Third Update of June 2020 – An overview of last week’s Energy news

Below is this week’s summary. It should be a one minute read relevant to UK energy with links to documents for those who wish to read more.

(Click a bullet point to open the relevant article)

Monday – 15th June

• Bloomberg article claims UK is paying £1 billion each year in direct subsidies for electricity generation from burning wood pellets as well as £13 billion in tax breaks.

Wednesday – 17th June

• Plans for UK’s biggest onshore wind farm are to go ahead on Shetland Isles north of mainland UK. 103 turbines will provide electricity generation capacity of 0.44 GW and cost £580 million to construct. Development is subject to permission being granted for an export cable connection to the mainland.

• Recent sunny weather in the UK has caused records to be broken for solar power generation, reaching almost 10 GW on 20th April, approximately 30% of electricity demand at the time.

Thursday – 18th June

• UK Government press release announces that construction has begun on the world’s largest liquid air battery in North West England. The plan is to use renewable energy during times of excess supply to liquefy air. Liquid air will transfer back to a gas, driving turbines to generate electricity, during periods of higher demand.

• UK Government is funding research at Birmingham University into hydrogen as a fuel for trains.

Friday – 19th June

• UK Energy Systems research body (“Catapult”) has made the case for increased levels of nuclear power in the energy mix in support of net zero emissions targets. The ‘Nuclear for Net Zero’ report includes support for small modular reactors (“SMR”) and hydrogen production.

• Almost 2 GW of offshore wind power generation came online in 2019 bringing total capacity to almost 10GW.

Saturday – 20th June

• In a BBC interview, the UK energy minister says shale gas industry is over ‘for now’.

Sunday – 21st June

• A disused gas network in Teesside will be used as a pilot to test procedures for transporting hydrogen as a zero-carbon heating fuel.