The new Energy Security Strategy lacks basic arithmetic

In response to the Government’s Energy Security Strategy, Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow of the ASI, said:

“The authors of “Energy Security Strategy” have not heeded the advice of a previous Energy Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Sir David Mackay, who wrote that his “sole recommendation is this: Make sure your policies include a plan that adds up!” Unfortunately, the new Strategy does not.
The best part is the recognition, at last, of the importance of nuclear to provide the baseload for wind and solar. The Prime Minister claims that 95 percent of energy needs will be low carbon generation by 2030, but Hinkley Point C will be the only nuclear plant planned to be operating by then, contributing seven percent. And if North Sea oil and gas are to be ramped up, we will apparently be relying on carbon capture and storage, which are untried technologies at scale.

Storage can provide some shifting of peaks to troughs and hydrogen will be the main means of that, albeit wastefully. It is not an energy source itself: of the electricity used to make either form of hydrogen, you only get about half back when you use the electricity it generates.

Transmission losses and risks are not addressed at all. Weather volatility apart, cyber antagonists could crash the whole grid, and the UK still seems to be lacking any kind of back-up in either eventuality.

Unfortunately, this Energy Security Strategy fails on electricity usage, capacity, storage and, most of all, arithmetic.”

Notes to editors:  

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Emily Fielder, emily@adamsmith.org | 0758 477 8207.

The Adam Smith Institute is a free market, neoliberal think tank based in London. It advocates classically liberal public policies to create a richer, freer world.