Effective Form Of Renewable Energy in the UK

AbstractPurpose of this is to create an essay on the given topic which is all about the renewable energy and its sources as well as uses. Not only that the essay is intended to give the additional views and ideas about the knowledge of study of the different sources of renewable energies available, but also it will concentrate on the availability and the scopes that belongs in the UK (United kingdom) and their effectiveness. This essay will be comprised with some of the necessary and needed researches and findings based on the most effective sources and their usage in the maximum basis. During the study many of literatures and findings are made to give the proper and correct ideas regarding the clear concept of those efficient sources of renewable energies that can help in progress of the nation’s culture and development. Also different sources of renewable energies will be identified and their effective usages will be discussed as section-wised method to give a systematic study on the selected topic. This study based essay will definitely be helpful for the students and the future researchers on this particular topic as they plan for doing with the same subject. So in the later part of the study, the entire findings and ideas will be distributed by maintaining a proper structure.

Table of Contents

TOC o “1-3” h z u HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518925” Abstract PAGEREF _Toc392518925 h 1

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518926” Introduction PAGEREF _Toc392518926 h 3

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518927” Five Forms of Renewable Energy PAGEREF _Toc392518927 h 4

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518928” Wind PAGEREF _Toc392518928 h 5

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518929” Solar PAGEREF _Toc392518929 h 5

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518930” Geothermal Power PAGEREF _Toc392518930 h 5

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518931” Biomass PAGEREF _Toc392518931 h 6

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518932” Hydro power (Water) PAGEREF _Toc392518932 h 6

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518933” Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc392518933 h 7

HYPERLINK l “_Toc392518934” References PAGEREF _Toc392518934 h 8

IntroductionThe general definition of renewable energies is that energy which comes from the naturally reloaded resources like rain, wind, sunlight, geothermal heats and waves. The ability of these energies that it can easily able to replace the conservative fuels in four different sections which are as hot water heating, rural energy services, eclectic generation and motor fuels (Begg, et.al, 2005). As per the knowledge purpose it should be mentioned that about 16% of global energy consumption comes from this particular sources of energies. Into wide geographical areas renewable sources of energies can be found. So it is one of the contrasts as the availability can be seen in some of the limited number of countries. The rapid usages of the renewable energies and also the effective usages of those can result in multiple outcomes like security regarding the sources of energy, economic benefit for a particular country and climate change improvement. Different govt. proposals and international surveys are quite active to promote the renewable sources mostly opting to use the wind power and solar power. As per the case of United Kingdom, they mostly rely on natural gas, oil and coal to extract energy. These sources are not renewable and they fall on the finite resources, such as fossil fuels (Buckman, 2011). So constant usage of that will eventually diminish the resource which in a result will become too much expensive and it will be dangerous for the environment to make further retrieval. So, renewable energy sources are holding the importance in this case by having the contrast comparing the non-renewable sources. So in simple words the energy sources like solar and wing energy will get replenished constantly and will never get condensed. As told earlier that most of the amount of energy comes from sunlight itself whether it is direct or indirect. The in UK solar energies are used to generate heats for the lighting purpose of the homes and large buildings also. They are further used for the different industrial and commercial uses such as the electrical energies, solar cooling, hot water heating and many more. Also another source of energy is wind energy which can be captured and generated by the use of turbines. Then there is the next source which is known as water waves (Collinson, 1991). Wind and sun collaboratively cause the water to evaporate. Then those vapor in the form of rain or snowfalls can be contained by using the hydroelectric power. Another source is called as the Biomass which is basically related with the plants. Rain, sunlight and wind causes to grow plant and that organic matter can be uses as energy source. Biomass is too much significant as it helps to create chemicals, electricity and most importantly transportation fuels (Dineen, 1995). There are many more sources of energies can be found utilized in the UK such as Hydrogen (which is utilized in the organic compound), geothermal energy (which is sourced from the Earth’s internal heat) and ocean energy (which is derived from the ocean waves).

So the above discussion relating the different sources of energies is made on the basis of UK’s environment and the effective usability.

Five Forms of Renewable EnergyAround the world the renewable sources of energies are becoming widespread but the domination of usage is still absent. As per the discussion, there are five types of primary energy sources that are used widely in UK and those are Solar Energy, Biomass, Wind Energy, Geothermal Energy and Hydropower (Haugen and Musser, 2012). Each of the sources of energy is the alternate way to produce energy on a traditional basis. The generated energy from these sources can be reproduced and helps to eliminate the footprint from the environment. The dependency is increasing day by day on the natural resources and to fulfill the demand of the civilians of UK, scientists are constantly doing their part of researches to make the energy sources the alternative to the traditional ways. One of the main facilities of renewable sources of energy is that it can be produced in a short period of time. As for the knowledge, the renewable sources of energy are constantly fulfilling the demands of cities and rural areas by making the contribution on generating electricity from mid-1990s (Healey, 2005). As per the record, total of almost 11.5% of the energy is provided by the renewable sources electricity in United Kingdom by providing 41.5 TWh of electricity generation. So the country is planning for making the contribution big and it is required to make a proper discussion of these types of energy sources with the background of United Kingdom.

WindAs per the records observed in the mid-2013, the estimation on the wind power capacity has been observed as in United Kingdom it is over 10 gigawatts (GW) (Hester and Harrison, 2003). As per the ranking basis, UK is one of the eight top producers of the wind power energy of this world. The future of wind power is seen promising as in near future it is expected to continue its growth. As per the proposal of RenewableUK, the estimation found for the next five years that over 2 GW of capacity will be established per year. After Biomass, it is second largest source of energy within UK. In 2010 there were seen some of the successfully completed projects regarding the wind power industries in UK such as Thanet and Gunfleet Sands. Also 1.1 GW of wind power had been generated during that year where on the other hand there 3% increase can be witness in the year of 2009. In the year 2010, there was more offshore installation than the onshore installation found comparing to the year of 2009 (Hill, et.all, 1988).

SolarThe solar power projects in United Kingdom take an impressive toll when the record was checked during the year 2011. It was seen that in the end of 2011, there were more than 230,000 solar power projects established in the country with the combined gearing capacity noticed as 750 megawatts (MW). This turns to more impressive and satisfying when the capacity increased to 1000 MW by the end of February 2012. So in recent years the usage of solar power had noticeably increased in the country. As a result of that, in the period of April, 2010, the usage of photovoltaic panels and feed-in-tariff had been reduced all together (Jaccard, 2005). Another outcome of that, the government of UK had proposed a plan that determined of giving 4 million homes across the United Kingdom the electricity generated from solar system within the next eight years, as a result of that it is expected to generate over 22000 MW of solar power by the year 2020.

Geothermal PowerAfter the oil crisis event that had happened in UK during the year 1973, the investigation on availing the possible ways to get the geothermal power had begun. But later it was stopped due to the fall in fuel prices (Jacobs, 2012). There is only one project of geothermal energy which is located in Southampton that is still now operational. Further proposal on having the heat energy generated from the geothermal projects was disclosed during 2004 and plans were to build the energy model in Eastgate, Durham County.

BiomassBiogas derived from the landfills and sewage is already taken into effect to generate energies as in the form of biomass. In comparison to the year 1990, 630% more energy had been derived in the year 2004 out of the biomass projects and the amount of energy it provided was 130 GW-h (Jakab, 2010). It is the leading renewable source of energy for UK providing 39.5% of the total energy produced in the country. The figure of percentage is though including the energy taken out from hydro also. To observe with the Renewable Energy Directive of the European Union, UK had come up with a target of 10.3% of total renewable energy in transportation. But as per the record this is yet not fulfilled as the target is not achieved still now. The biomass energy production can be less harmful as the consumption of carbon is too much less in this practice if it produced locally. But there still the risk factor lies as it can damage the ecological balance by destroying rainforests for purpose making gain by export and import activities. This is one kind of threat to the environment of UK as in the year of 2004 38% of the total energy produced (i.e. 106 GW-h) was from the woods (Langwith, 2009). This is why there was the increase witnessed in electricity produced in the year 2004 than 1990.

Hydro power (Water)As per the record found on the basis of 2012, the total electricity produced in that year was accounted as 1.67 GW by the hydro power facilities installed for generating the capacity (Richter, 2010). Hydro power electricity makes its contribution of 2% to the total electrical consumption of United Kingdom and an average of 14% contribution to the total renewable sources of energies that the country generates. The annual electricity production of this scheme is totaling 5700 GW-h which is 1.5% of the total electricity generated in the entire country. In the country the pump-storage power houses can be witnessed and the main activity of these is to consume the electrical energy generated by the facility. But this is okay as it results in bringing the balance of the grids make possible to directly increase the power generation by the same source of renewable energy. As per the example, at the off-peak times the soaking up of the surplus of renewable output can result in the release of energies when it required (Saunders and Chapman, 2004).

ConclusionAs in the end portion of this essay the conclusion is the mandatory step as here in this section it is required to show up and present the most efficient source of United Kingdom. In order to do that it is necessary to sort out the most effective source of renewable energy generated and used in the United Kingdom and it is to be arranged in a ranked basis from top to worse (Sayigh, 2000). Here as per the discussion made and brief given on this particular scenario, the essay had identified the top most used renewable energy source used and also the less utilized energy source. So as per the utilization and energy production Biomass is the top source of the renewable energy from which 39.5% of the energy generated and having a contribution of over 130 GW-h. After that it is wind power that identified as the second largest source of energy provider in United Kingdom by making contribution of 10GW-h. The third largest source is hydroelectric power by making a contribution of 1.67 GW-h. After that solar energy comes as it is ranked 4th in this list created by the study by making the contribution 1000 megawatts as per the record (Sørensen, 1979). The last ranked source of energy for United Kingdom is geothermal power, which did not have its growth in the country as many of the projects had been stopped and since then never reestablished.

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