Renewable Energy Sources And Its Importance In The UK – A Research Study

The Impact of Fossil Fuel Emissions on the Environment

Continuous use of fossil fuels emits harmful wastes to the soil, water, and air. The pollution affects the environment as well as the living creatures inhabiting the earth. Air pollution contributes to the formation of acid rain from oxides of Sulphur and Nitrogen which is harmful to plant life and harms the aquatic creatures in oceans, seas, and lakes among other water sources. Moreover, Nitrogen oxide leads to the formation of smog which also leads to health complications to human beings. Deposition of haze in the ozone layer in the atmosphere inhibits healthy growth of plants (Stokes, et al., 2015).

The population growth and technological advancements in the United Kingdom have led to the exhaustion of the conventional sources of energy such as fossil fuels. There is the need for developing relatively cheap renewable energy sources that are reliable and friendly to the environment. Renewable energy development tends towards the use of solar, water, wind energy, the earth’s heat and plants in the production of energy for consumption without impacting negatively on the environment by reducing the emission of toxic gases produced by the combustion of fossil fuels (Meehl, et al., 2005). Renewable energy sources are clean or green sources because they reduce pollution effects to the environment.

Renewable energy sources are essential in the power production industries. In addition to reducing the global emission of carbon to the environment, renewable energy has several other advantages. To begin with, they are relatively cheaper in the production cost compared to that of gas and fossil energy. The low production cost makes renewable energy to be readily available for use and thus out doing other alternative sources. Secondly, renewable energy has a long-time certainty because more financial support and policy measures by the government have been implemented to support its production. Lastly, renewable energy has an energy security advantage because it is more domestic and provides for the supply security and reducing the dependence on imported energy sources. This additionally improves the economy of states as saved revenue is used for the importance of other tasks (Shindell, et al., 2006).

To promote the implementation of the use of clean and efficient energy sources by enhancing the use of renewable sources of energy and improving sustainability in the United Kingdom. Several objectives are also set to help in achieving this. The goals are;

Locate essential areas within the United Kingdom for scientific research on renewable energy sources and provide effective scientific remedies to issues concerning energy production.

Advantages of Renewable Energy

 Provide scientific facts on matters of making relevant decisions of planning and formulating relevant legislation concerning renewable energy sources.

Conduct and support scientific experiments in the areas concerned with the production of renewable energy.

Enhance the capacity building in the renewable energy sector and create a friendly environment that motivates research.

Improve cooperation and networking between academic and industrial organisations in research practices for mutual benefit and expansion in research procedures.

Circulate the results of the research and provide awareness for the use of safe energy sources to protect the environment.

Several procedures are to be practiced in the acquiring data for the research. Four crucial sources of renewable energy are considered in this case.

It is the most popular and most substantial form of renewable energy that is popularly used in the modern-day society. Water flowing along rivers is harvested in dams and released through turbines to provide electricity. The effects of the quantity of water on the production of electricity are to be determined. Impact of the size of turbines employed in the production of hydroelectric power is also among the basics of the study. Power production effects on the ecological cycle of aquatic creatures are also to be analysed and recommendations made on the ways of improving production and maintaining the marine environmental niche.

The earth’s core located many miles below the earth’s surface can reach hot temperatures of about 9000° F. Heat generated produces geothermal energy and flows outwards heating the surrounding environment leading to the formation of underground reservoirs for hot water and steam. The pools can be adapted for a variety of uses such as electricity generation or heating build sites. Various aspects of the produce hot water and steam such as temperature and pressure are to be determined and their effect on influencing the amount of heat and electricity evaluated.

The sun is the ultimate source of solar energy. Solar energy comes in the form of light and heat which is then harnessed and converted to electric energy for heating, cooling and lighting buildings. In the study of solar energy, the quality, quantity and distribution of energy from the sun is to be determined. A pyranometer system is used to compare measurements at different cloud observations at different hours of the day and the results evaluated to determine the quantities under study. The effect of air pollution to the amount of light produced by the sun is also studied at different points of the solar spectrum using solar cells and current and voltage meters. The working of solar concentrators is also to be evaluated and the procedure of how it harvests solar energy is evaluates  

Objectives for Promoting Renewable Energy in the UK

Wind contains a vast amount of energy that has been often harvested from the past in sailing of ships along oceans, grinding of grains and other cereal products, and pumping water. In the present times advanced wind turbines have been developed to offer efficient means for capturing wind energy for generating electricity. Steady wind speeds of greater than 12 miles per hour are required over the year for effective generation of electricity. The anemometer and wind vane are to be used in the research to measure the wind speed and wind direction respectively at separate times of the day. The effects of topography on the speed and direction of wind are also to be evaluated. Moreover, the effect of the size of wind propeller on the production of electricity is determined.

They are produced from biomass which entails living organisms and decomposable trash. It is derived from organic matter. Production of biomass is less costly and has a lower impact on environmental pollution. The output of bioenergy is to be studied in the research, and the conversion of biomass to biofuels is also explored. The type of plants that produce a large quantity of heat energy in a given amount of biomass is evaluated. The amount of energy that can also be produced by alcohol fuels is exhausted in the research.

Most of the resources used in the project can be obtained from research centres and organisations that deal with the production of renewable energy. The project requires visiting of different power generation plants based on the chosen aspects of renewable energy production. Proper material containing information relating to the project can also be found in the libraries and on the internet as reference sources for the expected analysis of the results obtained.

The implementation of this project is accompanied by several risk factors that may hinder its effectiveness. To begin with, finances are the significant risk. The project requires a lot of money to implement. Equipment to be used in the methodology are expensive and may require trained personnel to operate. Besides, the project may require investors to fund the finances; it is quite difficult to convince sponsors to finance the project from scratch. Also, the operational risks in performing the methodology of the study may be also be encountered due to the changes in the environment, legal regulations, tariffs, and policies. Lastly, environmental risks are also possible challenges to be faced in the project. This may be caused by risks of incurring too much fee in the project and surrender due to adverse environmental conditions.

Research on Renewable Energy Sources

Implementation of the project in the production of renewable energy sources may be influenced by various aspects of the society. Obtaining data on the project from various research stations may be quite challenging due to various policies of data security. Computer security issues in the research centres may also hinder proper collection of data since only a few personnel can handle the computer. Information freedom may come about with issues of organisational importance because many organisations do not freely share their full findings on specific research due to competition purposes. Given reports may thus be somehow compromised in a way and the collected data would not be useful in writing a comprehensive report on the project.

Part Two

Literature Survey

The UK 2020 carbon target

The bid to promote clean energy have not escaped the eyes of the British legislators. Currently the country boasts of one of the most advanced climate change legislation in the globe. In 2008 November the UK parliament adopted a new climate act which was popularly passed by members across the political parties divide. In addition, the new legislation on energy and planning was also enacted during the period. These acts have defined the approached that Britain have taken regarding the policies concerned with climate change. Currently, the nation has put in place institutional arrangements which are accorded the mandate of meeting the country’s objectives.

The act has influenced the institutional environment in three ways. One it has set a long-term emission target for 2050 that is legally binding, through the act, UK is obliged to cut its greenhouse gas emission by at least 80% of the 1990 emission value by the middle of the 21^st century. Several policy makers including leaders of the G8 nations have endorsed such long-term commitments though UK is the first nation to put its commitments into law. This emission targets have been formulated as minimum meaning there is a probability of cutting the carbon emission even further.

Two, the act has laid a framework which can be applied in achieving the long-term targets. Through the acts the UK is committed to a series of legally binding five-year carbon budgets that will direct the nation towards the long-term goal. The budgets offer a reference through which the nation’s carbon emission is evaluated. This way investors are availed with regulatory certainty while at the same time availing flexibility that may allow for mid-term alterations.

Challenges and Risks of Implementing a Renewable Energy Project

Lastly the climate change act leads to an establishment of a new independent body (the Committee on Climate Change) which is tasked with advising the government on carbon budgets. In addition, the body monitors the progress being made in meeting the carbon budgets in an annual report this way the committee is influential in supporting the development of effective carbon strategies which increase the likelihood of achieving the emission reduction targets. Through its release of annual reports which are discussed in the UK parliament the body puts the government to account.

Institutional innovation of the climate change act was given a massive boost when the five-yea carbon budget was passed by UK. The first recommended three carbon budgets up to 2022 was the core to the CCC’s inaugural report. The carbon budget is consistent with the long-term carbon targets hence covers the Kyoto gases even though uncertainties have cropped regarding the measurement of non-carbon emissions especially in the agricultural sector. The CCC have recommended that the emissions from the shipping and aviation to an extent be excluding until a sensible and transparent way of allocating the emissions to the national level is obtained. The committee however recognises the role played by the international transport emission and will evaluate them through the annual reports. The Committee have recommended a two-track approach to the carbon targets with a two state-contingent targets

• An interim reduction target of 34% of the 1990 level. The UK should commit to this target unilaterally.
• An intended reduction target of 42% of the 1990 level which the nation should adopt should a meaningful success be made to the Kyoto Protocol.

The carbon budgets even though are meant for the entire country have an underlying analysis which distinguished the traded sector from the non-traded sector of the economy. The traded sector covers high emitting industries like the metal and ceramics and energy both of which are covered by the EU ETS. The non-traded sector on the other hand covers transport, non-residential and residential buildings and non- EU ETS sections of the economy.

The need to regulate climate change menace have generated a lot of interests in the renewable energy globally. In the United Kingdom renewable energy is classified into generation of renewable electricity, renewable energy in the transport sector and the generation of renewable heat.  The contribution of the renewable energy to the UK energy grid began to go up from the mid-1990s when the carbon emission began to be viewed as a disaster to the globe. In 2013 the renewable energy contributed 14.9% of the total energy generated by the nation. This value hit 53.7 TWh by the second quarter of 2015. As at 2017 the renewable energy exceeded the coal generated energy to reach 29.8% of the national energy output.

The renewable energy is a very crucial tool in assisting UK achieve the 2020 carbon reduction target. Based on the UK and EU ties in curtailing carbon emissions a lot of focus have been directed to the renewable energy sector as the country seeks to replace the use of carbon fuels which have dominated the country’s energy sector for decades. In the past hydroelectric was the largest generator of renewable energy, this has however been passed by the wind power technology of which UK possess an enormous potential.

The use of renewable heat in UK can be dated back to 415,000 BP as evidence in the Uranium series and thermoluminescence dating. The windmills technology was first recorded in Europe during the Middle Ages with the use of vertical type windmills being dated from 1185. In July 1887 the Scottish academicians managed to derive electricity from the wind turbines for the first time in Scotland (Preece, 2006).

During 1878 the global first hydroelectric power scheme was constructed at Cragside in the Northumberland England. Afterwards, most of the electricity generation in the country was through coal burning. By 1964 coal was responsible for 88% of electricity generation while 11% came from oil. Hydroelectric power supplied the remining percentage though it continued to grow as the coal firms struggled to meet the rising demand for energy.

The oil crisis which occurred during the 1970s saw a huge transformation takes place in the renewable energy sector, with the US already developing their wind energy sector a lot of pressure was on the UK to consider alternative sources of energy to avoid the oil crisis in future. With this a recommendation was made by the Central Policy Review to initiate the harnessing of wave power technology which was seen as the future of the nations’ energy policy. The cost of the wave energy generators was though too high, and the programme failed to take off.

At the same time an increase was recorded in the number of solar panels installed to avail hot water and in 1986, a pumping heat from geothermal boreholes was initiated in Southampton which made use of the district heating network (Örjan, 1985).

The renewable energy sector saw a lot of improvements from this time and by 1990 the country’s electricity was 2% this value shot up to reach 14.9% in 2013 assisted by falling costs and subsidies.

During 2007 the UK government accepted the European Union target of producing 20% of the total EU energy supply from the renewable sources by 2020.  Each nation was given a target and for UK the target was 15%. This became a legal obligation in 2009 January when the EU Renewables Directive was passed. For the UK to reach the 15% target it is estimated that the electricity generation from the green sources will have to be between 35% to 40% with the wind power capacity expected to play a leading role. The Climate Change act of 2008 saw Britain commit to cut carbon reduction by 80% of the 1990 level by 2050 and by 26% by 2020.

In what seems to be a sign of future renewable energy takeover nuclear, wind and solar technologies generated more power in the UK than gas and coal combined for the first time in 2017. Currently UK boast of the 4^th greenest power production in Europe and ranked 7^th world-wide. Also, the offshore wind power generation cost overtook nuclear power for the first time in 2017. The UK though still depends on gas making the nation vulnerable to gas price fluctuations.

Wind

The portion of UK energy derived from wind power have significantly gone up and by January 2015 Britain wind power was composed of 6546 wind turbines which generated 7950 megawatts of onshore wind power and 4049 megawatts of offshore wind power. The country currently ranks 6^th globally in wind power technology bypassing France and Italy in 2012. Majority of the Britons are in support of the technology with over 75% of the nation supporting the technology (Clark, 2017). The wind power technology is projected to continue developing in the country into the foreseeable future with RenewableUK predicting that over 2 GW will be deployed annually for the next 5 years. In the United Kingdom wind power comes second to biomass as the largest source of renewable energy. Dong Energy one of the UK largest wind farm generated 5 GW of wind energy in 2016 and have even confirmed plans to sell the firms oil and gas division. This is a scenario which may occur across several organizations as the country strives to go green (Jha, 2008).

Marine energy

UK enjoys an island location which gives it an immense potential for generating tidal power. The economic viability of the marine technology is however in doubt and for this reason the sector is yet to experience any significant commercial exploitation. In 2007 the Scottish Executive announced plans to start the funding of Britain’s first wave power generating farm. This is expected to be the world largest with a capacity of 3 MW generated by 4 Pelamis machines at a cost of over 4 million pounds. Investigation have also been initiated south of Scotland into the tidal schemes which will entail the construction of a Solway Barage in the South of Annan (Ellabban, et al., 2014).

Biofuels

Generation of gas from the landfill and sewage have already been experienced in a few areas. The technology generated 129.3 GW of energy in 1994 which was 690% of the 1990 level. This made it the UK leading source of green energy covering 39.4% of all the energy derived from the renewable sector. As a way of striving to comply with the directive of the renew energy of the EU the county intends to commit 10.3% of renewable energy to the transport sector (Black, 2008).

Solar

By the closure of 2011 UK had over 230,000 solar power projects. This had an installed generation capacity of 750 megawatts, this capacity reached 1000 megawatts by February of 2012. The reduction in the photovoltaic costs have significantly increased the use of solar power. The UK government is projecting the solar power capacity to reach 22,000 MW by 2020 (DECC – Department of Energy & Climate Change. , 2015).

Hydroelectric

By 2012 hydroelectric power stations accounted for 1.67 GW of installed capacity in Britain. This was 1.9% of the nation’s total energy output and 145 of the total output from the renewable sector. The country generates an annual average of 1.5% of its total energy from this source. In addition, the country has pumped-storage power stations. These stations are net consumers of electrical energy and facilitate grid balance (Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2012). This way the electrical energy can be generated elsewhere.

Geothermal power

The research into the potentiality of the UK Geothermal power generation was triggered by the oil crisis that hit the nation in 1973. This though was abandoned when the fuel prices began to fell and currently only a single scheme is in operation. The nations though announced an intention to develop more schemes in 2004 (Proctor, 2014).

Microgeneration

This entails local electricity production by homes and businesses. They use low energy sources such as small-scale wind turbines and electric solar installations. These technology is viewed to have a significant potential by UK government although the strategies which were launched in 2006 were regarded as a disappointment.  The 2006 climate change and sustainable energy act was expected to boost the energy generated under the microgeneration scheme though funding of grants under the low carbon building program have proven to be an insufficient support (Fritsch, et al., 2007).

Current state of energy consumption in Africa

Energy is a scarcer commodity in Africa compared to the developed nations. The annual consumption in the Sub-Saharan Africa stands at 518 KWh this is the amount of electricity that is consumed by a single individual in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country in 25 days.  Over 500 million have no access to electricity. Only 10 % of the population have access to the electric grid with 75% being composed of the richer population. In Chad, Ethiopia, Niger and Malawi less than 2% of the rural population have access to the electrical power (UN, 2005). The electricity supply is majorly concentrated on the commercial sectors, the wealthy and middle-class sectors ignoring the urban poor and the rural population which comprised of the largest percentage of the population. The electricity is volatile to prices with a slight increase expected to prohibit access, the nations are however lacking the funds needed to roll out additional infrastructure that can lower the cost of energy (Jimenez & Olson, 1998).

Since 1980s most of the developing nations have expanded their electrical grid distribution by 20% a situation which have not been reflected across the African continent. Its only in sub-Saharan Africa where per capita access rates are falling and its estimated that by 2020 over 60% of the population will still lack access to electricity.

Africa’s average electrification rate is 24% while the developing world nears 40%. The few areas covered by the grid are also experiencing unreliable supply. The manufacturing sector goes with no power access on an average of 56 days in a year. In Senegal there is no power supply 25 days in a year, Tanzania have no power supply 63 days while in Burundi it is 144 days in a year. This frequent power outrages have a negative effect on equipment, sales and discourages foreign investors (Visagie & Gisela, 2006). The insufficient power supply together with poor infrastructural layout is what have startled the economies of the nations

Even though the continent lacks adequate transport system developments in the manufacturing sector in addition to improving industrialisation have escalated population growth, fastens urbanisation as well as increased the demand for energy. Providing and maintaining widespread access to clean energy to the population remains a mystery.

The Sub-Saharan population growth is estimated at 2.2 per year, by this rate the continent will have a population of over a billion by 2025. Considering that less percentage of the electricity generated in Africa comes from the renewable sector, there is an urgent need to manage energy -related environmental issues, improve energy legislation and ensure security supply through diversification otherwise the continent may be in the verge of facing serious environmental issues. The only remedy of alleviating the situation is to follow on the footsteps of nations like the UK which have greatly embraced the campaign against hydrocarbons (Bosshard, 2012).

References

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