for network, balancing capacity and cost of
generating, were offset by the benefits of avoided reinforcement,
replaced capacity and fuel savings, but the net difference of
0.28p/kWh is 5% of the current domestic price for electricity. The
costs should be viewed in the context of the recent impact of gas
price rises on the cost of electricity, and the analysis does not
reflect the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme which
will provide a further benefit for green power.
The additional operating cost to accommodate the variable and
unpredictable output from wind turbines represents a “relatively
small proportion” of the total, only 0.05 p of the total
additional costs of 0.61 p/kWh and “overall, it is concluded that
the system will be able to accommodate significant increases in
intermittent power generation with relatively small increases in
overall costs of supply.” The additional costs will be driven
primarily by the capital cost of windfarms, while the benefits in
terms of the cost of fuel saved will be directly influenced by fuel
prices.
“There are obstacles to the use of renewable energy in terms of the
cost of systems, their intermittency and the fact that they only
produce electricity whereas many industrial sites also require
process heat,” it adds. “The use of biofuels to close the carbon
cycle is the second most cost-effective option because it avoids the
problem of intermittency and can be used to produce heat
cost-effectively.”
The major finding of the report was that CO2 emissions from everyone
in Britain must drop to zero if emissions from aviation are to
continue at current levels. Even if current growth in aviation is
halved, the rest of the economy will require CO2 cuts “far beyond
government targets.”
“If the UK government does not curb aviation growth, all other
sectors of the economy will eventually be forced to become carbon
neutral,” says lead researcher Kevin Anderson. “It will undermine
the international competitiveness of UK industry.”
The study is the first to combine CO2 emissions from Britain’s
energy infrastructure, buildings and industry with those from air,
sea and land transport. The UK government wants to reduce emissions
by 60% and the report concludes that improvements in energy
efficiency can dramatically decarbonize many sectors, and that
policies for reducing energy demand are a more flexible tool than
implementing low-carbon supplies such as renewables.
Supplying low-carbon energy is both “technically and economically
viable” and all sectors must be included in any carbon-reduction
strategy, it concludes. The government has set a target of 10% of
electricity from renewables by 2010, 15% by 2015 and an aspirational
target of 20% by 2020.
The study accepts that new supply technologies will be available by
2050, but its scenarios do not rely on advances to reduce emissions.
It focusses on current state-of-the-art efficient technologies which
include efficient coal combustion, combined cycle gas turbines,
biofuels and renewable sources (both onshore and offshore wind,
hydro and
marine sources), as well as combined heat and power fuelled by coal,
gas, biomass and nuclear, and hydrogen produced by electrolysis from
renewables or nuclear.
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