Renewable electricity legislation
03-06-08
Electricity: the participants
Ofgem - industry regulator, governs network prices through five-year Price Control Reviews
Generators - own and operate power stations
Suppliers - buy electricity from UK generators to sell to households or businesses
Transmission System Operator - this is National Grid plc, which is responsible for balancing electricity supply with demand across Great Britain; the System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI Ltd) manages the system in Northern Ireland.
Transmission Network Owners - Maintain and operate the high-voltage network delivering electricity across the country - National Grid in England and Wales, Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Electric in Scotland.
Distribution Network Operators - Seven companies manage between them the 14 regional networks bringing electricity to local users - CE Electric, Central Networks (part of E.ON), EDF Energy, Scottish & Southern Electric, Scottish Power, United Utilities and Western Power Distribution.
At present, renewable sources of power provide about 5% of the 76GW of electricity generated in the UK overall.
The government has so far committed to securing 10% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010. It also has an aspiration to reach a 20% rate by 2020.
However, requirements from forthcoming European legislation, for the UK to secure 20% of all its primary energy from renewable sources overall means that more than a 30% share of the electricity market will have to come from renewables in practice.
This is because of the relatively slow growth in renewable energy forecast from the heating/cooling and transport fuel sectors.
The government believes that overall, there will be a requirement for 20GW of new renewable energy capacity connected to the UK transmission system.
The main government support mechanism for renewable electricity in the UK is the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme, which places a legal requirement for electricity suppliers to source a growing proportion of their power from renewable energy installations. The RO provides an extra income stream for renewable energy generators on top of the income from selling their power.
One of the biggest barriers to more renewable electricity in the UK is the difficulty of connecting new projects to the national grid, an issue that is currently the subject of a government Transmission Access Review.
For more on the progression of renewable electricity legislation in the UK, see the following resources:
