Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH MAY 2019 | 11 Policy & Regulation Net zero – let's do it SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips- Davies says the energy industry must now focus on how to achieve net zero emissions. Chief executive's view Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE T his week's publication by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) of its report on achiev- ing a net zero greenhouse gas target is a landmark moment in the UK's e• orts to combat climate change. And it follows a series of key moments in the past few weeks: from David Attenborough's precise documentary on the facts of climate change to the scale and impact of the climate change campaigners in London and elsewhere. SSE strongly advocates for the UK to adopt a net zero target by 2050 at the latest if we truly want to combat climate change before it's too late. That's why SSE welcomes the report from the CCC. We fully agree that we must pursue an accelerated path to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees centigrade. The question now, therefore, is not whether there should be a net zero carbon target, the question now must be, "how can we meet it?". The scale of the climate change crisis requires bold action. Back in 2007, SSE was a leading proponent, alongside the Climate Coalition, of tough legislation in the Climate Change Act to help deliver the UK's transition to a low carbon economy. That act of parliament and the Electricity Market Reforms that followed have helped bring about a signi" cant reduction in carbon emissions from electricity. SSE – on its own – has invested £11 billion in renewable generation and supporting infrastructure since 2006. What we know now is that we must go much further and much faster. And much wider than electricity. SSE stands willing to play its part. While we met our 2020 carbon target early, we've set ourselves a new one for 2030: to halve again the carbon intensity of the electricity we generate. We've also committed to trebling our electricity output from renewable sources. And we will connect more electric vehicles too. What we need is for the UK government to continue to take a bold, decisive, leadership position and implement an ambitious policy framework that can enable the scale of innovation and investment needed. We will need to build more renewa- bles quickly. This means raising our ambitions in o• shore wind, restarting onshore wind and pursuing a pro- renewables policy framework. We also need to tackle heat emissions quickly and urgently, as well as drive forward policies for low carbon transport. Net zero is certainly challenging but it can be done, with the right ambition, right policies, and right companies. Let's do it. be, "how can we meet it?". the climate change crisis requires bold in 2007, SSE alongside the Climate retired from the electricity generation system sooner than anticipated. The 80 per cent target allowed a residual element of natural gas generation but this will no longer be possible if emissions must be eliminated from the electricity system in order to meet the wider goal. "Even where we have peaking plants, they will need to be fuelled by hydrogen or other low carbon sources," says profes- sor Jim Watson, director of the UK Energy Research Centre. And Parr agrees. "By de" ni- tion gas will be o• the system and will have to be playing a very minor role by 2030 and certainly by 2035," he says. And while the report assumes that Size- well and Bradwell Npower stations will have come on stream by 2050, nuclear merits only a handful of references in the report. The diminished pro" le of nuclear power reœ ects the sector's struggles to compete cost e• ectively with renewable sources, says Marshall: "There is a lot of concern about nuclear being delivered at the right price. Referring to ongoing work by civil serv- ants at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), he says: "Even if there is a new funding mechanism for nuclear, it's still going to be running to keep up with the falling cost of renewables." Renewables The CCC is putting its faith in renewable energy to deliver the goal of a quadrupling of low-carbon generation. This includes the deployment of "at least" 75GW of o• shore wind, which would be a tenfold increase on the 7-8GW currently installed. Juliet Davenport, chief executive and founder of renewable energy supplier Good Energy, says that while the CCC's ambition is welcome, its report puts too much emphasis on big renewable projects rather than a more decentralised system of micro-generation. "You have nearly 6GW of solar on roofs today. This is a real opportunity to reset our energy generation system so it doesn't œ ip back into an old-fashioned, centralised sys- tem, putting control in the hands of the few, not the many." The CCC sees a growing reliance on elec- tricity for heat and transport resulting in the need for a signi" cant upgrade of transmis- sion and distribution networks. The report says that is "essential" that when grid capacity is upgraded, it is future- proofed so that the physical infrastructure is big enough to accommodate the increases in capacity that will be needed before 2050. This makes particular sense when carry- ing out network upgrades, according to the continued overleaf

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