Clarke said the country’s electricity use was generally between 30GW and 50GW in winter and summer. The amount of gas used for heating, however, reached a peak six times that level in the winter. He said that meant that a switch to electric heating – part of a low-carbon agenda that also assumes the electricity supplied would be low carbon – would mean building an electricity distribution network six times larger than the existing one. “That would cost much more than six times the £95 billion cost of replacing the current network,” Clarke said.
He said the cost and disruption of upgrading the electricity distribution network meant that electric heat systems such as air source heat pumps would be focused on new developments, “because you can build down the entire street”.
Giving the biennial Bridge Lecture, which asked whether the UK’s energy policy would deliver, Clarke said we might just make 2020 targets “with a tail wind”, but said action was needed on the technologies that would meet 2050 targets.
He said with electricity market reforms still under consideration by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, “it’s all a bit last minute” and we “must start now on some big ticket items”.
Clarke said he wanted faster work on carbon capture and storage, because it was “the single most critical lever because it gives you options”. As for new nuclear, he said “just do it”, because it was well understood technology.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 17 February 2012.
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