Keith is a co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre and, in April 2019, became a member of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. A Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he has advised the Scottish, UK and Irish governments and Ofgem on electrical energy and power systems issues and is active in CIGRE, the International Council of Large Electric Systems. He is also on the Executive Committee of the IET Power Academy, an initiative to encourage graduate engineers into the power and energy sector, and is a member of Ofgem’s climate resilience expert panel and of the National Energy System Operator’s Engineering Advisory Council.
Summary
The reality of climate change caused by human activity means that rapid action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and change how we use energy and where we get it from. For many years that goal was seen as being in tension with those of providing reliable supplies of energy and minimising the cost of energy. However, with large reductions in the cost of wind turbines and solar PV panels over the last 20 years and vulnerability to fossil fuel price shocks making renewables attractive regardless of decarbonisation, has the ‘energy trilemma’ now been resolved? Or do the variability of wind and solar, the nature of the technology used to connect those sources to the grid and the level of climate change we can’t avoid threaten energy supply resilience?
By reference to a number of recent events plus key reports from the Climate Change Committee, Keith Bell, holder of the ScottishPower Chair in Future Power Systems at the University of Strathclyde, attempts to answer these questions.
