CCC: Emissions cut of 78% needed by 2035

Unabated gas-fired power stations should be offline by 2035 and new gas boilers banned from 2033, the UK’s statutory climate change advisors have recommended.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC)’s Sixth Carbon Budget also calls for sales of diesel trucks to be phased out from 2040 and the rollout of one million heat pumps by the end of this decade.

The CCC’s headline recommendation is that emissions should be cut to 78 per cent of 1990 levels by 2035 to ensure the UK reaches its 2050 net-zero goal. Until last year the government’s target was to cut emissions to 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.

Around 15 per cent of the emissions savings that the CCC envisages by 2035 will be achieved through reduced demand, such as cutting down on meat consumption and travelling less, as well as more efficient use of energy and resources, including better insulation of buildings.

However more than half the emissions savings are due to be delivered by adopting low-carbon alternatives, like electric vehicles and heat pumps, as fossil fuel hungry options are phased out.

The CCC calculates that up to 140GW of offshore wind, which it describes as the “backbone” of the UK’s future energy system, will be required by 2050 to help decarbonise the electricity system.

Gas fired power stations, except for those fitted with carbon, capture and storage (CCS) technology, should not be generating electricity by 2035, according to the report.

To help drive carbon emissions off the grid, it recommends that all new gas power stations should be fitted with CCS as a requirement for obtaining planning permission and not just those 300MW or bigger.

The decarbonisation by 2035 of the UK’s electricity generation from the current level of 50 per cent will cut UK emissions by 18 per cent, the CCC calculates.

Networks should be “future proofed” with extra capacity in order to help meet the anticipated tripling in demand for electricity and to respond more readily to variations in supply from renewable generation, the climate advisory body recommends.

The CCC calculates that an additional 400TWh of new low-carbon generation is required to meet electricity demand by 2035. At least 50TWh of this supply should be dispatchable and flexible generation from gas CCS, bio-energy CCS and hydrogen plants.

Role of hydrogen

Production of low-carbon hydrogen should increase to 90TWh by 2035, nearly a third of the size of the current power sector, in order to help meet net zero.

However, hydrogen’s use should be concentrated in areas that are less easy to electrify, such as shipping, and it has a “vital” role to remedy intermittency either at a system level or by installing hybrid heat pumps in individual buildings.

Hydrogen could also play a supporting role through targeted conversion of the regional gas grid, for example in areas adjacent to clusters of industry.

The rate of heat pump installations should have reached more than a million per annum and fully low-carbon heat networks should be being rolled out “at scale” by 2030.

The CCC says 5.5 million heat pumps should be deployed in homes by 2030, of which 2.2 million would be in new build homes and a “large proportion” of the remainder expected to be installed in off-gas grid properties. The government’s recently published 10-point green recovery contains a pledge to roll out 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028. Currently just 26,000 per annum are deployed.

Overall system costs are not a “major differentiator”’ between replacing gas heating with heat pumps or hydrogen, according to the CCC, which backs regional solutions for home heating.

Full conversion of the gas grid to hydrogen is “unwieldy” and relatively inefficient because it would require a huge amount of offshore wind electricity to produce sufficient sustainable quantities of the fuel, it says.

Full electrification of home heating would meanwhile be “challenging though not impossible” as it requires considerable flexible supply.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Ofgem would be “well-placed” to collaborate on a major study to identify prime candidate areas for hydrogen or full electrification, with input from networks on current capacity.

Commitment to electrification

The report says electrification is of “primary strategic importance” for net zero and it is “essential” that the government sets a clear commitment to electrification through the 2020s.

On surface transport, the report recommends that sales of diesel heavy goods vehicles should be phased out “no later” than 2040, supported by large-scale trials in the near term, with plug-in hybrids playing “no more than a niche role” by 2030.

Recharging and refuelling infrastructure will need to be developed, including the deployment of a network of hydrogen refuelling stations and overhead electric catenary wires, like those used to power trains.

According to the CCC analysis, the cost of implementing net zero will be less than 1 per cent of GDP throughout the next 30 years, “substantially” below estimates of two to three per cent just two years ago.

The chief factors in the estimated falling costs of decarbonisation are the plunging price of offshore wind and a development of other new low cost, low-carbon solutions.

Responding to the CCC report, Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of Energy UK, said: “We need to match government and business ambition with immediate policy. We want the imminent energy white paper to lay out the policies we need to unlock the investment and innovation required for the huge and exciting challenge of net zero.”

Dr Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: “Calling time on gas boilers will represent a major step on the UK’s path to a carbon neutral nation, and is a way for families up and down the country to take action on their carbon footprints.

“Switching to clean heat will not only cut emissions, it will reduce air pollution and – if supported with the right policies – dramatically cut energy bills. With strong suggestions that hydrogen will not be widely used to heat our homes, the CCC have given the government the ammunition needed to make a big call on clean heat, which if done well could lead to a booming heat pump industry based on British soil.”