Clean Power 2030 – My thoughts

National Energy System Operator released the Clean Power 2030 plan today (link below). I’ve had a brief look this morning and modelled the pathways in my Digital Twin of the GB Electricity Mix.

Here’s my 🔟 takeaways. What are yours?

TLDR- this is an exciting vision. Clean Power 2030 is achievable and my comments are not criticism. What matters most to me is the type of net zero we want. Homes need a much more central of a role in the thinking because of the direct benefits to us all.

1️⃣ Electricity demand is expected to be pretty low in 2030. That suggests a slow roll out of EVs and heat pumps in the modelling despite both having big carbon and energy security importance. Demand is roughly the same as it was in 2015.

2️⃣ Offshore wind, solar and onshore wind do the heavy lifting: increasing about 3x from todays levels. That’s a fast roll out so expect talk of new grid infrastructure to support them. As the report says “Sustained rollout of offshore wind is needed at over double the highest rate ever achieved in Great Britain.”

3️⃣ Very little direct mention of domestic solar despite this directly reducing energy bills, little land take and being able to support the grid edge. NESO need some strategic thinking here in my view

4️⃣ No acceleration of nuclear power with no SMRs until the mid 2030s. If I were in Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, I would be working with industry to see if SMR technology can be accelerated in the UK as it is globally.

5️⃣ Lots of talk about domestic supply chains. I’d hope for that to be a feature in next years discussions on CfDs and other market support mechanisms

6️⃣ It is very worrying to see biomass still part of the mix. There’s so much doubt about biomass and its true environmental impact. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/04/drax-will-keep-raising-carbon-emission-levels-until-2050s-study-says

7️⃣ My digital twin broadly agrees with the results, but there’s some other levers that we could be modelling

8️⃣ I think that the role of short and long duration energy storage is underestimated. I think we can dispatch even less gas than in the NESO scenario by leveraging storage of synthetic fuels. In my model, I look at storage with 50% efficiency and it still dispatches more gas than the NESO pathway and at a lower cost. It is important to be looking strategically at long duration storage and the impact it can have on energy security and net zero

9️⃣ We need independent modelling of the grid itself to ensure NESO is faily and properly challenged on the scenarios – and I would hope that DESNZ have that intellectual grunt. I will speak to Durham Energy Institute about whether it can provide that.

🔟 The mission looks very possible. Perhaps NESO are leaning on what we know we can do. My call is to ask ourselves “what else can we do to be a superpower”

Link to the doc here: https://www.neso.energy/document/346651/download
Images attached: select charts from the report + images from my digital twin