Sir Denis Rooke 2025: The mission for clean power
The Sir Denis Rooke Memorial Lecture is a seminal event on the IGEM calendar and this year’s address was delivered by Chris Stark CBE who gave encouraging backing for hydrogen, hybrid heating and biofuels.
No 11 Cavendish Square was home to this year’s Sir Denis Rooke Memorial Lecture which took place in March. Delivering the hotly anticipated address was Chris Stark CBE, who leads the UK Government’s mission to achieve clean power by 2030, heading up the ‘Mission Control’ function.
Chris is a leading climate and energy policy expert, known for advocating urgent action on climate change and clean energy. As the previous CEO of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, he led efforts to enshrine the world’s first net zero target in law. He also served as CEO of the Carbon Trust and has held senior roles in the UK and Scottish Governments over the past 20 years.
His extensive industry experiences laid the perfect foundation for delivering the address for a second time to a packed audience, eager to hear his lecture on The role of the gas system in delivering the clean power mission.
The evening began with an introduction from IGEM President David Tomkin who welcomed attendees and set the scene for the evening ahead. He said: “Clean power by 2030 is all about delivering a low carbon system that secure, affordable, and crucially, actually works.
“It's an incredibly ambitious mission to try and do that in five years but as with all grand missions, the idea sounds simple but of course we know the real world doesn't work like that.
“While a lot of people like to talk about shiny new technologies that will drive this transition, the reality is that it's going to involve people to be taken along that journey as well.
“The energy system needs balance, reliability, and above all, a plan that doesn't rely on the perfect weather. That's why gas plays a crucial role that it does today, it doesn't just fill the gaps, it's not just a way of keeping the electricity grid stable and it's not something that we can easily just phase out for and hope for the best, but it's part of the underpinning resilient foundation that keeps everything running.”
He then invited Chris to the stage, welcomed by the audience’s roaring applause. He began with: “I'm very happy to come along and speak to you about a topic that is probably adjacent to what most of you in this room are doing. I wanted to come and tell you a story about what we're trying to do here in the spirit of the man who this lecture is aptly named after.”
He then explained some of driving factors of Mission Control and the challenge of cleaning up the energy system. “We are not only trying to clean up the power system, but we're also trying to demonstrate a different approach to government, which sometimes is framed as a mission led approach to government.”
Chris went on to analyse the latest carbon budget advice from his previous employer, the Climate Control Committee (CCC). One of the key takeaways included the rise of temperatures across the country each year from adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Chris then said: “What's important is that we have an operable energy system that can actually deliver clean power whilst also delivering energy security for the people who need it.”
After sharing some history on the generation of the power mix, he went into detail on some of the work the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has been doing and praising the scenarios it has provided the industry with.
He presented some charts which demonstrated the reliance on gas, Chris explained: “So what you can see nicely in this chart is the role that gas has played since the nineties and you see there on here, just how important that is and continues to be to our power system.”
Reaching a conclusion, Chris finished with: “We are expecting and anticipating the need for gas, the need for molecules, the need for a range of fuels in the power system itself, well beyond 2030 and into 2040.
“In this room, I hope that it is going be a shared challenge for us because we will not achieve our aims unless we are realistic and pragmatic about the needs to have a proper transition across all of the energy technologies that we need in this country and in this system over the next 30, 40 and 50 years. Thank you.”
IGEM CEO Oliver Lancaster then took to the stage to host a lively Q&A session for the room to quiz Chris, gaining further insights. Some of the key points from the Q&A session included positive ways forward with hydrogen and alternative green gas, including the benefit of converting biogas CHP to gas grid injection, and having a green gas target for the gas grid.
In response to a question on the efforts being put into potential gases, Chris said: “There’s definitely room for clean gases in this power mix, hydrogen and biomethane for that matter. There’s room for injection in the grid right now, to facilitate that and to make it happen.
“I hope ultimately it will be the carbon budget seven work that the CCC has done, which shows the importance of blue hydrogen and fuels including biofuel in the future power mix.”
The Sir Denis Rooke Memorial Lecture is now available to view on IGEMtv here.