The UK will face the retirement of a considerable number of nuclear power plants (7GW) over next 15 years. Combined with the closure of many coal, oil fired power station to meet EU environmental directives, there will be a generation capacity gap of 20-25GW to meet the continuously rising demand by 2020. Beyond this, the government committed the UK to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050, replacing the former target of 60% in an ambitious move to decarbonise the energy sector. This has created a significant challenge for the UK power industry to address this generation gap in a sustainable way.

This presentation provides insight of a number of technical and economic attempts by the presenter to lead the UK towards a low carbon economy. Emphasis will be placed on two fronts: 1) how to plan the transmission network so that the required security and quality standards are not compromised with significant increases in wind generation; 2) how to provide economic incentives to guide the location of future generation/demand and magnitudes of benefits by moving to a more economic pricing model. The presentation aims to disseminate the history, present and the potential future of network planning and pricing in the UK and to provide some enlightment to China.
联 系 人：康重庆 教授