VJC_H1 ECONS_QP

VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE 2016 JC 2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION H1 ECONOMICS – PAPER NO.8819 15 September 2016 8am - 11am Thursday 3 hours Additional Materials: Answer Paper READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name and class on all the work you hand in. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper. You may use a soft pencil for any diagram, graphs or rough working. Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid. Section A Answer all questions. Section B Answer one question. At the end of the examination, fasten your work securely, by Section, using the strings provided. The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question. This document consists of 8 printed pages.

Section A Answer all questions in this section. Question 1 Electricity markets in Europe Table 1: Electricity consumption in the UK by sector (in Terawatt-hours) Sector 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Domestic 118.8 111.6 114.7 113.5 108.3 Industry 104.5 102.4 98.2 96.9 92.8 Others 105.5 103.9 105.1 105.9 101.8 Total 328.8 317.8 318.0 316.2 302.9 Source: Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) Table 2: Average annual household expenditure on electricity (in £) Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Expenditure 474 502 522 546 549 Source: Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) UK Extract 1 Britain’s shift to renewable energy Britain generated more of its electricity from renewable sources than from burning coal for the first time in the second quarter of 2015, as more wind and solar farms were built. The Government has encouraged the shift to green energy through subsidies for renewable generation and punitive measures on coal plants as it seeks to meet climate change targets. The drop in coal power also reflected the closure or temporary shutdown of other coal power stations and an increase in the UK’s carbon tax which made coal plants less profitable to run. A DECC spokesman said: “Gove rnment support has driven down the cost of renewable energy significantly and these statistics show that has successfully enabled renewables to compete with other technologies.” Source: The Telegraph, September 2015

Extract 2 Obstacles to renewable energy use It seems to be that Britain’s aged electricity grid is stopping renewable energy projects connecting to the system, threatening the country’s prospects for a low -carbon consumption future. Ashley Seager, a director at solar energy firm Sun4net, said the lack of capacity was exacerbated by prohibitively high connection charges of £40m annual fee it has to pay to be connected to the National Grid especially for businesses wanting to produce their own energy. He said: “For about 80% of those projec ts, grid connection was too expensive to make them viable.” In another claim, the cost of connecting offshore wind to UK’s grid was estimated