The UK Coalition Government should prioritise the development of a North Sea ‘supergrid’ to link up renewable energy sources with the rest of Europe, according to the Green Alliance.
Its report, Roadmap 2050: a practical guide to a prosperous, low-carbon Europe, launched in the UK yesterday, says that the development of a pan-European electricity ‘supergrid’ linking UK and other countries’ North Sea wind resources with southern European solar power generation is crucial to a low-carbon future.
Authored by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), with analysis from Imperial College London, KEMA, Oxford Economics, AMO, McKinsey & Company, E3G and the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), the report looks at a range of options for decarbonising the region’s electricity supply.
Scenarios with renewables providing 40%, 60%, 80% or 100% of electricity, with the rest made up from nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, indicate that a reliable, low-carbon supply can be secured with existing technologies.
According to the report, the cost of that electricity will be no higher overall compared to a business-as-usual approach – and, in fact, running costs will ultimately be lower than with high-carbon power sources.
To reach that point, however, a doubling of capital investment in low-carbon infrastructure will need to take place over the next 15 years.
“Linking the UK into a European supergrid would lower costs, improve reliability and allow the UK to draw on a much larger range of renewable clean energy options,” says Nick Mabey, chief executive of E3G. “The Coalition Government must make delivering the EU supergrid a central part of its European policy objectives and make this a priority for… the EU Budget in 2011.”
The report appears to be in line with the thinking of Secretary of State for Energy, Chris Huhne, who stated at the launch:
“This Government encourages the EU to be ambitious on interconnection in the Energy Strategy. By creating a European framework that puts integration at the heart of planning decisions, we can bring reliable, efficient energy markets to the fore.”
Huhne’s comments also backed increasing the EU emissions reduction target from 20% to 30% by 2020.