Developing a low-carbon, non-nuclear revolution in electricity generation Keith Barnham Emeritus Professor of Physics Imperial College London k.barnham@ic.ac.uk The Burning Answer: a User’s Guide to the Solar Revolution Weidenfeld and Nicholson 2014 www.burninganswers.com

Get it from the sun (GIFTS) GIFTS aims to show local exploitation of renewables makes the government’s preferred nuclear and natural gas electricity supply: - redundant, base-load soon be obsolete - too high carbon for our COP21 commitment - too expensive, cost-wise and politically

PV + Wind in an all-renewable UK Storage Inflexible nuclear power obsolete as approach all-renewable supply Half the year nuclear will have to compete with cheap wind for storage

(PV + Wind) (80%) & Storage (5%) Flexible biogas electricity (approx. 15%) backs-up PV & wind Large wind fluctuations will be smoothed out by the grid

PV all renewable target hit by 2020? Germany 2025 EDF? K.Barnham, K.Knorr, M.Mazzer, Nature Materials, 15, 115, Feb. 2016

Onshore Wind target reached by 2022? 2025 EDF?

Offshore Wind target reached by 2021 2025 EDF? Despite being large scale in a difficult environment, off-shore wind power has increased exponentially like much smaller scale PV

Biogas from Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Farm animal waste & crop waste, plus food waste decay to biomethane for electricity and gas grids Very low carbon footprint: avoids waste rotting on ground or in landfill to produce greenhouse gases Low carbon answer to flexible capacity problem Alternative for Local Authorities when turning down high-carbon fossil-fuel planning applications

Exponential rising markets lead to falling wholesale prices Good Energy showed 2014 fall in UK due to cheaper renewables

Possible effects of UK subsidy cuts 2020–30 increase mainly offshore wind (Amber Rudd)

Wholesale electricity prices 2025 + Wholesale electricity costs achieved in Germany 2012 - 2015

Conclusions All-renewable electricity supply makes inflexible nuclear power redundant If no cuts PV and wind hit targets by 2022 LAs: please reject new fossil flexible capacity and support biogas AD alternative (Bristol) For half a year EDF will be selling HPC power subsidised 7p of 9p by UK’s HWBPs to France Restore cuts, pay from tax (as larger fossil fuel subsidy), by 2020 electricity drop 4 p to 2.4 p

KKW: combined power plant Kombikraftwerk all-renewable project started in 2006 Over 2006 it matched 1/10,000 of actual German electric power demand with real-time output of PV, wind & biogas generators PV and wind together can supply 78% German power demand Only 17% back-up power by biogas electricity required Only 5% back-up from storage was necessary KKW gives targets for all- renewable Germany - adapt for UK (tomorrow)

What does the scientific literature say? 3 peer-reviewed surveys of 274 published life-cycle analyses (LCAs) (Energy Policy 36, 2940 Sovacool, 37, 5056 Beerten, J.Ind.Ecol., 16, 2940, Warner & Heath) Only 6 LCAs independent & cover all 5 LCA stages Beerten re-analysis (3,9). Range fuel, decommissioning & waste