Sir Donald Miller FREng , FRSE – Chairman Scottish Power 1982-92
Colin Gibson FIEE – Formerly Power Network Director, National Grid
Professor Michael Laughton FREng – Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of London.
The severity of the problems facing electricity supply in the coming years cannot be examined without reference to the pattern of electricity demand as well as the quantities and types of the different types of generating plant connected to the system. Therefore we consider it important to first assess the probable characteristics of the system in the relevant years.
Government targets for reducing CO2 emissions from the electricity system require that some 35% of electrical energy be generated from renewable sources by the year 2020. Some of this will be from other renewable sources, but the majority will be from wind.
However, there is a strong possibility that these targets will not be achieved in their entirety and we think it will be helpful to examine the Committee’s questions against the background of the most likely out-turns. National Grid, in their studies of future energy scenarios, examine four different balances and compositions of load and generation, dependent on factors such as economic growth, progress with renewables and energy savings as well as the adoption of new types of load such as electric cars, heat pumps etc. However, they do not ascribe probabilities to any of these scenarios so we have taken the simple average of the four to arrive at a scenario for the purpose of this submission. For comparison also shown in the table (see Appendix) are the comparable figures if Government targets for 2020 were fully met as also are the figures for year 2015/16 in view of the expected critical risk to electricity supplies in that year. The government target for installed wind capacity in 2020 is around 30GW.
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