Analysis of Britain’s Energy Sector
Over the years, Britain has witnessed changes in its energy sources to meet its ever-increasing energy demand while reducing global warming.
This article highlights these changes in energy sources for a period of 6 years (2012–2018). The data was gotten from Data World and visualized with Power BI.
Sources of Energy
The sources of energy can be grouped into two: Renewable and Non-renewable energy sources.
Renewable energy often referred to as clean energy, comes from natural sources or processes that are constantly replenished. For example, sunlight or wind keeps shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather. Non-renewable, or “dirty,” energy includes fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal. Non-renewable sources of energy are only available in limited amounts and take a long time to replenish.
In Britain, different sources of both renewable and non-renewable sources of energy are used. The non-renewable include nuclear, combined cycle gas turbines and coal energy whereas the renewable source include biomass, hydro, pumped, solar, and wind energy.
From the dataset, the total energy demand between the period of 2012–2018 was over 27 GigaWatts with the non-renewable supplying about 83% of it.
However, we will see that over the years, renewable energy sources are beginning to gain ground in Britain. Comparing the trend of renewable and non-renewable sources, we see a steady decline in non-renewables and a steady increase in renewables.
From the mid-1990s, renewable energy began to contribute to the electricity generated in Britain, building on a small hydroelectric generating capacity. This has been surpassed by wind power, for which the UK has large potential resources. This interest in renewable energy is due to UK and EU targets for reductions in carbon emissions, contributing to global warming. Many non-renewable energy sources can endanger the environment or human health.
Overall Trend
This chart shows the trend of all the energy sources in Britain. We see that at the beginning of 2012 coal was the leading contributor, however, by 2018 it was on the same level as a biomass source.
Renewable Energy Sources
Wind power accounts for about 56% of renewable sources of energy in Britain. The United Kingdom is one of the best locations for wind power globally and is considered the best in Europe. The total offshore wind power capacity installed in the United Kingdom as of February 2019 is 8,483 MW, the largest in the world. The United Kingdom became the world leader of offshore wind power generation in October 2008 when it overtook Denmark.[54] In 2013 the 175-turbine London Array wind farm, located off the Kent coast, became the largest offshore wind farm in the world; this was surpassed in 2018 by the Walney 3 Extension.
Next is the biomass source which accounts for 23% of the renewable energy. Pumped and hydro sources are the least contributors. Currently, the UK has four pumped energy operational plants and there are hundreds of potential pumped hydro sites, with the low-hanging fruit adding up to around 50GWh. According to QBC’s Holmes, these are mainly in Scotland and Wales due to topography.
Non-renewable Energy Sources
Combined-cycle gas turbines(ccgt) have been the major contributor (43%) in non-renewable energy closely followed by coal (28%) and nuclear power(27%)
