Wales to turn self-supporting, sell green energy

Greenbang feels a bit like she’s had three cups of coffee and half a cup of sugar: there’s a maelstrom of information whirling about in her brains and she’s not sure how to get it out. That’s what happens if you read government consultation papers for fun. If you want to join in, read this. It’s the Welsh Assembly’s green route map – a document up for consultation which explains how Wales can be self-supporting in energy.

It’s a doozy of a paper, so Greenbang will sum it up for you in case you’re allergic to PDFs.

With sufficient innovation and investment, the right government framework and public support, Wales could produce some 33TWhr per hear or electricity (its current consumption is around 24 TWhr) from renewable sources. Half of this would come from marine, a third from wind and the rest mainly from sustainable biomass. And from the latter in its various forms, including waste, Wales could produce some 3TWHT of renewable heat each year.

The three pillars of the plan are: renewable energy technologies, including wave, wind, biomass, energy from waste and hydropower; energy efficiency including supporting microgeneration and distributed generation; and planning consents and grid infrastructure, which will mean greener buildings and a grid set up to deal with distributed energy generation.

Wow. Go Wales!