Study: Renewable Energy Poses Security Risk

Intermittent and unreliable wind and solar power pose a serious energy security risk and threaten to undermine the reliability of energy generation in the UK, according to a new report.

The paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation says that domestic and global fossil fuel reserves are becoming more abundant and helping significantly enhance Britain’s energy security. Even with the crisis in Ukraine, open energy markets are serving Britain well.

By contrast, renewable energy sources are too unreliable. The paper points to Germany as an example of they are undermining security.

Last December, wind and solar power generation almost came to a complete halt for a week. Germany’s 23,000 wind turbines were largely still, while photovoltaic failed to generate enough energy due to lack of sunlight. The result was that for a week, the country’s remaining conventional power plants had to take on the burden of providing all the country’s energy supplies.

The report’s author, Philipp Mueller, said: “Open energy markets are a much better way to ensure energy security than intermittent generation systems like wind and solar.

“It would be a huge risk in itself for Britain to go down the same route as Germany and destabilise what is still a reliable UK electricity grid.”

Germany’s renewable energy policy has come under increasing criticism in recent months as more people discover its true cost.

In February, a group of scientists and economists told the German parliament that the green energy laws were a dismal failure. Not only were they were making energy more expensive, they also had no measurable impact on “climate protection.”

In a damning verdict, they said: “The Renewable Energy Sources Act does not produce any additional climate protection but it makes [energy] much more expensive.”

Last month, the country’s Vice-Chancellor, Socialist leader Sigmar Gabriel, told delegates at an event organised by a leading renewable firm that the policy was “on the verge of failure” and called for subsidies for renewable energy to be cut.