Carbon intensity over the quarter averaged 199 g\/kWh: 10% lower than the previous minimum set last year. For context, the carbon intensity averaged 740 g\/kWh in the 1980s and 500 g\/kWh in the 2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The carbon intensity of Britain\u2019s electricity now regularly dips below 100 g\/kWh, showing that deep decarbonisation is already plausible. The sunny and windy Sunday afternoon of June 11th (see previous figure) saw grid carbon intensity hit an all-time low of 71 g\/kWh, and remain below 100 g\/kWh for several hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The figure below shows the carbon intensity of electricity supply during each half-year. In 2010\/11, a third of hours were high-carbon with emissions over 500 g\/kWh, the rest were mid-carbon (250-500 g\/kWh). Lower coal and higher gas prices in 2012\/13 saw more high-carbon hours as coal stations displaced gas until the Carbon Price Support made coal-fired generation less economic. With strong growth of renewable output, low-carbon hours (125\u2013250 g\/kWh) are now rapidly emerging, and occurred half the time over the last twelve months. There hasn\u2019t been a single high-carbon hour in the last two years, and we are now seeing the first \u2018lowest-carbon\u2019 hours with less than one quarter of the carbon intensity. So far, 2% of hours in 2017 have been in this lowest carbon category, but in future these will need to become the norm to hit the country\u2019s decarbonisation targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Committee on Climate Change\u2019s recommendation for 2030 (electricity below 100 g\/kWh<\/a>) can now be achieved for short periods of time, although meeting the target on individual days is easier than over the year as a whole. Nonetheless, the path to low-carbon electricity supply appears more certain these days, but major challenges lie ahead in decarbonising the heating and transport sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hourly generation mix in each half-year grouped by carbon intensity, with projections1<\/a><\/sup> for 2020 and 2030<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Authors:<\/em> Dr Iain Staffell<\/a>, Professor Richard Green<\/a>, Dr Rob Gross<\/a>, Professor Tim Green<\/a> and Dr Jonathan Scurlock<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1: Future projections are based on an average carbon intensity of 175 g\/kWh in 2020 (from National Grid\u2019s Future Energy Scenarios<\/a>) and 100 g\/kWh in 2030 (from the Committee on Climate Change recommendations<\/a>). The share of each category was estimated by reducing the carbon intensity of each hour during 2016 by 74 g\/kWh for 2020 and 149 g\/kWh for 2030. This preserves the distribution of carbon intensities across the year, which has remained similar since 2009 with a standard deviation of \u00b1 66 g\/kWh. This gives one possible share of generation that is consistent with meeting the annual target, rather than a precise forecast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Low-carbon is the new normal for Britain\u2019s power system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q2-2017"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/03_Reaching_below_100gkWh-1-1024x445.png\")
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