Grid asks factories to use less energy next winter under blackout prevention plan
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
The National Grid will ask factories and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity usage this winter under an expansion of a service previously pioneered by households.
In a bid to help keep Britain’s lights on, the Grid has confirmed it will urge heavy industry to sign up to the so-called demand flexibility service this coming winter.
Businesses that sign up would be asked to reduce their consumption at times when supplies are expected to be stretched, helping to ease pressure on the system.
While they may use the same amount of energy overall, shifting their usage outside of peak times can help the Grid to manage and prevent blackouts in worst-case scenarios.
Households are also being asked to take part in the demand flexibility service again, which was first introduced last year.
We are rapidly returning to the blackouts and voltage reductions of the 1960s and 70s. (Remember how our old TVs used to lose their horizontal hold, whenever voltage was reduced?)
Back then our steel works, along with many other heavy power users, were handed Maximum Demand periods, usually of an hour, and with maybe a day’s notice at times of peak demand. Any electricity used during that hour was charged at a punitive rate. Consequently everything shut down, the furnaces, rolling mills etc; even the lights went off in the offices, which was quite a fun time when you did not have to work and could chat the girls up instead!. But it was no way to run a factory efficiently, and neither will this latest idea.
This move is, to all intents and purposes, rationing. And the reason is quite clear – the closure of nearly all of our coal power capacity.
If we are having to take such drastic action now, heaven help us when our gas plants start to shut down as well.
The Telegraph finishes with this ridiculous claim:
Given that only 1.6 million homes took up the offer, clearly the amount saved could not have been enough to power 9.9 million homes.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Wait till they actual use the smart meter to drastically increase the cost of electricity at times of high demand, so called Demand Side Reduction (DSR), that has been the intention all along.
… and this – the preclusion of governmental totalitarian control over your electricity supply – is the single most important reason for stopping a smart meter being installed in your home.
Trouble is, buy a new house it has one by law. Mind you ours has not worked on the gas side since we moved in 2 years ago.
Nothing a Faraday cage won’t fix!
“The National Grid will ask factories and businesses to move to where they can get reliable power.”
Fixed it.
Russia! Fixed it! (2014: “Russia ‘secretly working with environmentalists to oppose fracking’ ” …. it’s almost as if, when the US got their regime change in Ukraine, they could see the war coming, and decided to do all it could to encourage the west to end its energy independence).
Not calling on the system expensive generation only for all the renewable lot to benefit from marginal pricing seems relatively sensible to me although given most of our high power consuming industry has been offshored now how much will it help.
I have an idea: Why not re-commission the shuttered fossil fuel plants and let those factories do what they do best–create prosperity for the West? Just a thought. I know it sound crazy. Or perhaps build a giant interconnect from China, Russia or India to supply the power the UK so desperately needs. Or maybe just suck up to the Frogs and beg them for some nuclear energy? Anything is better than shivering in the green darkness.
“I have an idea: Why not re-commission the shuttered fossil fuel plants and let those factories do what they do best–create prosperity for the West? Just a thought.”
—– Unfortunately in the UK at least (unlike Germany) they seem to demolish coal power stations so quickly I fear they forget to check the staff have left first so we would have build new power stations.
“I know it sound crazy. Or perhaps build a giant interconnect from China, Russia or India to supply the power the UK so desperately needs.”
—— Not feasible with current technology (except maybe to Russia), let alone looking at the geopolitics of all of this and a national security risk (compare how bad thing were with oil in 1973 which we can store so could ration what we had vs having nothing to ration in seconds) all of that electricity would largely becoming from fossil fuels but in the UK at least vs Ireland the pro wind and solar anti fracking types tend to ignore what goes on in the places we import energy or anything else for that matter from.
“Or maybe just suck up to the Frogs and beg them for some nuclear energy?”
—– The French have their own problems they have a number of maintenance issues with their existing nuclear capacity and they have the botched EPR program (for a start you build a full size prototype so you can learn leasons before you build other plans) that will compete with the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor for incompetence. We are better off getting help to build a few replica of Sizewell B although I suspect we may have issues with the heavy forging capacity so I personally would work with Canada & Romania to put the supply chains in place to build a series of CANDUs especially as we have British engineers who have some experience in working with refurbishing CANDUs.
In the short term our best bet is to:
1) make the most of what we have so we need to audit what electricity is being used for especially at peak time in the places the people using it don’t directly care about the cost (so outside of home & small businesses) so starting with the public sector and large/medium size businesses e.g. lighting empty rooms and IT equipment especially displays being left on for no apparent reason and forcing supermarket to have door on chillers (and to eventually look at using chillers that can store coldness to reduce peak electricity demand & dump the waste heat into a district heating system),
2) use the remaining thermal capacity that can burn coal & oil (probably all of the biomass units) as baseload to reduce the risk of breakdowns and to reduce gas demand increases, give priority to optimal ruining of thermal generation over renewables
3) Require all children to learn how an electricity grid works in the real world (and for that matter food production & farming) so they understand the fallacy of legal fictions like 100% renewable by running their own simulated version
4) to ban the use of electricity for space heating where this can be done with natural gas & with building requiring larger heat demand being required to have the ability to use and store oil or coal as well as look at the ability to utilise combine heat and electricity generation with R&D into natural gas heat pumps.
5) Look at Sunday Closures and consolidating the work week to reduce commercial energy (heating and electricity use) in the winter months.
6) require a review into fully utilising our own fossil fuel resources including coal with a plan to be able to mine it in at the very least an WW2 style emergency
7) Inform the Republic of Ireland it has to look at fuel security instead of being dependant on imports from the UK as it will become more difficult to justify treating it as if it were part of the UK as we do thing to improve our resilience.
I would offer to help it join the UK new build nuclear program, use its old gas fields for storage and build a LNG import terminal as we will need to do some of these thing for Northern Ireland.
In the medium term:
1) work to get a design of mass producible combined heat and power units which can burn coal
2) work to get at least 90 day of natural gas storage (or equivalent using LPG like during the 1970s with the coal gas conversions) with a long term aim of 6 months.
3) Get a series of nuclear reactors (40 GWe) using an existing design – I would personally look at CANDUs as I suspect access to heavy forging capacity could delay things with all the other existing designs
In the long term:
1) work to get a design of mass producible combined heat and power units that use nuclear fission – Initially we can carbon copy a nuclear submarine design with the eventual aim to see if we can do anything with a thorium based reactor.
2) Look at nuclear marine propulsion.
3) Encourage the return of industries instead of allowing the import of thing to be made in conditions (health and safety, pollution, exploitation, child labour even slavery) that would be illegal in the UK – fair trade not free race to the bottom trade.
PlatformZed : What’s wrong with the RR SMRs?
“Or perhaps build a giant interconnect from China, Russia or India to supply the power the UK so desperately needs.”
The Chinese with their UHVDC technology are already working on it, and have been for some time.
Click to access jrc-report-link-2017.pdf
Please, allow me to apologize–I was being facetious. I was trying to point out how quickly the ill-conceived NetZero nonsense went sideways causing shortages, and pointing out that three pf the largest economies on Earth did not step on their own dicks following the energy policy of a chubby, petulant, pig-tailed teenager. Again, I apologize. On a related note; your ideas are well stated and well reasoned. Perhaps you should run for MEP.
“What’s wrong with the RR SMRs?”
Vapourware.
@John Brown – “PlatformZed : What’s wrong with the RR SMRs?”
We need to replace the AGRs which will all close by 2028 as things stand with something other than new build natural gas (due to the lack of gas storage for starters) as the development & the build of a full scale prototypes (to avoid the mistakes of the AGR or EPR) of RR SMR require time we don’t have as although based on a PWR submarine design I suspect will have to make change for geopolitical reason e.g. low enriched uranium so we really need to consider an existing nuclear design where we have real world operating experience and since the pressure vessel for Sizewell B & Hinkley point were made in France I suspect we don’t have the heavy forging capacity to make a copy of Sizewell B or any other PWR/BWR meaning building a few CANDU on existing nuclear sites at the same time would be the most realistic way to get replacement (8 to 10 GW) in the next 5 years other than new build coal.
Although I do wonder if it would be possible to repurpose the AGRs or their steam turbine to burn heavy fuel oil or coal since the life limiting feature is the graphite block. On that subject I wonder if we could drag there life into the 2030s if we reduced the boiler temperature and/or shut them down during the summer when natural gas is more abundant.
A useful list, platformZed.
Worth remembering that it was Ed Davey that scuppered Sheffield Forgemasters and picked EPR for Hinkley C. And, of course “banned fracking” as he boasts when trousering £18,000 a year for “advice” to BigSolar.
Now the twat comes on Telly complaining we aren’t building enough whirligigs and solar farms.
He and that halfwit Ed Miliband, chorusing the same moans, who drove through the 2008 Climate Change Act; should be chained to bicycle mounted dynamos for the rest of their miserable lives.
Obviously, it would save only a trivial amount of power. But the National Grid should be instructed to cut off power to Westminster and Whitehall as No.1 priority, rather than No.9,999 priority as at present. And academia as No.2.
That way, the architects of all this bleeding nonsense would “feel our pain” for once.
Why not talk to the Koreans about building their version of the Westinghouse PWR (Sizewell B is an earlier model)? They have built 4 of them, total 5.6 GW, in less time than the delays to the EPRs – and for a lot less cash!
“Why not talk to the Koreans about building their version of the Westinghouse PWR?”
We can but I suspect when the blackout start, the snake oil subsidy farming pyramid scheme that is renewables is exposed so the public want it defunded & the people behind it are in prison (especially in Germany as they really need a scapegoat and Russia natural gas interests coning everyone works well)
I also suspect public opinion will shift towards nuclear in a number of countries (after people particularly Gen-z / those who are typically indifferent to the matter go a few days without electricity and experience a black start) at the same time so there will be run on the worlds heavy forging capacity (and I wouldn’t put it pass a number of organisation or even countries to engage in indusial sabotage by making sure there is poor quality steel about to delay things) so we will need to get some British heavy forging capacity first.
With the CANDU if we put the resources into it we could start building a few on existing nuclear sites at the same time within a year which would be the most realistic way to get replacement (8 to 10 GW) in the next 5 years other than new build coal.
Gamecock@ – Vapourware – I like it.
Martin Brumby@
“A useful list, platformZed.”
Thanks
“Worth remembering that it was Ed Davey that scuppered Sheffield Forgemasters”
Goodness I didn’t know that.
Then I wonder what Ed Miliband will say if we don’t have a mild winter next winter and we have natural gas shortages and rota disconnections.
We really need an public inquiry lead by chartered electrical engineers to review if the Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority have complied with their duties under the Electricity Act 1989 and if any politicians or civil servants make any decisions they financially benefited from especially if a reasonable would have made a different decision for potential misconduct in a public office.
As the EPR was was clearly the worse choice of the available options based on the cost & the delay in Finland especially with the UKs history with problematic nuclear designs I.e AGR see Dungeness B when I would have made more sense to instead just continue with the PWR design used for Sizewell B although personally I would choose the CANDU as it could be fuelled on spent PWR fuel. We than have the UAE who started their new build at the same time as us as well as creating a nuclear power sector from scratch with a language barrier who looked at the EPR but decided the South Korean PWR was a better bet.
There are many duties worth investigation from Electricity Act 1989 Section 3A here is a small sample:
Those interests of existing and future consumers are their interests taken as a whole, including—
(b)their interests in the security of the supply of electricity to them
– There is no rational reason why embedded generation isn’t reported in real time and controllable by the electricity system operator to prevent unnecessary low frequency load shedding see May 2008 & to protect the distribution network especially the underground cables as these are planned based on diversity factor where it presumed that home in the same street would not all demand (let alone generate) large amount of electricity at the same time.
We then have the reduction in system inertia requirements to accommodate wind, solar and HVDC interconnectors that make stopping a collapse harder and god knows how a black start will work but it will take longer than the partial blackstart we had 1987 as most of the generation used then to blackstart has being demolished .
• “the need to secure that all reasonable demands for electricity are met”
– do we have enough generating capacity to run all those heat pumps? Are there plans to build enough to meet our equivalent instantaneous natural gas & heating oil demand for an unusually cold winter e.g 1947 or 1963 – https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2018/gas-consumption-during-the-beast-from-the-east-how-the-local-gas-system-kept-us-warm)
• “to secure a diverse and viable long-term energy supply”
Dangerous dependency on just in time natural gas since most of the CCGT in GB unlike the island of Ireland don’t have the onsite fuel – was this reviewed when the coal power stations closed.
Allowing fuel secure nuclear capacity to close without fuel secure replacement
Allowing electricity generation to be dependant on natural gas without increasing storage compared to neighbouring countries
Allowing wind and solar to be connected to grid based on yet to be invented storage & no real world example to prove this is feasible. As well as plan to address their shorter life compare to hydro and thermal power station.
“chained to bicycle mounted dynamos for the rest of their miserable lives.”
I have a better idea as we need them to admit they wrong due to how cult like this has become– I suspect having to live in rural community that doesn’t have mains electricity or running water will bring them back to the real world.
“Obviously, it would save only a trivial amount of power. But the National Grid should be instructed to cut off power to Westminster and Whitehall as No.1 priority, rather than No.9,999 priority as at present. And academia as No.2. That way, the architects of all this bleeding nonsense would “feel our pain” for once.”
I think a better idea would be for energy prices to be adjusted for politicians & civil servants so they pay the same share of income as someone on the minimum wage & no savings living paycheque to paycheque but on prepayment meter that has to be topped up daily and they can no longer claim any of this on expenses or as millage.
Also 100% renewables tariffs need to be balanced in real time with other renewables or storage top up with renewables or people on them will be disconnected from the grid.
I’m sure businesses are doing everything they can to limit the amount of energy used so as to reduce costs
Cutting our own economic throats while the Chinese laugh at the stupid round eyes.
They will ask us to reduce our body temperature under 25C.
Clown world show sinking in a sea of stupid
I calculate that 3,300 MWhrs of electricity divided by 9.9 million households works out at 0.33 KW per household for 1 hour. This doesn’t feel like peak demand to me and in fact, according to Ofgem, the average household electricity usage over a year is 2900 KWhrs which works out as an average power of 0.33 KW over the 8760 hours in a year.
It would be so much simpler to open up coal mines, frack and drill for more oil, instead of immersing ourselves in the NetZero nonsense to reduce our miniscule carbon output, dig out your pitchforks because the politicos have lost their tiny minds.
Just pitchforks? No torches? . . . oh, wait. I get it.
Please don’t imagine opening old deep coal mines is simple. Having been very much involved in doing just that 40 years ago, as part of the 1970s Plan for Coal, I can assure you it is very hazardous and expensive. As also the guy technically responsible for safely closing most remaining deep Coal Mines in the early 2000s (having shortly before, finishing building the bloody things), the only modern mines that MIGHT be able to be re-opened are Stillingfleet, Riccall and Wistow, which just had the shafts “capped” rather than filled. But 20 years have passed (I rather hoped the UK might come to its senses long before now).
Apart from the cost and hazards associated with re-opening, where would we get experienced Coal Miners from?
I guess perhaps from Ukraine. But it would be at least a decade’s project.
But, yes, (new) surface coal mines could and perhaps should be opened, together with building a modern Super Ultra Critical Power Station, which almost certainly would be Chinese.
Better concentrate on fracking and jailing the incompetent scum who have brought us where we find ourselves.
The dead do not know that they are dead. The pain is felt by others. It is just the same with stupidity.
That’s not original. It’s very good, just not original.
NGESO’s twitter claim was even more ridiculous
It claimed it delivered enough to power 10 million households. Power is a rate of flow, not a quantity of energy. In fact the maximum power saving was 294.61MW on 23rd January between 17:30 and 18:00. The 2013 Household Electricity Survey suggests that average winter use in homes not heated primarily by electricity is about 1kW. So enough for 294,000 homes from the savings made by 1.6 million homes, who saved less than 20% of consumption on average. An exaggeration by a factor of about 33.
Of course the National Grid will never admit the cause being renewable power generation.
I almost wish blackouts this winter do happen
if only to prove a point.
The numpties out there will never believe that unreliables can supply a country until the frequent blackout force the fact down their throats. How many people in hospital emergency rooms will die in this is unknown. The shame is that good people need to suffer for their learning experience.
I pointed out to all those who couldn’t run away fast enough to get away from me in 2008 (Climate Change Act), that all this brain damaged GangGreen nonsense would HAVE TO STOP when people quickly tired of shivering in the dark.
Since then, tens of billions of pounds of taxpayer’s and energy users money have been spent, not on ensuring adequate power generation from non- weather dependent sources, Oh No!
But on building interconnectors, buying in energy from Iceland, Norway, Europe, even looking again at solar farms in North Africa, where the natives are so friendly.
Transmission losses?
Who cares?
Then paying for new power lines and all the fancy jiggery pokery to ensure power outages are restricted, so far as possible, to the serfs furthest from London.
My wife continually complains I am grumpy.
Of course I’m bloody grumpy. A pity a few more aren’t grumpy.
And meanwhile Russia’s economy is booming. I wonder if it could be connected?