Energy futures and the Renewable Energy Review (CCC)

Last monday (9th of May), the Climate Change Comittee (CCC) presented the Renewable Energy Review (see slides here ) which has been welcomed by the ETI and commented by professional press (here and there) or NGOs.

The review was commissioned by the Government, to advise on the role of renewable energy in UK energy consumption after 2020. Indeed, under the NREAP, (National Renewable Energy Action Plan to fulfil the EU Directive) renewable electricity generation will grow from 32TWh in 2010 to 117TWh in 2020, which would represent 31% of electricity demand.

The latest review of the CCC aims to look at role for renewables beyond 2020 in meeting the 2050 target to reduce carbon emissions by 80% on 1990 levels, available resource, and the speed of deployment. Therefore, this review builds on the Fourth carbon budget work looking to 2030 and beyond (to be released by the CCC in june 2011). Four specific papers have been commissioned on costs, discount rates used for low carbon technologies renewable heat and technical constraints.

Based on new technical and economic analysis, this Committee’s latest report recommended that renewables should make up 30-45% of the country’s energy by 2030, with wind and marine power leading the way. A specific chapter also deals with renewable heat.

In CLUES, we are quantifying the four scenarios that were developed in the Foresight Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment project (link to a presentation of SEMBE on Youtube, full archives from BIS ), and developing a shared understanding of how the energy system could evolve between now and 2050 at different scales - urban, regional and national.
This new review bringing up-to-date data and potentials and assessing key enabling factors is therefore of great interest and worth discussing the hypothesis and numbers.