In the next 20 years a substantial amount of the

UK's existing electricity generation capacity will

close. How this capacity is replaced will have a

major impact on the UK's ability to meet its

international and domestic carbon emissions

reduction targets.

To explore this issue WWF-UK and Greenpeace

commissioned Pöyry energy consultants to look

at the implications for the UK electricity sector of

meeting the UK's share of the EU renewable

energy target. This requires the UK to produce

15% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

The report was based on the assumption

(supported by government analysis) that there

was around 76GW of connected capacity in 2007.

Of this, 22.5GW is expected to close by 2020.

Pöyry constructed various scenarios of energy

demand and renewable energy growth to

ascertain whether these technologies would be

able to meet the so-called 'energy gap'.

This report is a summary of the report Implications

of the UK meeting its 2020 renewable energy targets.