28.01.08: UKERC Analysis on the new announced European targets
The new proposals made by the European Commission for greenhouse gas emission reductions are ambitious compared to current efforts, and if adopted would commit the European Union to reducing emissions, by 2020, by 20% compared to 1990 levels.
The proposed pack of measures contains a new Directive that would require the EU to increase the contribution of renewable energies to total energy used to 20% by 2020, including a mandatory 10% of biofuel in liquid fuels for road transport.
The reductions have been allocated to Member States in a non-uniform fashion, allowing for differing states of economic development and local ability to deliver the targets.
The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) warns that there is a further complexity in that the allocations for emissions reductions are defined against actual emissions in 2005 and since these were lower that in 1990 the headline reductions figures are less than 20%. In the case of the UK it will be asked to reduce emissions by 16% and to achieve a 15% renewables share of total energy used.
John Loughhead, UKERC Executive Director, said: "Achieving these targets will be challenging, since the UK currently obtains less that 2% of its energy from renewable sources. It is probable that electricity production will have to bear a disproportionate share, and initial estimates from the European Commission and others suggest it may need to produce about 40% of all electricity from renewable sources by 2020 if the overall targets are to be met".
This would have great implications for investment in new equipment: as an illustration, if all the renewable energy came from wind turbines, it would mean adding turbines with generating capacity roughly equal to all the existing power stations on the UK system (assuming energy demand remained at current levels). Equally, there may be impacts on the operation of the UK electrical network from such high proportions of intermittent generation, but at present there is very little data or research information available.
"It is important that the scale of necessary change to our energy system to meet these ambitions is fully understood, and that the implications must be carefully considered, areas where UKERC intends to make a contribution based on its whole-system analysis capabilities", concluded John Loughhead.
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