The UK Governments Biomass Strategy (DECC, 2012) states that the UK intends to push a major rise in the use of biomass for energy generation (up to 10 -12%) and policy goals, most significant of which are:
• An EU target of 20% renewable energy (not just electricity) by 2020. (14.9% for electricity in 2013 and 19.1% in 2015 but only 7.2% renewables in terms of total energy (EU energy policy, 2010)).
• The UK’s Climate Change Act - a legal obligation on future governments to cut carbon dioxide pollution by 80% or more by 2050. This has no funding to assist in meeting the target and sets up a Quango, (the Climate Change Committee) that has funding for its own expenses! This Act sets intermediate GHG reduction target on the way to 80% reductions by 2050 (referenced to 1990).
• The EU Large Combustion Plants Directive (LCPD) for existing power generation facilities mean that by 2016, all major pulverised coal fired power plants in the UK will have to install Flue-Gas Desulfurization (FGD) (for >90% removal of sulphur dioxide SO2) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) (for >85% nitric oxide(s) NOx removal).
This legislation combined with public pressure has led to the growth in green energy over the last 13 years as shown in Figure 1.2.
The LCPD has had a massive effect on the landscape of UK power generation as 50% of the power generation closed down in the UK in the last 4 years was coal fired power stations. This is due to the cost of the retrofits that the LCPD demanded being greater than the cost of the electricity generated. The main factor on the UK’s drive to reduce CO2 emissions is what the UK decides to build to replace the power stations that have closed. The only new power stations built in recent years (apart from wind farms) are natural gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT). However, due to the current high price of gas in the UK some of these have been mothballed and the ones that are less efficient that were installed in the 1990s have been closed. The existing CCGT are capable of burning biogas either directly or mixed into the mains gas and this route to bio-electricity is being progressed with CfD agreements. However, currently biogas generation is not very significant apart from landfill gas and sewage gas. The problem is that although there is plenty of food and farm waste that is the feedstock of biogas generation, the collection of this and transport to large scale biogas generation plants is expensive. This is potentially an area of future growth via the natural gas grid as the carrier for biogas.
The replacement of the closed power stations is urgently required, but none are currently being built. No new coal plant even with carbon capture and storage (CCS) have been built or are planned to be built – this is because the government has stated that it will not approve any new coal fire power stations without CCS, but no CfD agreement on CCS has been reached which is the main reason why none have yet been built. Two have been approved to be built as demonstrators but the grants from the government (which came from an industrial energy efficiency scheme from which the government took the funds that should have been returned to industry as a payment for saving energy – the funds are not from government tax revenues) do not cover the costs and EU grants which they also have also do not cover the costs. Thus funds have to be borrowed from banks who will not lend until there is a guaranteed price for the higher cost of coal fired power plant electricity with CCS (roughly double the current price) (Hackett, 2015). One 3.5GW nuclear plant renewal has been approved, but the finance for this is still in doubt and no construction work is underway. This new nuclear has already been guaranteed twice the current price of electricity as a CfD. The capital cost of new nuclear is
roughly 10 times that of an equivalence CCGT power station and the interest on the commercial cost of borrowing this money is part of the higher cost of electricity.
New coal with CCS and new nuclear power stations take about 10 years to build and so no reduction in CO2 from these initiatives can occur before 2025. Retrofitting new CCS to old coal is hardly sensible as the youngest coal fired power station at Drax is 30 years old. In contrast biomass burnt in existing coal fired power stations is achieving CO2 reductions today and the capital investment and plant alteration costs are much smaller than building CCS. It is thus likely that biomass for power generation in existing coal fired plants will continue to expand. The present UK Government has recently cut CfD funding for onshore wind power and only offshore wind power will be supported. This is likely to lead to a reduction in the growth of renewable electricity in this area in the future. Coupled with this feed in tariff support for solar power is being cut and renewable energy will essentially have to compete on costs with no subsidies in the future. Biomass is also having its subsidy removed by this government and will have to compete on costs. The future for renewable energy in the UK under the current Government is bleak (Arbon, 2015).