UK Gas Production Declines, Coal Variable
The UK government's Business and Energy Dept (Beis) on July 26 issued latest provisional energy data for the March to May 2018 period.
It reported that primary energy consumption in the UK on a fuel input basis rose by 5.2%, driven mainly by the colder weather in March 2018.
Gas consumption was 7.7% higher during the three month period to May 2018 at 19.9mn mt oil equivalent (oe); taking March alone, gas consumption was up 19% year on yeaer at 8.8mn mt oe.
Indigenous energy production during March-May was down by 0.1%, with oil and renewables output up, but gas and nuclear output down. UK gas production for the three-month period was 5.1% lower year on year at 10.2mn mt oil equivalent, whilst oil in the same period was up 1.9% at 13.4mn mt. Nuclear was 3.6mn mt, bioenergy/waste 3.5mn mt, wind/solar/hydro 1.61mn mt and coal just 0.5mn mt (all oe).
Electricity generation by major power producers was up 3.9%, with coal up sharply by 90% to meet unseasonally cold weather demand, but gas fell by 3.1%. It mean that gas provided 44.5% of electricity generation by such producers, followed by renewables at 25.7%, nuclear 22.6% and coal 7.2%. The low carbon, including nuclear, share of electricity generation by such generators stayed unchanged at 48.3%.
In contrast, National Grid's control room - and not for the first time - said on July 26 that at 10am no power was being generated by Britain's coal-fired units, whereas gas-fired ones contributed 16.1 GW (44.8% of demand). As Britain, like its neighbours, continues to swelter in a heatwave, NGrid said that overall on July 25 gas generated 46.8% of Britain's electricity, nuclear 23.8%, imports 8.9%, solar 8.5%, biomass 6.8%, wind 3.8%, storage 0.7%, hydro 0.4%, coal 0.1%, and other 0.1%.
UK Energy in Brief
Beis also published 'UK Energy in Brief' with a summary of key 2017 data. It found that the energy industries' contribution to the UK economy in 2017 was 2.9% of GDP; 9.8% of total investment; 33.6% of industrial investment; and that it directly employed 181,000 people (6.3% of industrial employment) and even more indirectly (for instance an estimated 142,000 in support of UK offshore production). It also found that energy accounted for 1.9% of annual UK business expenditure on research and development in 2016.
UK dependency on imported gas fell to 46% in 2017, from 47% in 2016. But the long-term trend has been upward: from -11% in 2000 (when Britain was a net gas exporter), to 40% in 2010, a peak of 47% in 2014 and 43% in 2015.