Many of the innovative solutions that are being implemented across industries in order to achieve net zero by 2050 will require electrification of technologies.
As part of the ‘Leading the Charge’ digital series, Andrew Lever, Director of the Carbon Trust, discusses how the electricity sector will become the backbone of the UK’s energy system:
Q: How important is the electricity sector in helping the UK reach net zero by 2050?
AL: The electricity sector is essential to achieving net zero in 2050. It very much becomes the backbone of our energy system based upon renewables and with large parts of demand being used by electricity.
We quite often think about power generation as being just the electricity sector, but we will need to move from a fossil-based system today in our heating and our transport sectors and many of the solutions that are compliant with an energy future are electricity based. So that’s heat pumps in homes. It’s electric vehicles in transportation. It’s increasing energy efficiency in industry.
There will be other technologies that are there to provide alternatives to electricity in certain cases like hydrogen, but the majority of our demand for energy is going to be electricity based. We have done some analysis, and we believe that the demand for electricity in 2050 will be somewhere between two and three times the size that it is today.
Q: How can we manage the increased demand for electricity?
AL: We need to smarten up the electricity sector. Our electricity system in 2050 is going to be largely renewables based; that’s lots of offshore wind, it’s lots of solar PV. What that does is it increases the variability of that generation. If you also put that next to a heating sector that is more electrically based with a transport system that is more electrically based, then we have a number of changing demands and generation from day to day and from season to season.
We’ll also have many more assets on the system. Therefore, our ability to control and manage supply and demand in the future requires a fundamentally smarter system than the one we have today.
Q: What kind of innovations are there that will help to deal with this demand for electricity?
AL: There are a number of smart technologies that are important. We have smart meters. We have what’s called energy storage, like batteries, but also includes the technology found in electric vehicles, and thermal storage within homes. For example, a small hot water tank that is able to store that energy. This is important because it creates another asset within the home and allows that home or that vehicle to become flexible.
For example, a day in the summer could see too much electricity generation, through solar PV and wind, and we can call upon those electric vehicles, those thermal stores to charge and take demand off the system. That can then be used for a period where there is more of a lull in generation and can be used as a way to balance the system.
One way in which we can help balance the system is having two grids using electric vehicles, using batteries with an electric vehicle to effectively increase demand and absorb that extra generation. That will require connectivity between those assets so the system can signal to those electric vehicles to increase demand.
Q: What obstacles are the electricity sector facing to try and reach net zero?
AL: There are a couple of things that are important. One is that with a smart system, you need data and you need it to be digital. We need to increase the access and flow of information and data across our system to allow us to continue to control and optimise that.
We also need to change and evolve our electricity markets and reform those. Work has already been done, but this needs to effectively move us away from what was a fossil-based system and account for these changes in the market. It requires a market framework that can connect these assets together and fundamentally manage the system at the lowest cost.
Q: How can the government help in terms of policy and frameworks?
AL: Government, as always, has a big role to play in setting direction. The area that I feel we need to keep focused on is heat decarbonisation. The volume of heat pumps that are required to be installed in the next three decades is substantial and having a clear path and direction from government on the role of heat pumps I think is critical.
Allied to that is affordability and a focus on a just transition and support for those that are vulnerable or indeed fuel poor.
Q: Do you think it can be achieved with net zero by 2050?
AL: I think it can be achieved, but I do think that we need to increase the sense of urgency on getting stuff done. We are now under three decades to get to 2050. Whilst in some areas we can see what the solutions are, I think we still need to innovate. We still need to work hard on not just one or two sectors, but all sectors to get to net zero. But I do think it’s possible.