10 ms·

Britain’s electricity since 2010: fossil fuel use nearly halves

104 points by zeristor 6y ago

sleavey 6y ago
Are there plans to lay more underwater HVDC cables between the British Isles and the rest of Europe? This seems a no-brainer to allow everyone to take advantage of the UK's (mainly Scotland's) huge wind and wave power generation capabilities. Right now there are only a few interconnects [1] but when combined with the masses of hydro and wind power generation in Denmark and Scandinavia this could make the European grid robust while maintaining a high level of production from renewable sources. It's not just about selling your excess, but about being able to import it when needed too - everybody wins. [1] https://openinframap.org/#5/55.09/0.91/L,P https://openinframap.org/#5/55.09/0.91/L,P
- zeristor 6y ago
  Being able to import electricity depends on what has been decided in the Brexit agreement. Importing electricity is one option, although for a country the size of the UK it does depend a lot on importing electricity: https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB
  - bb123 6y ago
    Do you have a source for this? It’s my understanding that import/export of electricity to the continent happens today already and is important to regulating grid stability.
    - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
      You're right, it already happens and you can even see the current flows: https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/ The boxes starting with "IC" are inter-connections to other countries.
      - hanoz 6y ago
        3% solar and 4% wind right now. Seems a long way to go before these can get us through days like today.
        futevolei 6y ago
        < Second place now belongs to wind power, which supplied almost 21% of the country’s electrical demand in 2019 On the whole it seems like it doesn’t have that far to go
        emteycz 6y ago
        But looking at the whole is not nearly enough. I don't want my electricity turned off during winter.
        ben_w 6y ago
        Of course, but there has already been a massive change in a really short period, and maintaining the current rate of change is likely to make the UK CO2 emissions a non-issue over just the next decade or two.
        emteycz 6y ago
        I am not sure if maintaining the rate of change is possible. There was a lot of low hanging fruit that is being picked now, but the winter months are not easy to pick.
        ben_w 6y ago
        The current trend for declining cost/MWh for both green production of energy and battery storage of energy is why I am optimistic. It doesn’t look like we’ve reached the declining returns part of a logistic curve yet.
        futevolei 6y ago
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    Depending on importing electricity is the wrong phasing I think. Most of the electricity we import is due to French nuclear power overproduction, the marginal cost of producing more power is negligible so it's more economical for them to produce as much as they can sell at almost any price.
  - patrickk 6y ago
    There's already a planned 500km interconnector between Ireland and France[1], which avoids Brexit related risks. Since wind power is growing in importance in Ireland, it's a great chance to make the EU grid greener, and build out the idea of the EU super grid[2] concept. Ireland also has enormous offshore wind potential off the Atlantic coast, which could be built out and the energy exported to mainland Europe. However, let's hope that the UK can agree to a deal to fully develop the potential of the Dogger Bank project[3, 4] (collaboration between the British, Dutch, Germans and Danes to build the largest offshore wind project in the world). Another project I'd love to see is Iceland's geothermal energy piped through Ireland or the UK to mainland Europe[5], supplying crucial baseload energy to the UK, perhaps even to mainland Europe. [1] https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interconnector/the-project/ https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid [3] http://www.scottishenergynews.com/dutch-and-danish-grid-operators-to-build-man-made-energy-island-in-the-north-sea-to-supply-uk-and-eu-with-renewable-power-from-dogger-bank/ http://www.scottishenergynews.com/dutch-and-danish-grid-oper... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Wind_Power_Hub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Wind_Power_Hub [5] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain-idUSKBN17C17E https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain-id... [6] https://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/submarinecabletoeurope https://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/submarineca...
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  Yes. Apparently, a new interconnection with France has just been completed, and there are plans for connections to Norway and Denmark. https://www.nationalgrid.com/our-businesses/national-grid-ventures/interconnectors-connecting-cleaner-future https://www.nationalgrid.com/our-businesses/national-grid-ve...
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Right now, the interconnects are used to import power, so they're not a limiting factor for local production.
roenxi 6y ago
I was shocked when I looked at the UK's post-1950s coal production [0]. This may have been an anticipated outcome. It seems likely to me that GB will be worse off without coal than it was when it was burning coal. It'll be interesting to see what happens to their economy - if it can prosper with that sort of hit to primary energy then there will be a lesson to us all. But I reckon someone poor is going to be doing without. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/death-uk-coal https://ourworldindata.org/death-uk-coal
- jamescrowley 6y ago
  why do you think the UK will be worse off without coal?
  - roenxi 6y ago
    Their per-capita electricity demand is dropping off quite sharply, and their position relative to Europe is apparently quite low [0]. Those aren't small differences. Either they are giving up their industrial production capabilities or giving up on lifestyle choices. If I had to chop my electricity use by 10-20% I'd be pretty noticeably worse off. Maybe they've got some really impressive tech to maintain their lifestyles but the Occam's razor here is they're probably just going to be doing without and will likely lose industrial capability or see worse living conditions. [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-cons...
    - OJFord 6y ago
      That's not household usage though, it's total per capita. The UK is primarily a services economy, other European countries have more energy hungry industrial users.
    - Retric 6y ago
      TV’s, PC’s, and lightbulbs have gotten a lot more efficient over time. A 50 inch LED TV for example uses the same power as a 21 inch CRT. Even just looking back to Plasma TV’s and LED’s use 1/3 the power for the same size TV. That’s continued with many people using very low power tablets rather than laptops, desktops, or giant TV’s. For portable devices low power means longer battery life and less weight which has been constantly pushing demand lower.
zeristor 6y ago
No discussion of Biomass, there are straw burning plants, and native wood burners, but I imagine Drax converting from Coal to wood chips from the USA is an egregious case of greenwashing. Strange seeing a source of income in Farming Simulator 2019 being to cut silage to turn into biogas, I'm assuming to make electricity. How realistic is this?
- foepys 6y ago
  Very realistic. There are some biomass plants in Germany generating either electricity directly or gas to use in other places. They apparently aren't any more ecological than natural gas because the process generates large amounts of methane of which some is being released into the atmosphere due to the machines not being able to be 100% sealed. Also the land needed for the biomass to grow is enormous.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    > They apparently aren't any more ecological than natural gas because the process generates large amounts of methane I thought the problem with fossil fuels is that we're taking the carbon out of the ground instead of the air.
    - ant6n 6y ago
      If you turn CO2 in the air into methane in the air then you still have a problem, since methane is 40x as potent as a greenhouse gas.
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Yes but on the other hand CO2 stays in the atmosphere hundreds(thousands?) Of years while methane breaks down in just few years, no?
        phaemon 6y ago
        No, because it breaks down into CO2. Methane is 21x more potent than CO2 over a 100 year period, and 72x over a 20 year period. So, if you're concerned about what's happening now, that's the figure you need to consider.
inglor_cz 6y ago
The combination of a very windy, shallow North Sea, where wind turbines are productive most of the time, and the fact that large concentrations of people live in close proximity, gives British wind electricity quite a boost. It is a different story in Germany, where North Germany is, apart from Hamburg, thinly settled and connecting far-off places like Baden or Bavaria to the North Sea wind farms runs into tons of NIMBY initiatives.
- pydry 6y ago
  There's NIMBYism in the UK too. My local Tory MP managed to kill the offshore wind farm navitus bay you would have been barely able to see (12-15 miles offshore). Reference : https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/10/04/nyregion/wind600.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/10/04/nyregion/wind600.... He did it by collecting signatures from local business owners complaining it would "ruin the view". I think he may have been lobbying on behalf of incumbent utilities. He clearly wasn't doing this because of a few specks appearing on the horizon, but exploiting knee jerk NIMBYism over the view was how he got the project canceled.
  - specialist 6y ago
    New industries should factor extortion, hush money, bribes into their budgets, to buy off these gatekeepers.
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      New industries have the long term cost advantage, old industries the cash flow advantage, that's why the less corrupt places adopt new technologies first.
      - specialist 6y ago
        Sure. How long you willing to wait? Given the circumstances, I'm fine with cashing out all the mobsters.
JackPoach 6y ago
I think the biggest story here is UK electricity demand falling by 20% in short ten years. And this isn't a simple black/white, good or bad story. This is a clear sign of de-industrialization. It would be great if UK wind power would be so abundant and cheap, it flooded the entire EU with cheap clean electricity. Unfortunately, that's not the story either.
- Zenst 6y ago
  >I think the biggest story here is UK electricity demand falling by 20% in short ten years. And this isn't a simple black/white, good or bad story. This is a clear sign of de-industrialization. This is good look upon UK energy utilisation over the decades and clearly shows industry usage declined decades ago:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928350/2020_Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK__ECUK_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... I would also factor in efficiency usage of appliances and house insulation etc playing into that 20% factor more than most. Dare say lighting has seen a big reduction in electricity usage in that period due to LED's. > It would be great if UK wind power would be so abundant and cheap, it flooded the entire EU with cheap clean electricity. Looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Uni... The UK seems to be above average in wind electrical production. As for this flood of cheap and abundant electricity it produces, given https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... and what I know of how such large wind farms are financed. It does seem to be a common theme that wind production installation costs are subsidised by a level upon consumer energy costs. So with most wind energy production being cheap, at a level well removed from the consumer - yes, though at the consumer level - not so much as they are subsidising this transition drive. Not saying it is a bad thing, but the whole cheap and abundant aspect at a consumer level, does seem somewhat removed unless you have a large property with a wind turbine yourself getting a nice feed in tariff that is subsidised by everybody else to incentive green energy production. But the shift from coal is a good thing, though one area that I feel gets overlooked would be ships that use brown coal and the emissions they produce.
  - 6y ago
ThomPete 6y ago
Electricity is only 15-20% of a country's electricity. Add to that. In order to secure reliable energy, coal, oil, gas or nuclear are needed and because of the politically driven focus and preference of wind it make the energy net more expensive for the consumer. The general discussion about energy as we see here is extremely superficial.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Doh I meant electricity is only 15-20% of a country’s energy.
- dijksterhuis 6y ago
  > Electricity is only 15-20% of a country's electricity. Huh?

104 points by zeristor 6y ago

Are there plans to lay more underwater HVDC cables between the British Isles and the rest of Europe? This seems a no-brainer to allow everyone to take advantage of the UK's (mainly Scotland's) huge wind and wave power generation capabilities. Right now there are only a few interconnects [1] but when combined with the masses of hydro and wind power generation in Denmark and Scandinavia this could make the European grid robust while maintaining a high level of production from renewable sources. It's not just about selling your excess, but about being able to import it when needed too - everybody wins. [1] https://openinframap.org/#5/55.09/0.91/L,P https://openinframap.org/#5/55.09/0.91/L,P

zeristor 6y ago
Being able to import electricity depends on what has been decided in the Brexit agreement. Importing electricity is one option, although for a country the size of the UK it does depend a lot on importing electricity: https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB
- bb123 6y ago
  Do you have a source for this? It’s my understanding that import/export of electricity to the continent happens today already and is important to regulating grid stability.
  - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
    You're right, it already happens and you can even see the current flows: https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/ The boxes starting with "IC" are inter-connections to other countries.
    - hanoz 6y ago
      3% solar and 4% wind right now. Seems a long way to go before these can get us through days like today.
      - futevolei 6y ago
        < Second place now belongs to wind power, which supplied almost 21% of the country’s electrical demand in 2019 On the whole it seems like it doesn’t have that far to go
        emteycz 6y ago
        But looking at the whole is not nearly enough. I don't want my electricity turned off during winter.
        ben_w 6y ago
        Of course, but there has already been a massive change in a really short period, and maintaining the current rate of change is likely to make the UK CO2 emissions a non-issue over just the next decade or two.
        emteycz 6y ago
        I am not sure if maintaining the rate of change is possible. There was a lot of low hanging fruit that is being picked now, but the winter months are not easy to pick.
        ben_w 6y ago
        The current trend for declining cost/MWh for both green production of energy and battery storage of energy is why I am optimistic. It doesn’t look like we’ve reached the declining returns part of a logistic curve yet.
        futevolei 6y ago
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  Depending on importing electricity is the wrong phasing I think. Most of the electricity we import is due to French nuclear power overproduction, the marginal cost of producing more power is negligible so it's more economical for them to produce as much as they can sell at almost any price.
- patrickk 6y ago
  There's already a planned 500km interconnector between Ireland and France[1], which avoids Brexit related risks. Since wind power is growing in importance in Ireland, it's a great chance to make the EU grid greener, and build out the idea of the EU super grid[2] concept. Ireland also has enormous offshore wind potential off the Atlantic coast, which could be built out and the energy exported to mainland Europe. However, let's hope that the UK can agree to a deal to fully develop the potential of the Dogger Bank project[3, 4] (collaboration between the British, Dutch, Germans and Danes to build the largest offshore wind project in the world). Another project I'd love to see is Iceland's geothermal energy piped through Ireland or the UK to mainland Europe[5], supplying crucial baseload energy to the UK, perhaps even to mainland Europe. [1] https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interconnector/the-project/ https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid [3] http://www.scottishenergynews.com/dutch-and-danish-grid-operators-to-build-man-made-energy-island-in-the-north-sea-to-supply-uk-and-eu-with-renewable-power-from-dogger-bank/ http://www.scottishenergynews.com/dutch-and-danish-grid-oper... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Wind_Power_Hub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Wind_Power_Hub [5] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain-idUSKBN17C17E https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-energy-britain-id... [6] https://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/submarinecabletoeurope https://www.landsvirkjun.com/researchdevelopment/submarineca...
goodcanadian 6y ago
Yes. Apparently, a new interconnection with France has just been completed, and there are plans for connections to Norway and Denmark. https://www.nationalgrid.com/our-businesses/national-grid-ventures/interconnectors-connecting-cleaner-future https://www.nationalgrid.com/our-businesses/national-grid-ve...
LatteLazy 6y ago
Right now, the interconnects are used to import power, so they're not a limiting factor for local production.

roenxi 6y ago

I was shocked when I looked at the UK's post-1950s coal production [0]. This may have been an anticipated outcome. It seems likely to me that GB will be worse off without coal than it was when it was burning coal. It'll be interesting to see what happens to their economy - if it can prosper with that sort of hit to primary energy then there will be a lesson to us all. But I reckon someone poor is going to be doing without. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/death-uk-coal https://ourworldindata.org/death-uk-coal

jamescrowley 6y ago
why do you think the UK will be worse off without coal?
- roenxi 6y ago
  Their per-capita electricity demand is dropping off quite sharply, and their position relative to Europe is apparently quite low [0]. Those aren't small differences. Either they are giving up their industrial production capabilities or giving up on lifestyle choices. If I had to chop my electricity use by 10-20% I'd be pretty noticeably worse off. Maybe they've got some really impressive tech to maintain their lifestyles but the Occam's razor here is they're probably just going to be doing without and will likely lose industrial capability or see worse living conditions. [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-cons...
  - OJFord 6y ago
    That's not household usage though, it's total per capita. The UK is primarily a services economy, other European countries have more energy hungry industrial users.
  - Retric 6y ago
    TV’s, PC’s, and lightbulbs have gotten a lot more efficient over time. A 50 inch LED TV for example uses the same power as a 21 inch CRT. Even just looking back to Plasma TV’s and LED’s use 1/3 the power for the same size TV. That’s continued with many people using very low power tablets rather than laptops, desktops, or giant TV’s. For portable devices low power means longer battery life and less weight which has been constantly pushing demand lower.

zeristor 6y ago

No discussion of Biomass, there are straw burning plants, and native wood burners, but I imagine Drax converting from Coal to wood chips from the USA is an egregious case of greenwashing. Strange seeing a source of income in Farming Simulator 2019 being to cut silage to turn into biogas, I'm assuming to make electricity. How realistic is this?

foepys 6y ago
Very realistic. There are some biomass plants in Germany generating either electricity directly or gas to use in other places. They apparently aren't any more ecological than natural gas because the process generates large amounts of methane of which some is being released into the atmosphere due to the machines not being able to be 100% sealed. Also the land needed for the biomass to grow is enormous.
- emteycz 6y ago
  > They apparently aren't any more ecological than natural gas because the process generates large amounts of methane I thought the problem with fossil fuels is that we're taking the carbon out of the ground instead of the air.
  - ant6n 6y ago
    If you turn CO2 in the air into methane in the air then you still have a problem, since methane is 40x as potent as a greenhouse gas.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Yes but on the other hand CO2 stays in the atmosphere hundreds(thousands?) Of years while methane breaks down in just few years, no?
      - phaemon 6y ago
        No, because it breaks down into CO2. Methane is 21x more potent than CO2 over a 100 year period, and 72x over a 20 year period. So, if you're concerned about what's happening now, that's the figure you need to consider.

inglor_cz 6y ago

The combination of a very windy, shallow North Sea, where wind turbines are productive most of the time, and the fact that large concentrations of people live in close proximity, gives British wind electricity quite a boost. It is a different story in Germany, where North Germany is, apart from Hamburg, thinly settled and connecting far-off places like Baden or Bavaria to the North Sea wind farms runs into tons of NIMBY initiatives.

pydry 6y ago
There's NIMBYism in the UK too. My local Tory MP managed to kill the offshore wind farm navitus bay you would have been barely able to see (12-15 miles offshore). Reference : https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/10/04/nyregion/wind600.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/10/04/nyregion/wind600.... He did it by collecting signatures from local business owners complaining it would "ruin the view". I think he may have been lobbying on behalf of incumbent utilities. He clearly wasn't doing this because of a few specks appearing on the horizon, but exploiting knee jerk NIMBYism over the view was how he got the project canceled.
- specialist 6y ago
  New industries should factor extortion, hush money, bribes into their budgets, to buy off these gatekeepers.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    New industries have the long term cost advantage, old industries the cash flow advantage, that's why the less corrupt places adopt new technologies first.
    - specialist 6y ago
      Sure. How long you willing to wait? Given the circumstances, I'm fine with cashing out all the mobsters.

JackPoach 6y ago

I think the biggest story here is UK electricity demand falling by 20% in short ten years. And this isn't a simple black/white, good or bad story. This is a clear sign of de-industrialization. It would be great if UK wind power would be so abundant and cheap, it flooded the entire EU with cheap clean electricity. Unfortunately, that's not the story either.

Zenst 6y ago
>I think the biggest story here is UK electricity demand falling by 20% in short ten years. And this isn't a simple black/white, good or bad story. This is a clear sign of de-industrialization. This is good look upon UK energy utilisation over the decades and clearly shows industry usage declined decades ago:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928350/2020_Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK__ECUK_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... I would also factor in efficiency usage of appliances and house insulation etc playing into that 20% factor more than most. Dare say lighting has seen a big reduction in electricity usage in that period due to LED's. > It would be great if UK wind power would be so abundant and cheap, it flooded the entire EU with cheap clean electricity. Looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Uni... The UK seems to be above average in wind electrical production. As for this flood of cheap and abundant electricity it produces, given https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... and what I know of how such large wind farms are financed. It does seem to be a common theme that wind production installation costs are subsidised by a level upon consumer energy costs. So with most wind energy production being cheap, at a level well removed from the consumer - yes, though at the consumer level - not so much as they are subsidising this transition drive. Not saying it is a bad thing, but the whole cheap and abundant aspect at a consumer level, does seem somewhat removed unless you have a large property with a wind turbine yourself getting a nice feed in tariff that is subsidised by everybody else to incentive green energy production. But the shift from coal is a good thing, though one area that I feel gets overlooked would be ships that use brown coal and the emissions they produce.
- 6y ago

ThomPete 6y ago

Electricity is only 15-20% of a country's electricity. Add to that. In order to secure reliable energy, coal, oil, gas or nuclear are needed and because of the politically driven focus and preference of wind it make the energy net more expensive for the consumer. The general discussion about energy as we see here is extremely superficial.

ThomPete 6y ago
Doh I meant electricity is only 15-20% of a country’s energy.
dijksterhuis 6y ago
> Electricity is only 15-20% of a country's electricity. Huh?