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The UK seems to import around 10% of its electrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United
by CalRobert 2y ago
The UK seems to import around 10% of its electrity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom
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Demand for electricity in 2023 was 29.6 GW on average (259 TWh over the year), supplied through 235 TWh of UK-based generation and 24 TWh of energy imports.[4]
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Hopefully this is paired with reduced coal burning in the places Britain relies on for power, and improvements in efficiency. The wastefulness of British houses is something to behold...
Of course, there's also the energy used to build things that Britain imports that used to be made domestically, not accounted for here.
Britain seems to be doing reasonably well w.r.t. energy imports though - https://www.statista.com/statistics/550304/electricity-imports-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/550304/electricity-impor...
From
https://www.statista.com/topics/4938/energy-imports-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/#topicOverview https://www.statista.com/topics/4938/energy-imports-in-the-u...
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Although historically relatively self-sufficient in covering domestic energy demand, the United Kingdom’s dependency on imports has increased in the past few decades. With oil and gas fields on the continental shelf depleting and the government phasing out coal, the country has grown increasingly reliant on supplies from other countries. Energy dependency reached its peak in 2013, at nearly 48 percent. Thanks in large part to growing capacity additions of wind power and a decline in primary energy consumption, the dependency rate had fallen to some 35 percent since. This is notably lower than the European Union average.
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- pjc50 2y ago> The wastefulness of British houses is something to behold... I'm reminded of how there was an "Insulate Britain" campaign group, using unpopular disruptive tactics; the outcome of that was the law changed and they got jailed for several years, and the British public could go back to not thinking about insulation again.
- stuaxo 2y agoWe have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe. There isn't much space inside for insulation, one solution is thin wall insulation. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975982/tiwi-summary-report.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- pjc50 2y ago> We have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe. Yeah. One of those complex issues that just keeps getting worse as you dig into it. I think people in the UK are much more conservative about historical preservation of ordinary houses, due to both percieved ugliness and build quality issues and also some genuine regressions of utility from, say, the days of the Parker-Morris standards.
- pm215 2y agoAlso we appear to be unable to build new houses at anywhere the rate needed to meet demand, so it's unsurprising that old houses are retained and that people are willing to live in houses with suboptimal energey efficiency...
- CalRobert 2y agoNot to mention horrendous draughtiness.
- smcl 2y agoWhich was a feature, given historical reliance on coal fires inside homes for heating.
- jibbit 2y agotbh it still is kind of a feature given that we (collectively) also don't really know how to ventilate old houses and many many who have tried to tackle the insulation problem live with terrible mould problems
- was_a_dev 2y agoIn the North East of England, theres a point where these houses aren't even worthwhile purchasing to rennovate. Houses can be purchases easily for £60k but require at least that to modernize. But while you've done well to purchase a house for £120k, it doesn't reflect in the local market. The solution would be to knock the house down and build a modern one on the reclaimed land. But you've just bought a mid-terrace, so that's out of the question.