The current plans for decarbonization and the implementation of the UK government's scheme to remove gasoline and diesel-driven vehicles from the road by 2035 have a big challenge ahead of them. Is the country's national grid up to the task?
The British government has set a roadmap to have the majority of new zero emission vehicles by 2035. 80% of new cars and 70% of new vans sold will have to be zero emission by 2030, increasing to 100% by 2035.
This would put a strain on the country's grid capacity. Although this has been estimated at an increase of only 10% this is still a considerable amount. The National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios models the UK's energy future, with a report predicting a rise in peak demand of between 19GW and 27GW by 2050. In the most adverse times, in the dead of winter, power capacity only just manages to meet demand. However, recently rising prices and higher than average temperatures have led to a reduction in demand in 2022 of about 3.8%: “Domestic consumption fell 10 per cent to 96.2 TWh while industrial consumption was down 2.7 per cent and consumption by other users (primarily commercial users) was down 0.7 per cent.” UK Government statistics.
Unfortunately the UK's transmission network is very old and has not been upgraded sufficiently, Dominic Quennell, Managing Director of Enertechnos Energy, says, “The cabling that makes up the energy system is little changed from the inefficient cables installed by the Victorians, built for a bygone era when electricity traveled in one direction and to fewer end points. The result is one of the highest energy loss rates in the European Union, a problem that must be confronted if the UK is to be a world leader in clean energy.” UK official statistics combine distribution losses and energy industry use, so are problematical, but put the figure at 7.2%.
Without infrastructure development, the UK's transmission network will find it difficult to sustain the demands made on it by EVs. The UK government is failing to invest in sufficient new capacity or replace aging cables to reduce losses, for example by HVDV ones. This is an important oversight, given the long timespan needed to replace this infrastructure.