Reappraisal of paths to decarbonising British electricity generation in 2030

Abstract The UK Government plans to bring forward the decarbonisation of British electricity generation from 2035 to 2030, and the UK National Energy Systems Operator has provided details of how this may be achieved by adaption of the previous strategy for 2035. At the same time, there is decreasing public confidence in and support for the policies for net-zero. It is timely to reconsider from first principles the 2035 plans as adapted for 2030. Analysing the 2023 electricity generation data, we find that the problems caused by the variability and intermittency of wind and solar generation have been grossly underestimated. Difficulties of both surpluses and shortfalls of renewable generation are more serious and more frequent than assumed. We model paths to 2030 with simplifications designed to reveal the underlying principles more clearly. Key findings are that expansion of electrification before 2030 aggravates the worst problem of variability (shortfalls) without any proven savings yet in carbon emissions; it should be undertaken only after decarbonisation. Abatement of the CO 2 emissions from fossil gas use by carbon capture and sequestration—if feasible—should be introduced and expanded as fast as possible both as an immediate and independent action to rapidly reduce CO 2 emissions and also to handle the shortfalls. Sheddable loads such as electrolysis of hydrogen and synthesis of hydrocarbons need to be introduced very soon to start to exploit the surpluses of renewable generation as they begin to arise. Already, curtailment of surplus generation in 2025 has cost over £1 billion and our model predicts a cumulative cost of about £20 billion by 2030 in the absence of sheddable loads.