Electricity in Scotland to 2015

[ Skip to content]

Science and Engineering at The University of Edinburgh

School of GeoSciences

Personal Home Pages

Section Contents

Electricity in Scotland to 2015 and 2025

Electricity in Scotland to 2015 and 2025

Scotland electricity to 2015

This is inspired by the 2006 Royal Society of Edinburgh Royal Society of Edinburgh report on Energy in Scotland.

The problem for Scotland is that fossil fuel electicity generation plant has already started to close.
Nuclear power plant is scheduled to close from 2011.
And there is a belief that 'renewables' will provide lots of electricity.

However, arithmetic does not support such a simple analysis.

See the graphic of future electricity supply in Scotland.

And some different analysis with a pro-nuclear conclusion by Peter Jones of the Scotsman 4 May 2007

An electricity crisis in Scotland? May 2007

Scotland may have a serious problem of electricity supply, and needs a rapid decision.

My memory of the RSE discussion meeting in April 2007 was slightly different, and I'll add a couple of extra comments.

1) The average time to; build nuclear in the UK is 12 years, until first electricity.
Sizewell B (the last one) was exceptional at 24 years.
DEFRA plan for new nuclear electricity 2018 at the earliest.
The proposed reactors have not been built to demonstrate, they are evolutions of existing types
Most commentators say that for Scotland, that deliverability risk is too great, as we need the power probably by 2011, and certainly by 2015

2) The waste problem isnt going away. Especially if SNP take Scotland towards devolved energy or towards independence, then Scotland will have to bear its own waste costs. At present within the EU that means your own national waste site. Adding £5 -10 Bn onto the cost.

3) A key favourable argument for nuclear has been "security".; In the next 15 years, we can anticipate a 10-20% growth of renewable electricity supply in Scotland from offshore wind, wave, and tidal. That gives even better security, as it is decentralised.

4) It is possible to build new coal or new gas plant, and retrofit CCS later. This is admittedly an in principle argument, but the engineers are very comfortable with that
New coal or gas can be built on the same site (Cockenzie) and connected to the same grid: 2 years to demolish, 3 years to rebuild = 2012
CCS at full scale is proposed in Scotland at Peterhead by SSE and BP. And at 8 other UK locations.
You can argue, correctly, that Scotland leads the way in this technology. And Doosan Babcock in Renfrew are a major international supplier of equipment for clean coal plant.
I declare an interest http://www.co2storage.org.uk/

5) A bigger grid cable to England MAY be worth it, to balance the demand and load. BUT England will likely have electricity generation shortages as much as Scotland - though it will have much new gas plant. The security of gas supply after 2014 is anybody's guess.

6) Efficiency gains (demand reduction) can help, but historically are very slow to permeate and take effect at a large scale.

So I think that we actually have a bigger crisis that is anticipated. If Hunterston B fails its lifetime extension, then that hits us in 2011. Even if Hunterston B carries on, we have seen in 2006-07, that non nuclear old-age plant factors can close it down (and the same with Longannet).

So for security of supply, in the timescale of need, my bet is on option 4.
Build 1.2 -2.4 GW of known plant now, retrofit CCS later.
Hope renewables and decentralised efficient CHP grow as predicted, and by 2012 it will be clear if we need to build a big nuclear plant, or not.