TY - RPRT
TI - Delivering Net Zero: the role of Offshore Renewable Energy  A COP26 Briefing note prepared by the Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Hub
AU - Greaves, D
AU - Richards, L
AU - White, D
AU - Willden, R
AU - Byrne, B
AU - Gilbert, J
AU - Scott, B
AU - Stallard, T
AU - Thies, P
AU - Zhao, Z
AU - Brennan, F
AU - Jeffrey, H
AB - In the year of the UK’s presidency of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, huge momentum is growing towards focusing ambitions for the UK and globally to deliver net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The UK Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget [1] identifies a pathway for completely decarbonising electricity by 2035, despite electrification of the energy system as a whole requiring greater volumes of electricity supply. Decarbonisation of the electricity supply is to be achieved by phasing out unabated fossil fuel generation and significantly increasing renewable generation. In 1990, renewables generated just 1% of the UK’s electricity supply. Twenty years later in 2010, this had risen to over 6% [2] and in 2019 accounted for 37.1% of the electricity generated in the UK [3]. This transition has mostly been driven by an increase in offshore wind generation and a significant decrease in coal use [4]. As the UK’s favoured renewable electricity generation technology, offshore wind is supported by policies for the coming decade as part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal [4]. This set a target of 30GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. This target has now been superseded by the UK Government’s Energy White Paper [5], which increases the target to 40GW, representing a fourfold increase compared to the current installed capacity of 10 GW. The scenarios envisaged for Net Zero in 2050 are even more ambitious, with projections ranging from 75GW to 140GW of offshore wind (or offshore renewables) [1]. To meet this tenfold increase in offshore wind capacity in less than 40 years will require significant innovation to be achieved to reduce costs, speed up project development and better understand environmental constraints. The UK’s waters host both a growing ORE industry, but also other industry sectors and a range of ecosystems. Economic and environmental success are intertwined, as shown in the 2021 Dasgupta review of the economics of biodiversity
DA - 2021/01//
PY - 2021
SP - 10
PB - Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Hub
UR - https://supergen-ore.net/news-and-events/the-role-of-offshore-renewable-energy-in-delivering-net-zero
LA - English
KW - Fixed Offshore Wind
KW - Floating Offshore Wind
ER -