The Climate Change Committee, an advisory body set up by the British government, has slammed that government for being too slow with its transition efforts, risking missing its own transition targets.
The UK is aiming to decarbonize its entire grid by 2035 but is not moving fast enough to do it, according to a new report from the advisory body. In it, the Climate Change Committee noted that “Delivery and deployment of infrastructure must be achieved at a much greater pace than the present regulatory, planning and consenting regimes can achieve.”
The report also called for making available the necessary investments that will transform the country’s grid in such a way as to make it less dependent on fossil fuels and more dependent on low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar. This will require an expansion of the grid that will also necessitate certain investments.
“It is imperative that resilience to the effects of climate change is built into this asset investment programme from the start. Much of the UK’s Net Zero electricity system is yet to be built and requires significant additional investment to replace many existing generation assets as well as significantly expand the system,” the authors of the report said.
Following the release of the report, the UK’s energy industry chimed in with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.
The Energy Networks Association proposed that the government provides greater flexibility for network operators when it comes to infrastructure investment so they could ensure network capacity is available when needed.
“The CCC’s report makes clear that the solution to this challenge must involve both gas and electricity, yet policy progress is lacking,” said the chief executive of ENA, Lawrence Slade, as quoted by Energy Live News.
“While we welcome the CCC’s assessment of the importance of hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure in delivering decarbonisation, we need to see rapid progress across both renewables and hydrogen deployment to make the 2035 target achievable.”
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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