UK Experts Call For Decisive Shift Away From Gas (Update)

(Updates with union's reaction)

Britain has a “golden opportunity” to switch to greener ways of providing energy to homes and businesses without increasing bills – but only if ministers act now – says the first assessment published by the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) published July 10.

The report urges government to find low-carbon alternatives to oil and gas for heating homes and businesses, but has little time for natural gas fulfilling a ‘transition role’ towards a low-carbon future.

“Even with emissions almost eliminated from power generation, the UK cannot achieve its emissions targets while relying on natural gas, a fossil fuel, for heating,” the report says, urging instead that a safety case be made for using hydrogen to replace gas, followed by trials of hydrogen at a community scale and alongside carbon capture and storage (CCS). It says that hydrogen and heat pumps as low-carbon alternatives to oil and gas should be trialled, with at least 10,000 homes served by such low-carbon systems by 2023.

“The UK cannot achieve its emissions targets without transitioning away from using natural gas, a fossil fuel, for heating,” the report says. It does though say it may be “cost-effective to deploy a limited amount of new gas power stations, provided they can be accommodated within the carbon budgets, and recognising that load factors are likely to be on a reducing path.”

NIC chairman John Armitt, a former CEO of Britain’s national infrastructure operator Network Rail and also the body that delivered the 2012 London Olympics, says government should continue investing in low-cost renewable technologies such as wind and solar, so that these provide at least 50% of the country’s generating capacity by 2030. Renewables currently provide around 30% of the UK’s electricity, it says, up from 12% just five years ago.

Burdening electric bill-payers with CCS costs 'makes no sense'

“In the longer term, an energy system based on low cost renewables and the technologies required to balance them may prove cheaper than building further nuclear plants, as the cost of these technologies is far more likely to fall, and at a faster rate,” the report’s authors say. It proposes that, after Hinkley Point C in Somerset now under development, the government should agree support for only one more nuclear plant before 2025. The report also advises government to ramp up efforts to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s buildings and facilitate “a rapid switch to electric vehicles.”

The government outlined its own strategy for a major shift towards electric vehicles by 2030 on July 9.

The July 10 NIC report also judges that “it does not make sense for electricity consumers to subsidise the development of carbon capture and storage, since it will not benefit them in future.” Removing and storing the carbon from natural gas as part of producing hydrogen is a simpler process than capturing it as it is burnt in a power station, the report adds. 

A separate report published July 10 by cross-party energy policy group Carbon Connect looks at supply and production of low carbon gases such as hydrogen and biomethane;  it is the second in a three-report 'Future Gas' research project. The first, published July 2017, said that the UK gas grid could play a useful role in the transition to a low-carbon energy system, by transporting hydrogen and biomethane.

Gas is needed and funding is unfair: GMB  

While agreeing that there should be greater investment into green hydrogen gas and energy efficiency, the GMB union said the NIC was wrong  to suggest Britain can in some way ‘get by’ without a balanced energy mix which includes the reliable base load electricity capacity that comes from zero carbon new nuclear power stations and lower carbon gas. 

“In March, a National Grid Report said that to meet our emissions targets, gas will be fundamental to any realistic future energy scenario and that it is not feasible to switch over to electric heating on the scale required,” it said. 

The GMB also attacked the environmental levies, set to reach £13bn ($17.2bn)  by 2021/2 , treble their 2015/16 total of £4.6bn, and to add £10/week to household energy bills by 2022. "Where energy subsidies of any sort can be shown to be justified and in the public interest, then GMB says they should be be paid for out of basic taxation – a much fairer and more progressive way," it said. At the moment, those who own their own houses can benefit financially from solar panels on their roof, while those who rent cannot.