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Warning over focus on electricity to meet energy demands
Relying on electricity for heating homes and powering cars as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions could pose "enormous risks" to energy supplies, an industry body warned today.
The Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA), which supports technology that produces both heat and electricity from fuels, said a switch to electricity could undermine targets to cut emissions by 80% by 2050.
A report by researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Surrey said Government plans to shift the UK towards a low-carbon economy included a high degree of electrification in heating homes and running transport, such as electric cars.
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But the report, commissioned by the CHPA, said using more electricity for transport and heating would require rapid and sustained progress on building new, low-carbon power supplies.
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It would also require an expansion of the network to meet higher peak demand - at a time when the increased use of renewables such as wind power would mean more fluctuation in supply.
And there would have to be very high levels of insulation and changes in consumer behaviour to make homes more energy efficient.
Switching the heating of homes from gas boilers would involve the installation of air source and ground source heat pumps which use electricity to generate heat from the air or ground.
Such an "all-electric" path to decarbonising the UK economy could lead to a doubling of the country's capacity for generating electricity - including wind farms, hydropower, gas powered stations and coal plants with technology to capture and store carbon.
The report warned of large energy losses at power plants during electricity generation, but harnessing that "waste" heat could make our energy supplies more efficient.
More use of combined heat and power (CHP) power plants, which capture and use the heat from combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, and district heating systems which would transfer the heat to homes, could cut electricity demand by 13%.
Such a system could also reduce the consumption of energy sources such as fossil fuels by 5%, and the heat could be used for energy storage, the report suggested.
Dr Rob Gross, of Imperial College and one of the authors of the report, said no route to reducing emissions by 80% was without challenges.
But the integrated scenario which used combined heat and power offered a "potentially extremely valuable contribution" to greening the UK energy system.
Graham Meeks, director of the CHPA, said: "Diversity is the key to maintaining affordability and security of our energy supplies as we transition to a low-carbon economy.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North west
