Decision time on energy for the Coalition

Energy is precious – surely? The UK faces a decline in gas and oil output from the North Sea and for the first time in decades is importing the bulk of its fossil fuels. Despite long-term subsidy, renewable energy only satisfies a tiny part of the energy demands of the UK.

So, you would think we would be using our precious energy stocks efficiently, would you not? Everyone knows that our buildings are draughty and expensive to heat – but did you know how inefficient our electricity supply system is? Do you know how much energy is thrown away before it reaches you? 10 percent? 30 percent? 50 percent? According to Greenpeace, on average, our large power stations throw away two-thirds of the energy they consume.

Although some energy is inevitably lost in transporting electricity to the homes and businesses where it is needed, the vast majority of this energy is thrown away in the form of waste heat. The energy wasted in our power stations is about the same amount that is required to heat all our buildings in the UK.

So how did we get here, and why aren’t we doing something about it?

Battersea Power StationWe are here because of decisions made in the middle of the last century. Before then, electricity and gas used to be supplied by local companies – many of them owned by local authorities. Power stations were close to towns or in cities. Battersea power station and its contemporary, Bankside – the present home of the Tate Modern – are examples. The 1945 Labour government nationalised the coal, electricity and gas industries. UK power and gas mostly came from coal – one nationalised industry selling product to another at the lowest cost possible.

In the 1950s air pollution reached unacceptable levels. Cities heated and powered by coal had always been dirty, but the sudden growth of motor vehicle traffic post-war and the resultant smog made the fatalities politically unacceptable. With the inexorable rise of motor transport the easiest and most politically-acceptable way to tackle this environmental threat was to move the state-owned power stations out to the coal fields and transport the electricity hundreds of miles to the cities via wires. Our present “national grid” is largely the result of that state investment in the 1950s.

What was result? Although our cities became cleaner it only shifted the pollution elsewhere – the taller smokestacks of the larger power stations dumped the sulphur higher in the atmosphere so it came down in Scandinavia and Germany as acid rain.

And economically? It was a system that could only work on cheap fuel – coal or later, subsidised nuclear power, and later still, North Sea gas.

One of the consequences of moving the power stations out of the cities is that the waste heat could no longer be used. In its day, Battersea power station was one of the most efficient in the world – the energy from its “waste” heat was piped under the Thames to the Pimlico council estate opposite to provide residents with heating and hot water.

Privatisation did not change the physical structure of the industries from which we get our heat and power. If anything, the focus on driving cost out of the newly-privatised businesses reduced scope for investment and effectively fossilised the system of the 1950s.

So what now? As we focus on the period to 2050, it is apparent that much of our energy infrastructure is coming to the end of its life. North Sea gas production is in decline, with much of our supply now sourced from the Middle East and elsewhere. With little track record in developing renewable energies, the UK now has a mountain to climb in meeting its share of the EU’s renewable energy targets.

This is why it is decision time on energy for the Coalition. The system we have today is the product of the geographical, environmental, and political factors of the 1950s. But today’s factors are radically different – and prompt a radical reappraisal. It means a local, decentralised and responsive energy supply. It means communities – once again – having responsibility for their heat and power. It means a return to efficiency and husbandry of resources. And it’s green. It’s community energy.

In contrast to the current fixation with electricity in today’s energy debate, a large part of the solution is to be found in our approach to heat. Heating accounts for nearly half (47% in 2005) of the nation’s carbon emissions and is well over a third (40%) of our energy consumption. Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Surrey have researched delivery of heat in energy scenarios up to 2050. The work was commissioned by the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA), but the study is an independent piece of academic work.

The report proposes smarter deployment of biomass and fossil fuel power stations, future-proofed to be carbon capture and storage (CCS) when the technology is available. These must be in locations where their heat output can also be put to use. A system using cogeneration (CHP) plant and associated district heating networks could deliver the 80% cut in CO2 emissions we need, whilst consuming less energy than a system based on today’s centralised technologies. The result is an energy system that is more efficient, more resilient and uses fewer resources. (By district heating networks, I mean modern Scandinavian style city-wide heat networks, rather than the single apartment block heating used in the UK, much of it a legacy of large-scale social housing built in the 1950s and 1960s and largely unmodernised since.)

Combine this with localised power generation from other renewable sources such as the wind and daylight, plus a “smart grid” more akin to the internet in flexibility, resilience and structure and an alternative to our present top down “centralised” system becomes a realistic possibility.

Critics point out this will cost money. But the reality is that we have been living off the energy investments of previous working generations and now it’s our turn. And the simple fact is that whichever path is chosen – centralised or decentralised – the costs will be significant. The responsibility that falls on the Coalition – particularly in this period of public deficit, is to start a change that will be ultimately cost-effective. This means choosing decentralised.

These are the steps to take: the present Feed-In Tariff, paid by a levy on electricity supply, needs extending to larger units, including CHP that provides the lowest-cost carbon savings available. This will correct for some of the recognised failures of the EU carbon trading scheme. The pending Renewable Heat Incentive, subject of some discussion within the Government, should fund only the most efficient and cost-effective technologies that really cut carbon use. The Green Deal – the centrepiece of this government’s plans to increase housing energy efficiency – should be set up to allow investment in district heating schemes.

It’s not often that ministers get an opportunity to shape the next 50 years, but this is what is on offer to Chris Huhne and his team at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Let’s hope they take it.

Ian Manders is Deputy Director of the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA). He was a Lib Dem councillor in Kingston upon Thames and has worked for the party in parliament and Cowley Street.

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10 Comments

  • Colin Green 7th Sep '10 - 4:30pm

    Power stations do produce a vast amount of high grade heat. The problem is what to do with it. Power stations are deliberately located away from people so how do you get the heat from where it is made to where it can be used? You could build power stations in the cities again but that would not be popular with local residents.

    Perhaps you could locate industries with high heat requirements next to power stations, except that power stations are switched off from time to time and industry generally wants energy on demand. You could counter this with a smaller plant on the site of the power station that generates hot water for those weeks of the year when the power station is closed for maintenance.

    Birmingham has an incinerator power station fuelled by the city’s refuse collections. It will produce waste heat like any other. How do you get this heat to the consumer? It would be a vast and expensive undertaking to pipe hot water to the surrounding houses. It would probably be worth it though, in reduced green house emissions in winter and reduced reliance on imported gas for domestic heating.

  • One of the problems with threads like this – interesting as they are – is they rapidly become readable only by anoraks (sorry, “people with specialised knowledge in the field”). Hence “FiT”, “DECC”, “RO’, “CHP”, OCGT”, “ETS” … the “TLA” generation on this topic is quite prodigious 😉

  • RO – renewables obligation
    OCGT – open-cycle gas turbine

    🙂

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