Why engineering-based delivery plans are needed for Net Zero

Markets

Power & renewables

Sarah Long

Market Director, Net Zero Energy, Bristol, United Kingdom contact form

In summer 2022, Atkins analysis on the build rate for new generation suggested that the UK needed to build 12-16GW of new technology each year to achieve a decarbonised power system by 2035: a rate five times greater than achieved in the last five years. Major project developers report that the waiting time quoted for new grid connections can be as much as 10 or even 15 years.

These two indicators are important reference points of our energy transition: the rate at which new generation and infrastructure moves through the planning pipeline, is built and connected is key to benchmarking progress towards targets.

The closer we get to 2035, the greater will be the pressure on the electricity industry to invest to meet the goal. Yet the ever-present energy dilemma: balancing security of supply, affordability and sustainability cannot be wished away.

The UK’s aspirations are clear and justified but we still lack a credible engineering-risk-informed plan of how we will get there, from fuel mix to future network strategies. We have just 12 years to get to 2035–not a considerable amount of time in major project delivery–so it is unlikely that those projects not currently under active consideration today would be delivered by 2035.

We must also remember that the 2035 target is not the ‘end of the road’, it is merely a milestone on our journey to a Net Zero economy in 2050 and beyond. We must be wary of diverting short-term investment into assets to achieve 2035 to the detriment of creating an optimal long-term system.

We urgently need our implementation plan to 2035 but we also need that plan to align with a longer-term strategy to 2050 and beyond. Power assets have a lifetime of decades, that is why we must have a coherent strategic plan that takes us beyond the next milestone.

Over the past decade there has been a seemingly unlimited stream of reports on system modelling driven by diverse economic assumptions and scenarios. These scenarios paint a picture of how a decarbonised power system could function: in our latest white paper, we look at the fleet and fuel variances between the different configurations drawn in the multiple economics-driven system models that exist. But the time for scenarios has now passed. We must move beyond modelling and shift rapidly towards a determined, engineering-driven delivery to create a resilient, clean and affordable energy supply to power us from 2035 to 2050 and beyond.