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Electricity - flick a switch and it's there. But how do we make it? From big, coal-fired power stations to solar panels on your roof, there are many generating technologies, each of which brings something different to the mix. Find out where our electricity comes from.
There are many power stations of all types and sizes in the UK. A diversity of generating technologies is essential as it means that we are not over-reliant on one fuel source. Between them, the power stations in the UK have a generating capacity of some 90.2 gigawatts (GW) and produced 383,791 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in 2010.
Most of the UK’s electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, especially natural gas (47% in 2010) and coal (28%). A very small proportion is produced from oil (<1%). The volume of electricity generated by coal- and gas-fired power stations varies each year, with a degree of switching between the two depending on fuel prices.
A third of the UK’s coal-fired power stations and all of its large oil-fired plants will shut by 2016 in order to comply with air quality legislation. More coal- and gas-fired power stations could close in the early 2020s as emission limits are tightened. Companies have plans to build a number of new gas-fired power stations and they are also considering investing in new coal-fired power stations. In future, these could be fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), a new technology that removes the CO2 from power station emissions and stores it in underground geological formations. This technology is not yet commercially viable, but demonstration projects are underway.
16% of our electricity comes from nuclear reactors, in which uranium atoms are split up to produce heat (a process known as ‘fission’). The UK’s nuclear power stations are now reaching the end of their operational lives and will close gradually over the next decade or so, with all but one expected to cease production by 2025. Several companies have plans to build a new generation of reactors, the first of which could be online by 2018.
Renewable electricity is produced either by harnessing naturally occurring flows of energy in the environment (such as rivers, wind, waves or tides) or by using sources of carbon that are quickly replenished, known as biomass. Renewables now produce 7% of the UK’s electricity and new EU targets mean that this is likely to increase to some 30% by 2020. To achieve this, a range of innovative technologies will need to be deployed, such as onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations or devices which use the wave and tides to produce electricity.
The UK electricity network is connected to the systems in France and Ireland through cables known as ‘interconnectors’. Britain can therefore import or export electricity when it is economic to do so. In total, the UK exported 4,481 GWh of electricity in 2010 and imported 7,144 GWh, which accounted for <1% of the electricity supplied.