Comparison of Renewable Energy between UK and France

This report provides a reliable comparison of renewable energy between UK and France, studying the feasibility of renewable energy in both countries. It gives an overview of renewable energy, including solar power, wind power, hydroelectric energy, and geothermal power. The report also discusses the renewable energy schemes implemented by the governments of UK and France.

RENEWABLE ENERGY
ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Renewable energy is predominately the clean energy which comes from various natural
resources or the processes which are continuously replenished. In short, renewable energy
basically is the energy which is produced for the sources which does not deplete and cannot be
later on replenished. Renewable energy is generally thought as the most effective means of
harnessing the power of nature for various aspects like transportation, lighting etc. This report
basically provides a reliable comparison of renewable energy between two EU countries which
are UK and France which is highly essential for studying feasibility of two countries in terms of
renewable energy. The major aim of this report is to study the concept of renewable energy and
compare how different countries uses this energy in different ways.
This report gives a brief overview of renewable and comparison of renewable between
UK and France.
MAIN BODY
Overview of renewable
Renewable is basically the resource which can be utilizes repeatedly as well as does not
generally runs out as it is naturally secured. The renewable resource generally have the endless
supply like solar energy, geothermal energy and the wind energy. This is mainly the energy
which is collected from the renewable resources that are naturally replenished upon human
timescale like wind, rein, sunlight, geothermal heat etc. This renewable energy basically provides
the energy within four different areas that are electricity, air, transportation, water generation. It
has been reported that the renewables predominately contributes around 19.3% to the global
energy consumption as well as 24.5% of the generation within electricity according to the report
of 2016 and 2017. A renewable resource is mainly different from the nonrenewable resources.
The non renewable resources cannot be later on recovered once it is utilized (Krozer, 2019).
Renewable resources mainly are derived from the natural resources which are replenished
continuously. Within various forms, renewable energy is mainly derived from the sun, or the
heat which is generated within earth. The continuous development of the renewable energy as
well as energy efficiency would lead to energy security as well as economic benefit. Renewable
resources is basically the focal point within environmental movement. The energy which is
obtained from the renewable resources generally puts less strain upon limited supply and demand
of the fossil fuels that are the nonrenewable resources (Caba, 2016). The major problem with the

renewable resources while using it on the large scale and platform is that the renewable resource
are generally costly as well as a high amount of research is required for utilizing them. In order
to encourage utilization of the renewable resources, mainly a wide range of the incentives have
been designed for encouraging utilization of the alternative energy. Like for example the energy
taxes which are being levied in UK places the surcharge upon fossil fuels in order to make the
prices of these renewable resources highly competitive and well as incline the people more
towards using these resources. The climatic changes as well as global warming are generally
coupled with continuous fall within price of various renewable equipment like wind turbines,
solar panels, etc. The main advantage of the renewable resources is that it eventually decreases
the environmental pollution like air pollution, which is being caused due to burning of the fossil
fuels and thus improve the public health. Besides this, it also reduces a large number of
premature moratalities which occur due to rise in pollution as well as save the costs associated
with health and its treatment. The renewable resource is a wider field and thus covers the wide
ranges of resources.
Solar power
This is one of the foremost and important source of the renewable resources . This is the
form of the energy which mainly relies upon nuclear fusion and hence comes from sun. It is
mainly harvested with the use of various technologies among which the most significant one is
solar panels. This energy form can be later on gathered as well as converted into various forms
like electricity (Wagner, 2018).
Wind power
This is the another most remarkable and significant source of the renewable resource. The
various equipment mainly captures the movement of wind and thus converts it into the useful
form. The most important one are wind turbines. These wind turbines generally captures the
power of wind while they spin and hence convert it into different forms like electricity. Wind
mainly accounts for the 6% within UK generation and thus have now become one of the most
cost-effective sources across world (Liu, 2016).
Hydroelectric energy
This is the another form of the energy which make use of gravitational potential and
power of the elevated water which is lifted from oceans through sunlight. The hydro-power
turbines basically rotates when water flows across them and thus generate electricity. This is

considered as one of the largest and widely used renewable energy resource for generating
electricity in United Kingdom (Lanzafame and et.al.,2017). The most important advantage of this
hydroelectric power is that is highly versatile as well as cane be thoroughly generated by using
large projects as well as small scale projects such as underwater turbines etc.
Geothermal power
Energy which is being left from original accretion and are augmented by the heat from
different radioactive decay seeps out everywhere and everyday. Thus, this is the most important
source of renewable source of the energy. In short, talking of geothermal power the heat energy
can be later on harnessed from deep into the earth for generating large amount of electricity.
Although this energy resource is not much widely used in UK but even on the small scale it has
the immense potential for supplying energy (Mormann, 2017).
Comparison of renewable between UK and France
United Kingdom
According to the article Elliott (2017), it has been the great renewable energy technology
has been adopted in UK and thus has been developed with relevance to the climatic changes. The
renewable source of energy is considered as highly imperative as well as important in UK which
has helped a wide range of homes as well as businesses to illuminate them with electricity as
well as provided them with large volume of water. The renewable resource generally forms the
core and integral part of United Kingdom which has enabled this country to thrive upon
sustainability as well as contribute towards the suitability of environment. This article has shown
that the approach of market-oriented being adopted by UK for supporting its renewable energy
has generally resulted in slow development of various renewable resources in comparison to
different EU countries. The renewables produces around 30% of the overall UK's electricity and
is estimated that it will increase to more than 40% in the forthcoming year of 2020. From the
year, 2021, renewable energy and its sources will continue to remain an important and
inseparable part of strategy for reducing carbon emission in UK (Herbes and Friege, 2017).
Wind power
The wind power contribute a the fraction towards the generation of energy in UK and
thus is the integral part of strategic view in UK. There are mainly around 6546 wind turbines in
UK that have average installed capacity of around 12 gigawatts along with 7950 megawatts. UK
is generally ranked on the sixth position while talking of the producers of the wind power. UK

has taken a great advantage of wind turbines and wind power in comparison to the other EU
countries and thus has invested to a great amount within offshore wind (Ruotsalainen and
et.al.,2017). The wind power in UK is estimated to continue to rise in forthcoming years and as
per the report of Renewable authority in UK, around 2 GW will be eventually deployed every
year for upcoming five years. In comparison to various other sources of renewable energy, wind
power in UK occupies the second position after biomass. Wind power in United Kingdom
contributes to around 18% for the generation of wide range of energy resources and thus delivers
the great percentage of electricity in UK.
Solar power
The another source of the renewable resources which has transformed United Kingdom to
a great extent is the solar power. Solar power basically represents the small part in electricity
production within UK. As of the evidence of 2019, it has been reported that the installed capacity
is around 13 gigawatt and the annual generation of the solar panels is under 13 Twh in the year
2019. The sector of renewable energy in UK is continuously flourishing through the use of wide
rage of solar panels (McDowell, 2016). The government of UK targets of producing around 20%
energy from the use of renewable resource in the upcoming year of 2020. In the year 2013, UK
installed around 12 MW photo-voltaic capacity and thus represented on around 0.3% of total
solar PV of around 3,400 MW. But the use of this solar rapidly increased in the year 2018 and
2019 and towards the end of year 2018, there were around 23000 solar projects in UK along with
average generating capacity of more than 750 MW. In the year 2019, the government of UK
announced that more than 4 million homes across UK will be stimulated by sun in eight years. In
2019, UK installed 12.8 GW which represented the total of 3.4% share in terms of electricity
generation.
Hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity is the another most important source of the renewable energy which is
being used by UK at large scale and thus is highly determining factor in the amount of electricity
which is generated across UK. United Kingdom is generally considered as the pioneer within
hydro-power development through water and thus was the first to set up hydroelectric generator
for providing electricity. Talking of the report of 2019, today UK has an average hydro-power
capacity of around 4600 MW which also includes 2744 MW pumped storage. The majority of
hydro-power generators are being situated in wet a well as mountainous regions like Wales,

Northwest Scotland etc. In the year 2017, the installed capacity was around 32 MW and there
were only notable and few greenfield projects which were mainly commissioned in Scotland,
Grudie, Nevis range and few more (Pearl-Martinez and Stephens, 2016). Currently it has more
than 3 projects of pumped storage in Scotland as well as Wales. The interest in the hydro-power
within UK has renewed in current years an d thus the government has announced to undertake
various schemes for promoting the generation of electricity through hydro-power and its other
alternatives. The action plan of government of UK towards various renewable energy projects
has initiated in 2019 and thus will go a long way in interconnecting the nearby areas with this
source. The hydro-power expansion is likely to increase and thus will cover the whole UK.
Renewable Schemes
The government of UK has established numerous schemes which offers the financial
support and thus helps to reduce use of nonrenewable resources. These schemes mainly
encourages the technological developments. Renewable obligation (RO) is one of the most
important scheme in UK whose main aim is to encourage the electricity generation through
renewable sources for the large scale industries and installations. RO mainly rewards the
renewable output for lifetime of the project (Meyn and et.al.,2018). Another most important
scheme being established by UK government is Feed-in Tariff(FiT), It is primarily designed for
supporting the small scale installation of renewable around 5 MW. Through this scheme,
generators are being paid tariff for each and every unit of the electricity which is produced by
them.
France
According to the article Mbarek and Feki (2016), the great orientation towards the
consumption of renewable energy has resulted in decrease of pollutants like greenhouse gases.
This article has presented information on logical approach to forecast the production of
renewable energy in France on grounds of quarterly information from 2001Q1 to 2012Q3.
France has been one of the major contributor of electricity using the renewable source of energy.
Among the various European countries, France is the country where renewable energy forms the
core function of government and organizations. France till date has invested a huge amount in
the renewable projects and thus has shifted their focus towards utilization of the natural resources
for providing electricity across France and for betterment of environment (Schlögl, 2017). The
government of France has connected their ideas with the resources for empowering the nation.

The renewables which are being used in France contributed to around 23.5% towards the
electricity generation and hence illuminate the homes across the country with immense amount
of electricity. In the year 2018, around 32 renewable projects were being commissioned in
France and this increased the power generation to around 70% in wide range of households
across France.
Wind power
France occupies the seventh position by country in world in terms of wind generation and
is ahead of the countries like China, Austria. Coming on the Jurisdictional level, the wide
generation in France is skewed towards Spain and Belgium. In the year 2018, the wind power
which basically supplied more than 33.5% of renewable electricity in France was mainly sources
from wind power. According to the report of French renewable energies association (SER),
more than 60 wind farms were reported towards end of the year 2018 which had the total
capacity of around 862MW (Krozer, 2019). In the year 2019, more than 20 projects are currently
lined up and it is estimated to grow in the upcoming years. In the year 2018, around 4 farms were
being commissioned and it is estimated towards end of the year 2019, more than 23 wind farms
which will have combined capacity of around 5.9 GW will be under construction.
Solar power
Solar power is one of the fastest growing and rapidly developing industry in France. In
terms of the country, France occupies the fourth position when talking of solar thermal and
photo-voltaic and thus have the great installed capacity. The most exciting feature of solar
capacity in France is that they almost situated upon France rooftops. By end of the year 2015,
around two in seven of the France houses has installed the solar PV. There is around 15% rate of
penetration across the households of France. In the year 2019, the combined capacity of the 1.5
million solar PV which were installed in France was reported around 12035 MW. Out of the
12035 MW, more than 4068 MW was mainly installed within 12 months (Caba, 2016). At the
end of November 2019, around 58 solar PV that has combined capacity around 2881 MW were
either constructed or under construction. Initially, the use of solar power was not the main
hotline in France but the sudden increase within solar PV since 2018 in France propelled country
and thus made it the strong contender. In terms of the capacity, as of 2019, the PV capacity of the
solar panels is around 9.3GW and thus France secures fourth position.

Hydroelectricity
According to the report of ARENA in 2018, the hydro power which is being supplied in
France forms around 35.2% of electricity generation. France has around 58 hydroelectric power-
stations which are currently operating and have the installed capacity around 25519 MW.
Despite of reduced generation during previous years because of low rainfall, the hydro-power
generation in France rebounded immensely in the year 2016. The hydro-power resources of
country are majorly concentrated in states of the Spain that is heavily dependent on hydro and its
alternative for electricity generation (Wagner, 2018). The largest and widely known system of
hydro-power in France which forms the core and integral system is Grand’Maison which
contains nearly 5 power stations along with average generating capacity around 1800 MW. This
scheme generates 4500 Gwh electricity on average per year. The government has made various
plans and strategies for increasing this scheme to 50% or around 2000 MW.
Renewable Schemes
There are various renewable schemes which offers financial support to the government in
promoting use of renewable resources. The Onshore wind scheme is one of the major and most
important scheme which is being established by the federal government in France for ensuring
support to the additional 15 gigawatt for operating the small-scale onshore installations having
less than 5 turbines. The another scheme which is RD&D which is research development and
demonstration provides the financial incentive to households as well as small businesses for
installing small-scale system of renewable energy like water heaters, small hydro-system etc
(Liu, 2016).

CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that renewable source of energy forms the most important and
core part on this earth and thus helps to protect the environment by making use of natural
resources. There has been different views of the authors on the renewable energy of UK and
France and thus have contrasting views which are reflected in their articles. The renewables are
mainly used for generating electricity and illuminating the wide range of households. There are
wide rage of sources of renewables like wind power, hydroelectricity, solar power etc. Each and
every country has different aspects of using these renewable sources of energy. For example
where on one and UK secures the second position in terms of using wind for generating
electricity where on the other had, France occupies seventh position and thus have less wide
panels.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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dissertation, Universität zu Köln).