There's easily enough renewable energy to meet Labour's clean energy target

But only if the Government issues enough generation contracts for wind and solar projects

Labour has promised to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2030. Many have expressed doubt that this is possible. However, if you add up the actual or likely output from schemes that are already generating, or could be generating by 2030 then the UK should meet this target. That is the UK will be generating, to the value of 100 percent of UK electricity consumption, what Labour is defining as ‘clean energy’. This, it should be pointed out, does not include Hinkley C which probably won’t be generating anything by 2030, or even the much-criticised Drax biomass power plants.

I stress I am talking about what is likely to happen, not some hopeful plans, and I shall explain my reasoning below. I am basing the analysis on the potential for renewable energy based on current Government contract issues and schemes that are in planning. I am sure these numbers can be boosted, but a problem here is that there may not going to be enough electricity demand. That is a consequence of there not being enough Government incentives to electrify heating and transport sectors to push along the decarbonisation process as fast as it ought to be going. In short, what we lack is not so much renewable energy but electricity demand that is increased by substituting electricity for fossil fuels.

Of course, I am, as part of this logic, assuming that Hinkley C will not come online before the end of 2030. It does not look likely that this would happen, especially as EDF themselves have discussed the eventuality! - See HERE.

It has to be stressed that acheiving the Government;’s ‘clean energy’ target will only happen if Labour issues enough contracts-for-differences (CfDs) to schemes in the next three ‘Allocation Rounds’ (ARs) of contracts. The results are soon to be announced for AR6. There has been much debate about whether enough contracts will be made available for offshore wind in particular. Certainly, on my calculations, 7GW of capacity need to be issued for offshore wind on each of the Allocation Rounds (AR6, 7 and 8) over the next three years (2024, 2025, 2026). There is around 47 GW of offshore wind either, operational, under construction, consented or seeking planning consent.

In addition over the next three years CfDs worth 2-3 GWs need to be issued each year for onshore wind and 3-4 GW for solar pv farms, again each year. In addition developing technologies such as geothermal, tidal stream and of course, as part of offshore wind, floating wind needs to be given much more support. Instead taxpayers money is going to be frittered away on small modular reactors. Later there will be a gigantic leakage of funds in the directon of Sizewell C.

Less attention (compared to offshore wind) has been paid to whether there will be enough contract issues for onshore wind and solar farms. This needs to be given a high priority. Apart from the consideration of simply getting the numbers together to reach a 2030 target the fact is that onshore wind and onshore solar are looking like cheaper prospects than offshore wind. Solar farms are becoming especially cheaper and likely to offer the lowest costs of all the electricity sources on offer.

What is for certain is that there are already sufficient operational wind and solar projects, awaiting construction, consented and also counting those with pending planning applications, to fill the targets. That is based on an analysis of the Government’s Renewable Energy Planning Database (see here) and also the Government’s annual Digest of UK Energy Statistics (see here). Some data needs interpreting eg the capacity factors of offshore windfarms are improving, with larger and larger turbines and more efficient operation and control, and also to a lesser extent with onshore wind (and also, in its way with solar pv farms).

I have excluded Hinkley C and also Drax from the analysis. Drax is by far the most expensive of the established large-scale renewable energy technologies, and its renewable status is under attack, see here. The summary of my analysis is here:

Table underpinning projection of 2030 electricity production

This outcome is displayed in the form of a pictorial chart below:

I am assuming that the only nuclear plant operating in 2030 is Sizewell B because the other old stations still operating are scheduled to close before then. There are possibilities that other renewable energy sources, such as geothermal, tidal stream and wave power could make a significant impact, but I am being conservative in leaving them out in considering what is likely to be happening by 2030.

I have assumed that 5 percent of total output will be generated by gas-powered sources to provide balancing for this mix which consists mostly of variable generation sources. This takes into account that analysis done for the Committee on Climate Change (see here page 56) which implied that 6 percent balancing gas would be required for a system otherwise based on variable sources. There is some non-variable power still in the system for 2030 (biomass, hydro, nuclear), so I assume that a little less than 6 percent will need to be provided by gas power.

It is theoretically possible for this balancing gas to be supplied in the form of hydrogen or methane ‘efuel’ to be produced from renewable energy. However there are no signs from Government policy that this will be achieved by 2030, so here it is assumed that the balancing gas will be conventional natural gas.

It can be seen from the Table above that solar pv is expanding fast, and the large bulk of the anticipated 40 GW of solar pv installed in 2030 will be solar farms. There are already over 32 GW of solar farms either installed, under construction, consented or applying for consent. In addition to this there are over 7 GW of rooftop solar - indeed the 40GW by 2030 total implied above may well prove to be an underestimate of the out-turn. So might the figure for onshore wind given that over 18 GW is already in operation and under construction, with another 5 GW having been consented and 3 GW seeking consent.

As can be seen in the Table, the total generation from this conservative estimate for renewable energy. Of course, a key fact underpinning this analysis is that the increases in UK electricity consumption will be modest by 2030. As discussed in my previous blog post, see HERE

You can see from the Table the (conservative) assessment of likely 2030 production exceeds likely electricity consumption without production from Drax and Hinkley C. This likely production consists of generation from wind and solar power, added to hydro and (non-Drax) biomass (mostly biogas, landfill gas, energy-from-waste), and residual nuclear power. The renewable production will almost exactly match likely electricity demand, with residual nuclear and gas production adding to this - thus necessitating net electricity exports. I project electricity production necessary to meet demand will be 304 TWh, but in fact in 2030, as projected in the Table above, electricity production from non-fossil sources will be around 311 TWh.

Of course, a key fact underpinning this analysis is that the increases in UK electricity consumption will be modest by 2030. As discussed in my previous blog post, see HERE. Electricity consumption in 2023 was around 285 TWh, a decline of 26 percent since 2005. It may be that with stabilising gas prices and some economic growth, electricity consumption will stop declining by 2030.

Added to that we can assume a modest addition through consumption through some switching to heat pumps and of course use of electric vehicles. However, I calculate (based on likely growth in heat pump deployment and take-up of EVs) that such additions are unlikely to add more than around 16TWh of electricity demand by 2030.

At the end of the day, however, this outcome depends on the issue of an increased quantity of CfDs compared to previous Allocation Rounds. We are suffering from the neglect of renewable energy and energy efficiency in recent years. Finally, and importantly, it is necessary to emphasise that insufficient attention is being paid to electrifying the economy so that renewable energy can substitute for fossil fuels used in heating, transport, and industry.