The Labour Party’s target to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 is “infeasible” and risks significantly higher curtailment of wind farms, a new report from a right wing thinktank has warned.
The report has been published by the Policy Exchange as Labour announced that its proposed Great British Energy company will target construction of floating offshore wind.
The Policy Exchange conclusions are based on modelling carried out by consultancy Aurora Energy to assess the targets set by the opposition and the government to decarbonise electricity supply by 2030 and 2035 respectively.
The report says that under current policies, the Great Britain power grid is not set to reach net zero until 2051 but that this goal could be reached by 2035 with “significant new interventions”.
These would involve a rapid increase in renewables deployment alongside enabling technologies, including BECCS (bioenergy carbon capture use and storage) but would require legislative action to be taken imminently.
However, achieving net zero power before 2035 is “likely to be infeasible due to limited time to achieve the transformation”, according to Aurora’s analysis.
“Net zero in 2030 would require unrealistic acceleration of renewables deployment, and direct intervention to restrict unabated gas,” it states.
“Net zero power in 2030 cannot realistically be reached, as the combination of legislative timeline, planning, permitting and project development and supply chain limitations means that it is infeasible for the necessary system overhaul to be completed in this timeframe.”
Accelerated deployment of flexible technology and networks, alongside renewables, is necessary to achieve net zero, concludes the report, which describes decarbonising the grid by 2030 as a “fundamentally different proposition” to achieving the same goal five years later.
Shortening the time frame risks precluding much additional generation from BECCS or nuclear being brought online, putting more onus on acceleration of renewable capacity and battery storage to “unrealistic levels” by 2030.
The report also says that a 2030 net zero decarbonised power target risks significantly higher wind curtailment than 2035 because carrying out the vital grid capacity upgrades required to keep pace with the roll out of renewables will not be possible.
To reach a decarbonised grid, the historical rate of offshore wind deployment would have to increase six-fold, from 1GW to 6GW per year during the rest of this decade, it says.
Solar panel deployment would also have to more than triple over the same timeframe from 1.2GW to 4.3GW per year.
Supply chains for materials required to upgrade the grid and renewables, such as steel and copper, would each have to be scaled up by up to 400%, the report adds.
And £93 billion of additional investment would need to be deployed in the six years to 2030, compared to a business as usual, working out an average of £15.6 billion of new money each year in this period.
By contrast, meeting the government’s 2035 target would require additional investment of £49.3 billion by 2030 and another £55.3 billion over the following five years.
This adds up to £104.6 billion of additional investment over next 11 years compared to £116 billion to achieve Labour’s 2030 target.
Iain Mansfield, director of research at Policy Exchange, said: “To decarbonise the power grid by 2030 is simply not feasible. Given the state of the public finances it is hard to see how any Government could find the additional £93bn required – but even if the money were made available, it is simply not possible to build new renewable generation at the pace required.
“Tackling climate change is a priority – but we must do so on the basis of targets that can actually be delivered.”
Commenting on Labour’s plan to use the public-owned GBE to invest in floating wind, RenewableUK’s executive director of offshore wind Jane Cooper said: “We’re delighted that Keir Starmer, Vaughan Gething and the Labour team are so committed to developing floating wind, and that they recognise the huge economic opportunity this innovative technology offers for the south west of England and Wales.”