UK renewable energy production falls for second time in 2010
September 30, 2010 by drjohnmcgowan
Filed under Green Energy
Department of Energy and Climate Change says lower wind speeds and rainfall led to 12% drop between April and June
The UK has suffered a second fall in renewable energy production this year, raising concern about the more than £1bn support the industry receives each year from taxpayers.
The drop in electricity generated from wind, hydro and other clean sources in the first half of 2010 could also be a setback to the coalition government’s promise that the UK could help lead a “third industrial revolution” and create a low-carbon economy.
The DECC today said lower than expected wind speeds and rainfall led to a 12% fall in renewable electricity generated between April and June, compared to the same period in 2009. This setback follows a smaller but still notable decline between January and March, again compared to last year.
With a sharp drop in output from nuclear power stations as well, greenhouse gas emissions from each unit of electricity generated will inevitably have risen, at a time when the UK has pledged to cut such pollution, and is pressing other countries to do the same.
The renewable energy figures are likely to prompt criticism of the government’s energy policies from all sides. Supporters want ministers to increase funding for green industry so more wind farms are built, reducing the risk of seasonal set backs; critics will say the government should instead increase support for energy efficiency, nuclear power or cleaner forms of burning fossil fuels.
With speculation mounting that the government is considering cutting the feed-in tariff subsidy for small-scale renewable equipment, 69 industry figures and other experts will tomorrow publish an open letter to the government warning such a move would “shatter” confidence and put future investment “in mortal peril”.
However, Robert Gross, director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College London, said it was too soon to react to the drops in renewables, pointing out that other electricity sources were also vulnerable to short-term problems, such as fluctuations in supply and prices of fossil fuels and technology shutdowns at nuclear reactors. Risks were not likely to arise until renewable sources made up more than 25-35% of electricity supply, when the UK would need back up from one or more of the several options: new gas plants, better connections to mainland Europe, better demand management so more electricity was used at off-peak times, and better technology to store surplus energy for peak times, said Gross.
The DECC also suggested the government was not yet planning to change its policies, which included direct support of £265m from 2000-2009, and about £1bn indirect subsidies for large installations through ‘renewable obligation certificates’ in 2008-9.
“Wind energy is home-grown, low-carbon and adds diversity to our energy mix,” said a department statement. “The intermittent nature of wind means that we do need alternative back-up generation, for when wind speeds drop. But for most of the time it will be possible to generate significant amounts of electricity from wind, thereby reducing the amount of fossil fuels we need to consume.”
The latest energy statistics for the second quarter of 2010 show total energy production in the UK was 9.2% lower than the same period last year, while final energy consumption was 1.8% higher. Among the different fuels, output from oil and coal fell, while only gas increased its output, by 7.1%. It was a similar picture for electricity alone: coal power stayed steady at about 23% of electricity supplied, nuclear output fell by 23% to 15.8%, and gas production rose by more than 10% to over half of all electricity.
Chris Huhne, the climate secretary, repeatedly chastised the previous government for putting the UK in 25th place among the 27 European Union countries for renewable energy, a ranking based on 2008 figures.
However, last week RenewableUK, the industry lobby group, said the UK was “on course” to meet its commitment to reach 15% of all energy – including at least 30% of electricity – from renewable sources by 2020.
Responding to today’s figures, a spokesman for the group said: “Clearly we need to deploy more renewable devices if we expect to get more in the energy mix. Hydro and wind power will vary from year to year, as do other technologies, but we know that they can and do contribute significant amounts of electricity.
“Hydro is one the world’s oldest and most widespread energy technologies, and wind power has shown its mettle across Europe. If we don’t write off nuclear energy on the basis of [its latest] fall, why would we write off hydro, or even wind, which is now the UK’s largest source of renewable energy?”
Louise Hutchins, climate campaigner for Greenpeace, said: “At the moment it [renewable energy] is a very small share in electricity and small fluctuations in weather can have an impact on the percentage of supply. When we have a lot more renewable energy there will be a lot more stability.”
UK’s nuclear reactor programme falls behind as designs await safety approval
August 25, 2010 by drjohnmcgowan
Filed under Green Energy
Regulator and builders blame each other for construction hold-up as designs await approval
The schedule for the UK’s nuclear reactor building programme has slipped behind already, the safety regulator has admitted, reinforcing concerns that the first reactor will not be built on time.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it would probably have to issue an “interim” decision on the safety of the two new proposed reactor designs next June, the deadline for its assessment programme. The regulator expects significant chunks of extra work will remain before it can finally approve or reject the designs, but did not say how long this would take.
Kevin Allars, director of the assessment programme at the HSE, said that companies could continue planning and carry out preparatory construction on proposed nuclear sites while they waited for a final decision. But he insisted that construction of a reactor could not start without its consent.
Allars promised there would be no repeat of the chaotic construction in Finland of what was supposed to be Europe’s first new reactor in decades. The Areva plant is more than three years behind schedule and more than €2bn (£1.6bn) over budget, with the Finnish regulator trying to approve each component of the design while it is being built. EDF has promised that the UK’s first reactor will be operational in 2018, although it had originally said it would be running by the end of 2017.
The HSE said the companies behind the designs – French consortium Areva, EDF and US firm Westinghouse – had been repeatedly submitting information which was incomplete and late.
In turn, the companies are blaming the regulator for not having sufficient resources to carry out the work. The Guardian revealed last year that the arm of the HSE which was carrying out the work – the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) – had been forced to hire more than a dozen project managers, even though they work for the companies hoping to build the designs under review.
In its quarterly update on the assessment programme, the HSE admitted that this risk of a conflict of interest was a “factor of increasing significance” which it said it would “continue to monitor closely”.
Westinghouse, which has put forward its AP1000 reactor design, comes in for particularly harsh criticism. Allars said of the company: “It’s very frustrating. We get a load [of work] in late and then we do not get what we were promised or of the quality we were promised. If this carries on they won’t get a design acceptance.”
The HSE has already raised a red flag over Westinghouse’s civil engineering plans for key structures making up the reactor core, which the regulator says are not sufficiently robust. The company was supposed to carry out further analysis by the end of June, but most of this has been delayed, while what had been done “fell significantly short of what we expected”.
“Significant issues” are also flagged for Westinghouse’s planned control and instrumentation systems to operate the reactor. The company missed a June deadline to provide information on reactor chemistry, “which does not help our confidence that Westinghouse will meet future delivery dates”, said the HSE.
A Westinghouse spokesman said: “We accept that some of our input in one or two areas has not met the regulator’s expectations.”
A Greenpeace spokesman said: “The generic design assessment [GDA] process has already unearthed a string of nasty surprises within the new nuclear reactors’ designs. But now we find out GDA won’t even be able to give a final green light to the reactor designs. This means we could be faced with the farcical situation where the government is letting utilities press ahead with building work for reactors that haven’t been given safety approval.”