This study examines the potential effects of Brexit on the wind power industry within the UK. It became apparent that in order to reach the objective that the approach of the research needed to be broadened as it was found that Brexit has potential effects in many areas of the UK's electricity industry, including the import and export of electricity and the associated fuels used in the generation of electricity. It was found that in the event of a hard Brexit, one with no deal, that the UK's physical connections by undersea cables with the EU may be disrupted. There is a raft of legislation within the Internal Energy Market (IEM) governing this issue that will need a complete rewrite should the UK be forced to leave the IEM. Consideration was given to the effect of Brexit on the three main traditional methods used to generate electricity in the UK, coal, gas and nuclear power and how wind powered energy could be used to fill any shortfall directly or indirectly caused by Brexit. The UK Government has pledged to eradicate the use of coal in generating electricity by 2025 so the study considered only the short term effect of this. For gas, the UK is a net importer, albeit mainly from outside the EU, so the implications of Brexit on gas fired generation of electricity were discussed and found to be negligible. For nuclear powered electricity generation the implications were found to be more serious. The UK would have to resign its membership of Euratom, the European Atomic Agency Community. The potential implications of this include, limited access to nuclear fuel, and reduced participation into nuclear research carried out by the EU. The scope of Euratom also includes a large variety of areas including the safeguarding of nuclear materials in storage and in transit along with radiation protection. Plans by two Japanese companies to build new nuclear power stations in the UK have been shelved with Brexit adding to the uncertainty of their viability. It was found that the combined implications of the above could result in a shortfall in the medium term provision of electricity within the UK. Finally it was discussed whether or not wind powered energy could fill this void and it was found that the UK Government could overcome the deficiency by encouraging investment in wind power by increasing the value of their Contract for Difference, CfD, auctions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-393318 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Mummery, Robert |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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