By Susanna Twidale
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has no clear strategy on how it plans to meet a target of decarbonising its electricity system by 2035, risking efforts to boost energy security, the country’s climate change advisers said on Thursday.
Britain has a target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and is also seeking to improve its energy independence in the wake of record high energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, requiring a huge scale-up of renewable power generation such as wind and solar.
As a part of this goal it has set a target to decarbonise its electricity supplies by 2035 to reduce its reliance on imported gas.
“The Government has not yet provided a coherent strategy to achieve its goal nor provided essential details on how it will encourage the necessary investment and infrastructure to be deployed over the next 12 years”, a report by Britain’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said.
Reforms need to be made to the country’s systems for planning, consenting, and connecting new projects to the power grid to enable development to scale up and meet the target, the report said.
With swift reforms, the report reckons Britain could generate around 70% of its electricity from renewable sources with nuclear and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage making up around 20% by 2035.
The remaining supply could come from low-carbon back up generation like hydrogen powered turbines and some fossil fuel plants with carbon capture technology.
Just 2% of supply is expected to come from gas plants without carbon capture technology, which currently account for around 40% of the country’s electricity supply.
The CCC also warned Britain’s power systems are not adequately prepared for the risks climate change could pose to vital infrastructure and this should be factored in to new project development.
“If climate resilience is neglected in this investment, there is significant risk of locking in increased climate vulnerability or additional costs later on,” the report said.
Climate hazards for power systems could include increased storms or floods damaging infrastructure or possible changes in wind speeds impacting wind power generation, it added.
(Reporting By Susanna Twidale; Editing by Christina Fincher)
