The Energy Research Partnership (ERP) has brought together a range of stakeholders from across the energy sector to develop a common view on the future resilience of the UK Electricity System.
The work has identified a range of emerging trends that are changing the way we operate the electricity system and will need to be acted upon to assure we have a resilient electricity system in the future. In response to these trends a number of recommendations have been made that require action over the next decade to assure resilience of the electricity system in the future.
The ERP believes is important to recognise that there may be low regret decisions and investments that we can make in anticipation of these future trends, with an overall lower cost and greater system wide benefit than if we respond to them as they arise. A key enabler to making these decisions will be achieving cross industry agreement on what we mean by resilience and how we measure it. In producing the report, the ERP has already started this process, and brought together a wide range of industry and government players to enter this debate.
Looking forward, much more needs to be done. The industry needs to engage with society and business to clearly establish their needs and expectations and how they can be met. This in turn should help shape and inform government and policy, with a new resilience taskforce working across the energy sector to help lead the changes. In particular, resilience needs to be ‘baked in’ to the regulatory regime, to ensure that together, all players can reduce the impact of any threat to network infrastructure, either proactively through design or by being ready to respond quickly to restore energy supplies. The report highlights the need to continue work with government agencies to assess cyber security risks and put in place the necessary protection to counter any potential threat.
Above all, the ERP anticipates that by assuring we have a resilient energy system in the future, whatever threats may try to compromise its operation, we will continue to make the UK an attractive place to build the global businesses of the 21st century.
Resilience Event
The ERP will be holding a Resilience Event in January at the Energy Systems Catapult in Birmingham where the report and its findings will be presented and discussed by key Working Group Members. If you would like to attend this event, please register in advance at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/erp-future-resilience-of-the-uk-electricity-system-tickets-52904543915
Project Scope
The project scope was developed with support from Working Group Members (ERP members and project advisors). This report is based on information provided by each Working Group Member where they set out their organisation’s view on the UK electricity system resilience and the potential future impact of the changing energy landscape. All working group members discussed and shared findings at a workshop held at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in June 2018. The industry views from the responses submitted, and the workshop are represented in this report.
Resilience Working Group
ERP Members
ABB
Arup
Atkins, member of SNC-Lavalin Group
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
EDF Energy
Environment Agency
Energy Systems Catapult
National Grid Electricity Transmission
National Infrastructure Commission
Welsh Government
Project Advisors
Energy Networks Association
Electricity North West Ltd
Northern Power Grid
Scottish Power Energy Networks
UK Power Networks
Scottish and Southern Electricity
University of Manchester
Hydrogen is already entering the energy system and appears to be a convincing pathway to decarbonise heat and transport. Its widespread use requires deliberate intervention, which includes a strategic, long-term plan to make hydrogen zero-carbon and to address challenges, including its impact on energy security.
The biggest challenges are where large volumes of hydrogen will come from and how to decarbonise it. The report highlights concerns around the associated costs and deliverability of the necessary steam methane reforming plant and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) infrastructure needed to handle the large volumes of CO2.
Natural gas will be used to produce a majority of the hydrogen, as it is cheaper than from electricity, but residual emissions from CCS and hydrocarbon extraction are significant and will need to be addressed. Surplus electricity from wind will produce only a small fraction of the hydrogen needed for heat: meeting this demand with electricity alone would require about 70 GW of additional nuclear capacity – seven times current capacity.
Replacing natural gas with hydrogen for heating will increase gas consumption and produce more CO2. Some of the increase could be offset by measures to reduce energy demand for heat. Blending into the gas supply provides little carbon reduction, even at high blends, and would be expensive, so switching has to be done by area and straight to 100% hydrogen.
Imports of natural gas mean most of the upstream emissions from extraction are likely to be outside the UK. This may be an issue for meeting global climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement.
Zero-carbon hydrogen could be imported from sunny regions, such as North Africa, using very-high temperature solar thermal. But these are unlikely to be available to meet early bulk demand.
Hydrogen is already playing a valuable, diffuse role in the energy system and helping to manage the electricity grid, fuel vehicle fleets and industry. These niche applications can develop without hydrogen from natural gas, but will benefit from removing regulatory and market barriers to help them become viable.
Recommendations
- Enable early, stand-alone, hydrogen technologies.
- Remove regulatory barriers to enable diffuse use of hydrogen.
- Plan for large-scale use of hydrogen to address carbon emissions and energy security implications. The following are needed if hydrogen is used widely in heat and transport:
- Long-term strategic plan for zero-carbon hydrogen.
- CCS built before 2030, to enable large-scale use of hydrogen.
- Assess energy security implications of import dependency.
- Insulate buildings to a high standard, to offset increases in gas consumption.
- Early engagement with publics will be essential.
- Evaluate need and locations of large-scale hydrogen storage.
- Clear signal to enable investment by developers and equipment providers.
- Robust understanding of safety, with meaningful regulation.
- Whole system approach to hydrogen, to evaluate potential in the energy system.
- Whole system, sustainability criteria should be used to evaluate the benefits
- Realise cross-sector benefits to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
- Support UK industry and expertise to capitalise on emerging global markets.
Show more
Follow-up activities
This report leads into ERP’s project on the transition to low-carbon heat.
Steering Group
- Prof Neville Jackson – Ricardo (Chair)
- Den Gamer – ETI
- Peter Bance – Origami Investments
The project consulted widely with industry and academia and draws on a large number of published reports and papers.
Further information
Please contact Richard Heap from the ERP Analysis Team.
Meeting the 2050 targets means the UK energy system will need to transition to low-carbon heat. Changes will be needed to how we heat our homes, buildings and industry. Supplying natural gas or oil directly into homes will need to be replaced by a decarbonised gas or by electric heating or heat network.
But it is not a simple choice: each option has challenges that could limit their deployment. A combination of options is likely to be required; no one option may not dominate, as natural gas currently does. Demand reduction will be an essential part of a cost-effective transition.
The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated. The social aspects are as challenging as the technical. The capital investment means the cost of heating will rise during the transition.
Timing is crucial. Preparations need to begin now, to inform the long investment cycles over the next 30 years.
Several low-carbon heating options need to be pursued in parallel now. Early in 2020s, critical actions and decisions will need to be taken, by Government, to avoid closing-off options, undermining their potential, or increasing their costs.
- Determining the extent to which hydrogen could be used to decarbonise the gas system, is critical. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will be essential.
- Government support for trials of key technologies is needed now.
- No and low-regrets options should be supported now.
- High efficiency standards for new-buildings need to be set and enforced.
- A robust retrofit energy efficiency programme for existing buildings.
Addressing the social aspects of the transition needs to be a priority and requires early engagement with the public, alongside the development and coordination of financial policies, incentives, regulations and business models.
- Engagement with the public will be crucial and needs to start now.
- A new narrative for heating and hot water, to recognise that costs will increase.
- Energy efficiency should be pursued to reduce the costs.
- Decide how to address the distributional impacts.
- Prioritise new financing mechanisms and market structures.
A long-term strategy to manage the transition, which engages with the public and coordinates the diverse range of parties, with a clear decision-making framework.
- Integrate decisions on heat with transport, industry and power generation.
- A heat delivery body to facilitate national, local and commercial decision making.
- Early engagement with the public will be crucial – as will a clear narrative
Project Events
The project’s report was launched at an event in October 2017. For more information, please contact Richard Heap.
A workshop on 18 July 2017 tested the analysis on the deployment potential and challenges of the various low-carbon heating options. Details of the workshop can be found here.
January 2017 ERP convened an industry workshop to explore the challenges of deploying heat pumps (see project outputs for a note of the meeting).
The low-carbon heat project was launched in October 2016 (more information is available on the event page).
Steering Group
- Carl Arntzen, Bosch Thermotechology (Steering Group Chair)
- Chris Jofeh, ARUP
- Steven Cowan, Atkins
- Olivia Absalom & Andy Davey, BEIS (observer)
- Joe Cosier & Simon Messenger, Energy Saving Trust
- Jeff Douglas, Energy Systems Catapult
- Sarah Deasley, Frontier Economics
- Mark Thompson, Innovate UK
- Janet Mather, National Grid, Gas SO
- Rufus Ford, SSE (seconded to BEIS)
- Kathleen Robertson, Scottish Government
- Keith MacLean, Independent / UKERC
- Ron Loveland, Welsh Government
- Amber Sharick, UKERC
Additional Sponsors
We would like to thank the following organisations for providing additional funding that allowed the project to run to completion. They also provided additional technical input and advice.
Bosch
Energy Saving Trust
Innovate UK
Cadent
Energy & Utilities Alliance EUA
BEIS
SGN
Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers IGEM
Following the recommendation in ERP’s Nuclear Fission Report in 2010, a project was set up to consider what such a roadmap might look like. Funded by the EPSRC, ETI and the NDA with support from the National Nuclear Laboratory and the ERP, the Nuclear Technology RD&D Roadmap report provides a strategic outline of the issues that need to be addressed in developing a roadmap for nuclear R&D in the UK.
Background
Considerable effort is being put into opening the way for new nuclear power stations in the UK to replace existing capacity by 2025. However, many energy scenarios for a secure, low carbon energy system indicate that nuclear power may have to play a much greater role by 2050. Delivering such an expanded fleet is not a matter of doing more of the same, but requires a long-term strategic approach focused on ensuring a secure supply of fuel and managing the additional waste arisings as well as maximising opportunities for the UK supply chain.
One of the main recommendations of ERP’s report on Nuclear Fission in September 2010 was the need to develop a long-term strategy for nuclear energy in the UK and to develop a roadmap for the R&D to deliver it. In early 2011 a consortium of the EPSRC, Energy Technologies Institute, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and ERP came together to consider what such a roadmap might look like.
The project consulted widely with industry, academia, regulators and other key stakeholders. It explored many of the issues that an R&D roadmap should include and we see it as providing a valuable framework for subsequent work.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Published in February 2012 the UK Nuclear Fission Technology Roadmap: Preliminary Report highlights the range of technology pathways that could be deployed, each with significantly differing R&D requirements and opportunities for the development of UK industry and supply chain. Keeping these options open requires investing in R&D many years in advance. Any delays risk closing off options unnecessarily, which might prove costly to rectify in the future.
Drawing on two possible scenarios of how nuclear generation might develop in the UK the report highlights a number of significant issues that need to be addressed in the next five years, not only for the current replacement programme but for any expansion of nuclear capacity. The report recommends:
- Further detailed assessments are needed to understand the issues identified in the report and to realise the potential opportunities for UK industry.
- The UK Government needs to develop a clearly defined long-term nuclear energy and industrial strategy and an R&D Roadmap for the nuclear sector.
- An R&D co-ordinating body should be formed that includes Government, industry, NNL, NDA, regulators, academia and research funders, to own, develop and advise Government on a long-term nuclear R&D strategy and roadmap, in order to underpin realisation of the commercial opportunities and to direct the underpinning programme of R&D, in part through international collaboration.
The NNL was commissioned by the project consortium to undertake and manage the work. The project was overseen by a Steering Group chaired by Dame Sue Ion, ERP member. A full list of Steering Group members and those that were consulted during the project can be found here.
Follow Up Activities
The report helped inform the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor review of the civil nuclear R&D landscape in the UK, which was published in March 2013. ERP were represented on the Review’s Advisory Board.
Further Information
Please contact Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team for further information on this project.
Nuclear Fission Report
In September 2010 ERP published a report on nuclear fission that took a long-term view of nuclear as an energy source, looking at future fuel cycles, capacity and responsiveness as well as recognising security and proliferation issues.
The subsequent report UK Nuclear Fission Technology Roadmap: Preliminary Report, published in February 2012, identified the issues that a nuclear R&D roadmap should consider.
Background
At the time the proposals for nuclear generation in the UK were for a new build programme of up to 16 GW of capacity by 2025, to replace the current capacity. Over the next decade and a half, all but one of the current reactors will be closed down and decommissioned. Beyond that the UK had not set out any plans for how nuclear power will develop.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The ERP report concluded that a long-term strategy was needed for the development of nuclear power in the UK, combined with a detailed R&D roadmap. The report recommended that this should happen as a matter of urgency to inform decisions about R&D and to avoid the risk of the UK losing its world renowned expertise in reprocessing and recycling technologies. It identified key issues that needed to be considered in developing the roadmap. These included:
- The long term role of nuclear generation in the UK and the potential need to develop new fuel-cycle and reprocessing technologies.
- Capitalising on the growing international deployment of nuclear fission: Selling fuel-cycle technologies and services into the international market, developing an industrial base and contributing to the development of key technologies.
- Defining the UK’s role in non-proliferation debates which will require supporting RD&D to inform positions and support international developments.
The report noted there is a strong business case for a healthy and vibrant research base in the UK that would support the national nuclear programme and provide the necessary skills, but would also provide benefit from exploiting the growing global market.
Follow up activities
Following publication of the ERP report a project was set up in early 2011 to consider what such a roadmap might look like. Funded by the EPSRC, Energy Technologies Institute and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority with support from the National Nuclear Laboratory and the ERP, the report provides a strategic outline of the issues that need to be addressed in developing a roadmap for nuclear research and development in the UK. The project engaged widely with industry, academia and regulators.
The report was published in February 2012.
ERP’s report and some of its Members provided evidence for the House of Lords Inquiry into Nuclear Research and Development Capabilities. Published in November 2011 the report called for a nuclear R&D roadmap.
Since then the Government asked the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor to lead a review of the current nuclear R&D landscape in the UK. Launched in April 2012 it will report later in the year. ERP are represented on the Review’s Advisory Board.
Steering Group
ERP’s 2010 report was prepared by Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team with input from ERP Members and their organisations.
Project chair
- Sue Ion – Royal Academy of Engineering
Steering Group Members
- Doosan Power Systems
- E.ON
- SSE
- DECC
- EPSRC
The views are not the official point of view of any of these organisations or individuals and do not constitute government policy.
Further Information
Further information from Richard Heap in the ERP Analysis Team.
Other Relevant Links
The Energy Research Partnership has published the ‘Bio-energy Technologies Review’ in two separate but related reports. The first report, targeted at senior level executives and policy makers, was released in June 2011. The second report was more technical and served as a compendium of evidence to validate the recommendations made in the first report was released in October 2011.
The review identifies the opportunities from, and addresses the challenges to, further development of bio-energy technologies by 2050. It makes recommendations about UK bio-energy in 3 areas: The management of the UK support for bio-energy, focus of UK research on bio-energy technologies and support for development and deployment of bio-energy.
Background
Recent assessments of the UK energy system to 2050 have shown that in order to attain 80% GHG emissions reductions, bioenergy will need to play a key role. There is substantial potential for the UK to develop a reliable, sustainable and economic domestic biomass to bioenergy value chain. However, there are uncertainties as to the role that bioenergy will play in the energy system and gaps in our understanding as to how to produce biomass and deploy bioenergy technologies at scale; these issues need to be addressed.
Show more
Conclusions and recommendations
Management of the UK support for bio-energy
- Substantial benefits would flow from a co-ordinated ongoing, integrated bio-energy strategy involving all government departments and executive agencies concerned with the sector.
- This should be facilitated by the Department of Energy and Climate Change which should be recognised as the department responsible for leading the development and implementation of the strategy.
- There should be clear identification of roles for respective government departments in the UK bio-energy value chain and increased specialist bio-energy capacity within each department.
Focus of UK research on bio-energy technologies
- There should be continued support for research in a number of existing areas that will underpin the successful development and deployment of bio-energy, such as plant science, applied agronomy and conversion technologies.
- Exploratory work in a number of new areas, should be subject to ongoing review, including:
- use of algae within a wider research remit of which a component should be for energy;
- bio-energy with CO2 capture and storage;
- the potential for liquid “drop-in” bio-fuels that could be substituted for conventional fuels; and
- investigation of the opportunities for development of large scale bio-refineries.
Support for development and deployment of bio-energy
- Better global information on land use, and understanding of how to optimise the use of available land to produce food, fibre and energy in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
- More work should be done with other countries through collaborative research programmes, which would allow the UK to benefit from advances elsewhere.
- The development of extension services for the education of farmers on sustainable farming practices.
- Re-consider EU GMO policy with the need for public engagement.
Support along whole of the UK bio-energy supply chain to minimise financial risk (from farmer to end-user).
Follow-up activities
The ERP sought to follow up on the key recommendation that ‘There is an urgent need for of strategic oversight, policy alignment and coherence of the components involved in the UK bioenergy sector. Without this the UK risks missing the opportunity to optimise the contribution of bioenergy in the energy system for pathways to 2050.’
To this end, the ERP sponsor undertook meetings with Bernie Bulkin (ORED) and David MacKay (CSA to DECC) to further this and other recommendations in the ERP review, and Steering Group members also met with the Climate Change Committee (CCC). A discussion paper was also produced in response to the CCC Bio-energy Review released in December 2011.
Key outcome from engagement activity was the development of the cross-departmental working group on bioenergy.
Working Group
Project Sponsor – Dr Graeme Sweeney, Executive Vice President CO2, Shell International
Dr Rebecca Heaton – Shell International
Dr David Penfold – The Carbon Trust
Marcus Stewart – National Grid
Dr Robert Sorrell – BP
Charles Carey – Scottish and Southern Energy
Dr Susan Weatherstone – E.ON
Duncan Eggar – BBSRC
Thanks to the contributions of Professor Robert Lee (Shell International) and Steven Vallender (National Grid)
