Renewables success requires electricity network upgrade, MPs told

The government is at risk of missing its climate change targets if it fails to make substantial investment in the country's electricity network, Britain's energy distributors warned MPs today.

The Electricity Networks Strategy Group, headed by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, has estimated that £4.7bn would be needed to upgrade the network and accommodate a further 45GW of power into the system, adding approximately £5 to every household's annual electricity bill.

But in evidence to the energy and climate change select committee's inquiry into the future of Britain's electricity networks, Scottish Power which along with National Grid and Scottish & Southern own the country's transmission network, has estimated full costs of upgrading at £37bn.

On the same day that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced an extra £525m to fund offshore wind investments, and included £7.6bn investment in transmission and electricity distribution infrastructure in his budget. Network operators warned MPs that government plans would fail if proper provision was not made to connect ambitious offshore and onshore wind projects, such as the Whitelee wind farm south of Glasgow, to an upgraded power grid.

Rupert Steele, head of regulation at Scottish Power, said that to decarbonise the energy sector, more electricity would have to be generated by coal-fired plants with Carbon Capture and Storage, nuclear and large-scale windfarms. To help reduce carbon emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, the government has promised to increase energy from renewable sources, such as wind power, by 15 per cent by 2020. But Steele said that its success would depend on upgrading the electricity network. "Solid transmission is the backbone of the energy network and if these wires aren't there, it won't happen," he said.

He also accused the power regulator, Ofgem, of delaying progress on upgrading the network by 5-10 years. "The platform is burning, and to put off dealing with upgrading the network is wrong," he said.

Part of the problem, he said, was where most wind power is generated, namely in Scotland, and transporting that to areas of greater energy demand in England. "We know where the resources are, we know where the wind blows. We can't move them. We just have to get on with building the wires."

Scottish & Southern claims that more than 350MW of renewable generation developments have planning consent in the north of Scotland with no access to the grid. Mike Barlow, system manager of Scottish & Southern, said that to deal with the estimated 32GW increase in wind power generation by 2020, reinforced grid links would also be required, such as a deepsea cable from Scotland to north Wales. He also added that a Europe-wide "super-grid" could be catered for by including "jumping off points" to connect with other electricity grids in continental Europe.

The three operators said that the key mechanism in attracting investment would depend on the level that Ofgem sets the transmission price controls – a maximum cost they can impose for supplying electricity around the country.

National Grid's Alison Kay said that certainty about price controls and how the network upgrade is funded would be required to attract investment for the industry. "To meet climate change targets we need to get some certainty on this, " she said.

This article first appeared on The Guardian

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