With Britain’s inability to store gas long-term and 79% of coal being imported, wind energy could be the answer to making the UK’s energy supply more resilient, a new report has claimed.
In 2013, the UK reduced its imports of coal by 4.9 million tonnes and gas by 1.4 trillion billion cubic metres because of wind energy, the study by Cambridge Econometrics claims.
Energy security
Currently, Britain can hold just 15 days of gas supplies in long-term storage. Most European countries can stores around 100 days.
As UK gas supplies from the North Sea disappear, using more gas would cost £3.1 billion in 2020, according to the report. This would rise to £7.4 billion by 2030.
RenewableUK Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery says that in these uncertain times, prices of fossil fuels become volatile and can never be accurately predicted.
Steady cost of wind
Wind, however, generated enough energy to power 6.8 million homes in 2013.
The report, commissioned by trade body RenewableUK, says that the cost of wind power is predictable and that using more of it would act as insurance against the uncertain cost of gas.
Phil Summerton, Director at Cambridge Econometrics, says that it not only makes environmental sense but financial sense too. He says that wind is helping the UK to become less dependent on fossil fuel imports.
Maria McCaffery says that one of the benefits is that it is easy to work out lifetime costs for a wind farm and that they can, and already are, helping the UK manage future price instability.
She claims that by 2020, onshore wind power will be the cheapest form of new generation of any form of energy.
Wind generation figures
Government figures show that offshore wind generation was 52% higher in 2013 than in 2012, with capacity up 23%. Onshore wind generation was 40% higher, with capacity up 27%.
Onshore wind was the leading individual technology for the generation of electricity from renewable sources during 2013, with 32% of renewables generation coming from this source.
The largest absolute increase in generation came from onshore wind, rising by 4,880 GWh to 16,992 GWh in 2013, due to increased capacity and higher wind speeds across 2013.
There were over 6,800 wind farms in the UK in 2013.
