Powering the Future Summary Report - Parsons Brinckerhoff

Powering the Future Summary Report
Powering the Future Summary Report
Figure 18 shows beyond doubt that the impact of
conversion to electric vehicles is such that high priority
should be given to converting the maximum number
of vehicles by 2050, despite the increase in electricity
consumption.
The major impact of improved energy efficiency
in industry is also highlighted. The task of halving
energy consumption while maintaining economic
growth, combined with the diverse nature of industry,
means that substantial change in this sector is likely to
require more than complex market incentives. Since
the reference scenario assumes that the maximum
improvements are achieved in every sector, there are
no effective alternatives in any sector to compensate
for failure to achieve the necessary improvement
in industry. Such a failure would result in the 2050
commitment level being radically exceeded.
The analysis demonstrates the significance of a
group of measures of similar importance: renewable
heat, building insulation, and CCS. Together, these
measures represent close to 100% of the carbon
emissions reduction commitment and are therefore
critical to achieving it.
Renewable heat, ie the use of biomass and solar
energy for heating, is a recently identified element of
government strategy. The importance of this measure
is demonstrated here and is found to be strongly
dependent on the effective use of our limited biomass
fuel resources. These resources should be directed
towards heating and CHP applications which make
maximum use of the available renewable energy.
Radical improvement in the level of insulation of
existing homes and business premises can be seen to
be very important. The necessary level of improvement
is demanding and will require technical, economic
and social support to ensure that effective measures
are applied progressively to a very high proportion of
existing buildings in the period to 2050.
CCS technology has the potential to cut CO 2
emissions in both the industry and electricity sectors.
It is important that the current programme to apply
the technology to power generation is extended to
industrial processes. Appropriate support should
be given to ensure that the capture of unavoidable
carbon emissions from key industrial processes
does not make it uneconomic for them to operate
in the UK. The alternative – effectively forcing these
processes offshore to locations which allow a more
limited abatement of CO 2 emissions – will be entirely
counterproductive from the perspective of climate
change.
Taken separately, the nuclear programme, PV
generation and wind have a relatively low value
as CO 2 emission reduction measures. This
counterintuitive result is a consequence of the similarity
in CO 2 emissions of this group of power generation
technologies. Thus, for example, a reduced wind
contribution can be compensated by an increased
application of nuclear generation, or vice versa, with
little change in CO 2 emissions. This result means that,
from a CO 2 emission perspective, these measures
are valid alternatives and that the choice or balance
between them needs to be made on other grounds
such as cost, fuel availability, and reliability and security
of electricity supply. In fact, the collective contribution of
these measures is essential, offering over 100 MtCO 2 /yr
reduction in electricity sector emissions.
The small value for large-scale CHP is somewhat
unexpected. It reflects the fact that the value of gasfuelled
CHP as a CO 2 reduction measure declines
once the carbon intensity of electricity produced in
the electricity sector is radically reduced by 2050. The
review of the results for 2020 in figure 19 enables CHP
to be placed in a proper perspective.
Figure 18 also provides a yardstick for the various
measures in the form of a sensitivity comparison for
a 1% increase in average economic growth rate.
The sensitivity of outcome to economic growth rate
suggests that the level of application of measures is
likely to require adjustment during the period to correct
for changes in economic growth rate.
The 2020 situation
The scenario analysis enables the value of measures
to be assessed at different dates during the period
to 2050. Figure 19 shows the calculated value of the
measures in 2020. Clearly their overall impact is lower,
because of the practical rates of implementation of the
measures assumed by our model.
A surprising result is that the value of building insulation
in 2020 is comparable to its value in 2050, showing
that this measure should be applied vigorously from
the outset. The value of efficiency improvements
in industry and the introduction of electricity to road
transport are also seen to be high, deserving early and
intensive work in their respective sectors.
Industrial CHP has a significant and positive value in
2020 which actually continues to increase until about
2030. At this point the declining carbon intensity of
production in the electricity sector generally starts to
reduce the value of the measure to overall carbon
emissions. This indicates that application of CHP in
industry before 2025 is likely to be a valuable measure,
whereas its later application is unlikely to contribute
useful CO 2 reductions during the life of the equipment.
In 2020, large-scale wind generation can be seen to
have CO 2 benefits comparable to those for renewable
heat. However the large scale of implementation
of wind is accompanied by the intermittency issues
discussed earlier, requiring substantial additional
fast-response balancing facilities to enable the stable
operation of the grid. Greater long-term benefits
in terms of CO 2 emissions are seen to derive from
renewable heat rather than the early application of
large-scale wind generation.
Figure 19 Value of measures to 2020 CO 2 emission reductions
Other measures including CCS, solar PV and new
nuclear generation all offer limited benefits in 2020 as
their scale of penetration is too limited to contribute
significantly to CO 2 reduction.
The contrast between the results for 2020 and 2050
highlights the serious risk that early short-term
technology policy decisions may have unintended and
negative effects on the UK’s total CO 2 emissions in
the longer term. It is essential that policies promoting
particular measures are prepared in the light of
longer-term strategy. In this way, opportunities for
carbon reduction are exploited without blocking
the future application of technologies which offer
greater long-term reductions. Failure to coordinate
strategy within and across the different sectors risks
creating stranded assets and wasted resources.
This reduces the likelihood of the UK achieving its
challenging commitments, relinquishing the potential
for international leadership and weakening the
international drive to limit the damage caused by
climate change.
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