Developing and Using Renewable Energy in the UK Society and Economy

1 The Grand Challenges in the UK: Developing and Using Renewable Energy in Society and Economy The world's population is increasing at an unprecedented rate; this has led to a dramatic increase in energy demand worldwide. Various countries around the world are facing the challenge of matching energy supply with the rapidly increasing demand. Today, fossil fuels are primarily being used in different parts of the world to meet this demand (1). The burning of fossil fuels for energy results in the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One significant challenge with carbon dioxide is that it contributes to global warming (2). Thus, countries like the United Kingdom are significantly encouraging the development and use of renewable energy sources because of the great benefits associated with it.

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2 Renewable energy is generated from such natural resources as wind, sunlight, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. Unlike fossil fuels (gas, coal, and oil), renewable energy is clean and will never be depleted. It does not pollute the earth or cause the adverse effects associated with climate change (3). Renewable energy is versatile and adaptable. It can meet large cities' needs on the grid or even remote villages with no connection to mains electricity. Renewable energy sources can also be developed next to the places where the power is actually required (3).

The UK is one of the world's countries that can produce and use renewable energy for its industries, businesses, and households. Its islands, characterized by waves and wind, provide the best opportunities that can be explored for maximum renewable energy generation. Solar energy can also be generated through solar panels, which can produce power even during cloudy days.

According to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the UK already has very high public support for renewables as shown in the figure below,

Figure 1: UK’s public support for renewable over 2012 to 2019

3 Source: BEIS The Population of the United Kingdom will significantly benefit from the successful development and use of renewable energy sources in various ways.

Benefits Derived from the Use of Renewable Energy There are many benefits associated with the use of renewable energy over fossil fuels.

Some of the benefits derived from the use of renewable energy in the society and economy of the UK include: a) Renewable energy cannot run out.

Renewable energy cannot be depleted. Renewable energy technologies utilize resources from the environment for power or energy generation. Some of the most popular resources harnessed from the environment for power production include tides, wind, sunshine, and biomass. Unlike many types of fossil fuels, renewable energy will not run out. As we continue to rely on fossil fuel resources, they will rapidly become scarce hence difficult to obtain, thus pushing up their cost and also their impact on the environment as they are being extracted. b) Low maintenance requirements Unlike generators that rely on traditional fuel sources, renewable energy technologies generally demand less overall maintenance. This is primarily because renewable energy technologies like wind turbines or solar panels are not reliant on flammable fuel sources to work.

They also have few or no moving parts that require to be maintained every time. Less maintenance needs result in more money and time saved. c) Saves money Using renewable energy sources can help individuals, businesses, and industries to save money in the long term. By going green, such institutions will significantly save on both their

4 operating and maintenance costs. There will be no need for them to pay to refuel if they adopt a technology that produces power from steam, wind, sun, or other natural processes. The amount of money an individual, business, or industry will save by using renewable energy is influenced by various factors, including the technology being used. In general, shifting to renewable energy sources results in anywhere around hundreds and thousands of money in savings. d) Lower reliance on foreign energy sources Renewable energy technologies help in the production of energy locally. The more renewable energy households, businesses, and industries use for their energy requirements, the less they will depend on imported energy and thus contribute to the country's energy independence as they save the world from global warming primarily caused by the use of fossil fuels. e) Health and environmental benefits The technologies used for the generation of renewable energy cause little to no emission of pollutants or greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This translates to a smaller carbon footprint and a favorable impact on the natural environment. For instance, it is estimated that a household in the country emits close to 20 metric tons of carbon pollution every twelve months (5). A typical household can reduce its carbon emissions by approximately three to four tones each year by installing renewable energy technologies as a solar power system.

Fossil fuels release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during their combustion process. The greenhouse gases emitted have aggravated the frequency of extreme weather events and the increase in global temperatures. Besides emitting dangerous greenhouse gasses, the combustion of fossil fuels also results in the release of other harmful substances or pollutants that cause cardiac and respiratory health issues. Thus, by using renewable energy,

5 households, businesses, and companies will be playing an instrumental role in reducing the prevalence of such pollutants and promoting a healthier environment for the current and future generations. Despite these significant possible benefits of renewables, the UK is yet to achieve 100% renewable energy production.

Figure 2: UK Electricity generated in Q2 of 2019 and 2020

Source: BEIS

Challenges to the Development and Use of Renewable Energy in the UK Despite the significant efforts to ensure a 100% shift to renewable energy by 2050 to ensure the achievement of the stated benefits, the development and use of renewable energy in the UK still face some great challenges. The barriers to the development and use of renewable energy in the UK are of two forms; technical challenges based on renewables' nature and the barriers resulting from the scale and pace of the required transition. In this section, each of these two kinds of barriers will be discussed. a). Technical Challenges: Intermittency Intermittency refers to a technical renewable energy challenge that results from the fact that the wind and the sun neither blows nor shines 24 hours a day. This is contrary to the conventional fossil fuels, which are available throughout the day (except when under

6 maintenance) and provide electricity on very short notice. Renewable energies must be produced and used simultaneously, thus allowing no time for the transmission of power across the national grid, resulting in a very complex technical challenge.

In the transmission of electricity, electric current in the cables constantly changes direction at a speedy rate. This is an essential characteristic of the national grid operation as current in the electricity cables across the network must change at the same rate (frequency), mostly 50 Hz in the United Kingdom and most parts of the world. Multiple frequencies operating at the same time can cause severe damage to electrical equipment. Further, there is an increased risk of significant damage to electrical infrastructure and equipment if the grid's frequency varies more than 1 percent below or above the 50 Hz frequency (7). Therefore, the national grid must ensure effective coordination of the nation's electricity-generating assets to ensure that the frequency is stable and our electronics are safe.

This is primarily achieved by giving instructions to power generators to either automatically increase or minimize their electricity output based on frequency changes, and here comes the challenge with renewables. The operator entirely controls the conventional power generation. Readily available fuel implies that conventional power generators can be dialed up or down anytime when necessary. Conversely, the prevailing weather largely dictates the output of the renewables. While one can hold back wind output when there is enough wind and switch solar panels on and off, renewable energy technologies offer no frequency-managing facilities.

Therefore, a grid that completely relies on renewables has a severely restricted ability to adjust to frequency fluctuations.

Another challenge in this regard is that the demand for electricity in the United Kingdom varies according to the weather and lifestyles, normally reducing to around 20GW and 40GW.

7 For instance, electricity demand is highest in the evening from 6-8 pm as individuals get back from work and prepare dinner (8). More rapid fluctuations in electricity demand are also experienced during televised events like the World Cup, causing a 5 to 10% increase in demand.

Such renewable energy as wind and solar cannot be ramped up or down to match the changes in demand or manage the national grid frequency. b). Scaling Challenges: Land and Resources Unlike conventional power generation, solar and wind power generation requires more land per unit of capacity, thus posing various challenges when scaled to the needed transition size. For instance, there is a significant challenge in the planning and acquisition process required to be carried out to develop the renewables industry. Identifying the best sites, negotiating with the owners, obtaining authorization from the national grid and planning departments, and producing the required plans is human resource-intensive and makes it difficult to achieve the targets within the required timescale. According to the European Commission, approximately 15% of EU land would be required for wind farms, or 3% turned into solar farms to meet renewable energy targets (8).

Similarly, the decentralized nature of most renewable energy generators presents significant challenges to the national grid. Small-scale renewable energy generators located in different parts make frequency stabilization a complicated task. There is a need for systematic reforms on how the national grid coordinates with its suppliers to ensure safe deployment of renewables' required scale. Further, the manufacturing of renewable energy generation technologies relies on rare-earth metals, which are mostly used in the production of permanent magnets. China is the dominant supplier of these metals and is based on the current climate. This may result in some geopolitical or economic challenges that would adversely affect the increased

8 production of renewable energy (9). Such metals can also be found in other countries; however, developing and integrating them into global supply chains may take several years, thus adversely affecting renewable energy generators' production. c). Scaling Challenges: Finance The production and deployment of renewable energy generation technologies require significant up-front investments that should be financed. The capital cost and the cost incurred in obtaining finance for the investments form a significant portion of the renewable energy generation costs. For instance, up to 37% of solar plants' electricity cost in Germany is attributed to this capital cost (8). Major financial players now recognize climate change as a threat that demands targeted action by the lenders and the financial sector as a whole. Nonetheless, the market-wide obtaining and deployment of the required funds present a significant challenge to developing and using renewable energy in the UK. Similarly, there are concerns over what should be done with the conventional fossil fuelpowered electricity generating infrastructure. As we rapidly shift to renewables, the assets left behind are of significant value as some of them still have many years left in their useful lifetime.

How can the country best address the potential waste most likely to result from the transition to renewables?

Overcoming the Renewable Energy Adoption Challenges The threat of climate change's impact poses an urgent need for radical solutions to the challenges mentioned above. Addressing the technical challenges requires technology, while scale and pace challenges require the utilization of the state's regulation and fiscal powers: the intermittency challenge and challenges relating to grid stability and power availability demand a technological solution. Policy and regulations have no impact on renewable energy generators'

9 inability to be fully controlled by an individual. The technological solution must allow for the dialing up and down of electricity supplies as required to meet demand requirements and ensure the network frequency's stability. Due to conventional energy sources' adverse impacts, we must embrace such evolving technologies as interconnectors and battery storage (8).

The integration of high-capacity batteries into the electricity network either on the broader distribution network or at the generating stations will play an instrumental role in breaking the direct connection between the amount of energy produced and consumed. Highcapacity batteries can store energy during periods of excess availability and release it during excess demand periods. Despite the technical challenges involved in introducing the technology at scale, integration trials carried out in 2011 have significantly demonstrated the efficacy of the high-capacity batteries (10). On the other hand, interconnectors refer to extremely high-capacity cables running under the sea and link the national grid to electricity networks in Ireland and the European continent. The interconnectors allow for the importation and exportation of electricity from the grid during stressful times resulting from excess demand or supply. A study carried out by the FTI on behalf of the national grid revealed that these interconnectors help compensate for approximately 75-95% of the stress incidents experienced in the United Kingdom grid (11).

Policy-based solutions aimed at providing incentives to the process of deploying renewable energy generators on a large scale will be needed to address the scaling challenge. To address challenges related to obtaining land and permissions, the government can introduce reforms to planning regulations that can help in fast-tracking applications for permission to develop a renewable energy farm. Similarly, just like the ones used in facilitating the construction of a large-scale infrastructure like railroads, compulsory purchase order forms can also be adopted to ease the acquisition of suitable sites for renewable energy generation (12). The

10 adoption of a circular economy approach to the disposal of the equipment left during the transition to renewables can help address the likely shortage of rare earth metals. The government should enforce a regulation requiring the repurposing or recycling of such metals.

Lastly, finance is an extensive challenge that demands economy-wide reforms. Perhaps, the Bank of England or the national government can save the situation by guaranteeing renewable energy generation-related loans. In this case, the guarantor makes a promise to reimburse the lender for losses incurred should the loan recipient becomes bankrupt.

Conclusion The impact of climate change cannot be ignored. The development and use of renewable energy sources will play a significant role in minimizing carbon emissions and protecting the planet to benefit current and future generations. The challenges to a 100% transition involve technological barriers and practical challenges relating to scale and pace of change. Overcoming such barriers demands the deployment of innovative technological solutions and policy changes or introduction that will ensure that climate targets are achieved. Leadership from both the government and businesses will be required to ensure the right decisions, given that such solutions have not been tested or proven viable.

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