UK Energy System in 2050

"Low-Carbon, Resilient Scenarios for the UK Energy System in 2050" 

Meeting the carbon emission reduction target requires a wholesale transformation of the energy system – a formidable challenge, but essential if the UK’s statutory carbon targets are to be met. These conclusions emerge as robust across all the sets of model runs described in the UKERC Research Report: The UK Energy System in 2050: comparing low-carbon resilient scenarios. The runs are unanimous that the technologies to meet the challenge exist, and deploying them is a much lower cost option than the damages from climate change, estimated elsewhere, that will ensue if the UK and other countries fail to rise to it.

The following is an Executive Summary of the UKERC's Insight briefing paper on the report: 

• There is a need for greatly increased energy efficiency and conservation in all sectors 
• All buildings, new and existing, will have to become much more energy efficient 
• No low-carbon technology is clearly preferred on cost grounds
• There is no scope for a new ‘dash for gas’ to substitute for coal after 2030 - because after 2030 there is no coal-fired generation (without CCS) in low-carbon scenarios
• The CO2 intensity of power generation in 2030 must be less than 100 gCO2/kWh if carbon targets are to be met cost effectively 
• Residential heating by 2050 uses almost no natural gas – but electricity instead (directly or through heat pumps), supplemented by biomass and solar thermal
• There is little gas-fired generation after 2030 in low-carbon scenarios, but substantial gas capacity used as back-up to renewables generation
• The contribution of bioenergy to carbon reduction is still very uncertain
• The internal combustion engine will likely cease to be the main vehicle technology of the 21st Century – instead, mass entry of different low-carbon, highly efficient vehicle technologies will mean people are able to travel further, with reduced fuel use and lower carbon emissions
• Meeting the carbon emission reduction target therefore requires a wholesale transformation of the energy system.
• Given the findings, the authors advise that there is little reason not to include a 2030 decarbonisation target in the 2012 Energy Bill, and that doing so would give investors in low-carbon generation assurance of the UK energy system’s direction of travel, and the policy commitment necessary to achieve it, as well as acting as a litmus test of the government’s determination to meet the reductions in carbon emissions to which the UK is currently statutorily committed 

View full energy briefing paper