The UK is much closer to blackouts than anyone dares to admit
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Of all the problems with electric cars, perhaps the least expected was the revelation that some home charging points provide a potential point of weakness for malign foreign powers to interfere with our National Grid. Last week, the Office for Product Safety and Standards ordered the company Wallbox to stop selling its Copper SB chargers because hackers could potentially access the chargers and incapacitate the grid by such means as suddenly turning on thousands of chargers full-pelt at the same time.
But do we really need a foreign power to crash our electricity grid when we are quite capable of inflicting it on ourselves? We are heading for a big electricity crunch as it is. Whoever wins the general election, the next government will be committed to decarbonising the National Grid – by 2035 in the case of the Conservatives and by 2030 in the case of Labour. That means either closing all the gas power stations or fitting them with carbon capture and storage technology – which does not yet exist on scale in Britain and whose costs are likely to be massive. At the same time every single one of our existing nuclear power stations is currently due to reach the end of its life by 2035. If Hinkley C is delayed much beyond its latest estimated completion, we could end up with no nuclear at all.
That could leave us trying to power the country pretty much with intermittent wind and solar energy alone – and this at a time when politicians want millions more of us to be driving electric cars and heating our homes with heat pumps, thus substantially increasing demand. How will we keep the lights on? One struggles to find satisfactory explanation from the National Grid ESO, which is trusted with this task.
It has produced a vision for a winter’s day in 2035 which foresees massive amounts of energy being stored in the form of green hydrogen produced via the electrolysis of water – a technology which may not be ready by then. It also sees Britain importing around a quarter of its electricity. What happens if the countries we import it from are also short of renewable energy, it doesn’t say.
But another large part of the picture seems to be “demand flexibility” – a polite term for rationing energy through smart meters, jacking up the price whenever supply is short. No wonder the Government seems keener than ever to force smart meters on us. The latest wheeze is to announce that, from next year the radio signal which are used to switch old-style electricity meters onto cheaper, night-time Economy 7 tariffs will be switched off, meaning that customers without a smart meter will always be charged the daytime tariff.
The trouble is, smart meters aren’t working very well. A survey last month by Which? revealed that 40 per cent of consumers say they have had problems with the electricity company not receiving readings remotely. The Government admitted in December that 2.7 million out of 33 million smart meters are working in “dumb” mode. Ofgem has said that, in future, electricity companies will repair the meters for free rather than offering only a one year warranty.
How devious it was to lumber customers with the cost of repairing smart meters when old style analogue meters were always the property of electricity companies and it was their responsibility to keep them in working order.
But even if your meter is working, don’t be fooled by the claim that it will save you money. When we get “dynamic tariffs”, they are unlikely to be anything like Economy 7 where the daytime and nighttime prices are fixed and easy to understand. When the wind drops and the sun goes down, it will require eye-watering electricity prices to persuade enough people to turn off their appliances to avoid blackouts.
It won’t take an enemy power to put us all in the dark – just energy customers doing normal things on a normal winter’s evening.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/25/uk-closer-to-blackouts-than-anyone-dares-to-admit/
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Who knew that the Climate Change Act and Net Zero policies would inevitably lead to blackouts? Physicists and engineers of course. But our politicians (PPEs, lawyers etc) listen only to the Green Blob – or else they are following instructions from the UN/WEF to destroy Western civilisation.
I think that there there are more MPs with History degrees than law. It does make you wonder what history they studied
And who do you think is in charge of and pushing climate science? MPs? History graduates? They are scientists and engineers. The models are produced by physicists, just as the Covid models were and lockdowns pushed by epidemiologists. We can’t just keep saying the same thing over and over again as if science and engineering are united in opposition to Net Zero and its just dumb MPs who want it.
Phoenix he who pays the piper calls the tune.
As virtually all climate research is government funded either directly or indirectly then I’d say the the 65% of MPs who have Politics, History, Law, Economics, Philosophy and English degrees are doing most of the pushing both of the message and direction of research in the UK
“……they are unlikely to be anything like Economy 7 where the daytime and nighttime prices are fixed and easy to understand. When the wind drops…” where’s the wind today, or yesterday ( & Tomorrow ) https://gridwatch.co.uk It HAS BEEN WELL DOCUMENTED on this Blog about power shortages from lack of generated & increased EV Charging demand …. Ever sook power from an connected empty battery to satisfy a sudden peak demand ?
You honestly think there are no engineers who believe in all of this? This constant deification of a group who have failed just as often as every other group is just a little bizarre. Who do you think is building carbon capture? Who is running the various Engineering societies that ate pushing Net Zero?
UK Electricity is the second most expensive in Europe. Reducing our disposable income, increasing prices of everything produced here and destroying businesses. As a retired Engineer I blame gullible politicians adopting policies which are suicidal.
Phoenix 44 , a long time ago I qualified to be a member of an engineering institute .
I used to get papers from the institute with the latest stories in them . Like most of my fellows I was amazed at some of the BS that was put out .But I found that the the institute was given Government grants to say things that politicians wanted .
So a lot of the things that the media quote are not real engineering facts , but just political propaganda .
Those engineers are hypocrites. They are well-rewarded to go with the propaganda.
P44, you’re right I’m afraid (ex-MICE). Look at the Net Zero BS from Cambridge for instance. Any ambitious young engineering academic has to say that they love Big Brother or else. There are honest academics at Cambridge however. Professor Michael J Kelly FRS FREng for instance, Prof. Emeritus inevitably.
I largely agree with you Phoenix but would add that there are different types of engineer. Those who go into academia/research/public funded and those in the private/independent sector. The latter can earn hugely more than the former (especially working independently and not as an employee)
It is the former who generally advise government and are (yes I do dare say it) the second rate ones. As an example , on graduating from Loughborough in engineering, my son started working for his own company on contract to a major company. He was able to draw a salary from day 1 that was well more than double an academic’s salary from similarly large institutions.
Engineer: Julia King, Baroness Brown of the CCC. WIndpower advocate in extremis and gets £44K a year from Orsted as a Director.
Engineers are like Doctors in as much as they are science users, not science creators. They “sit at the feet” of orthodox science. It means they are often deferential, when they should be blowing raspberries. The old, “someone cleverer than me can prove all this,” is strong in the professions – as, indeed, it is in university-dominated science itself.
What amazes me is why is National Grid going along with the net zero fantasy when they must know the negative effects of unreliable energy. In the oil crisis of the 1980s the then CEGB dismissed wind because of its variability.
Gave an uptick to your comment at the DT, Phillip, but did you spot the very funny comment just below yours: “To misquote a Blackadder II character, “Cold is god’s way of telling us to burn more politicians and civil servants.””?
I did, and of course I gave it a big uptick. But where will all the hot air come from once they are all burnt?
Those in power and controlling this insanity are green, in the sense of being naive.
Finally a few journalists are talking about it
The common factor standing in the way of NetZero is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Lawyers should expunge it from physics books.
All the countries who are on the net zero road using wind and solar power will eventually run down their reliable power sources to the point where a windless night (no wind or solar power) will crash the system unless power can come from another grid. If that grid depends on wind and solar then they wont be able to help.
That is a genuine tipping point, unlike the fake warming alarm about tipping points when we reach some magic number for airborne plant food.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/
Beware of wind droughts. And why didn’t the meteorologsits warn us?
Here is a grid that went about a week with little wind and then Friday afternoon the wind returned. Wind is the green line; the chart updates every five minutes.
BPA Balancing Authority Load and Total VER
The so called Demand Flexibility Service has been tested using the carrot of payment to the consumer of up to £3 per kWh for reduced use during specified periods to prove that people will reduce electricity use when encouraged. It seems highly likely that at some stage this will turn in to the stick of punitive charges during periods of supply stress.
That should work well. On a cold windless January night homes with heat pumps will be running at full pelt. Whose first in the queue to turn off their heating for a few quid?
I believe that all the tests ran for an hour so I suppose people could crank up the heating for a few hours before the session and then get paid for turning off the pump during the saving session. Not sure what a heat pump uses per hour but if it is 5kW then the payment could be up to £15. However, although the tests were one hour I understand that the sessions might be up to 4 hours if and when DFS goes live 😉
Good luck ‘cranking up the heating’ with a heat pump.
If your home is designed for an ASHP i.e. properly insulated you’ll be OK. I have mine set to switch off overnight and my new house (off the gas grid) holds on to the heat just about. If it gets really cold I’ll keep it on but then so will everyone else, which is when the grid problems begin. Daft beyond daft.
‘Designed for an ASHP’ is the point, unlike about 95% of UK housing stock (including my little 1860s house). Still think you would struggle with ‘cranking up’.
There have already been a number of DFS live events. They tend to be far more costly than the smaller scale test events.
That a house needs to be ‘Designed for an ASHP’ is an indictment of ASHP.
As it happens I have been looking at the DFS data. Prices paid to aggregators have been anything up to £6,000/MWh with larger events averaging close to £5,000/MWh. The biggest reduction so far (in January) is just over 400MW – under 1% of demand of ~44GW. Paid for volumes are consistently less than those the Grid contracted for, which in turn are less than those the Grid asked for. They tell us this is from 1.6 million homes and small businesses. Many of these early adopters worked out how to game the scheme, and are likely to be on the high end of demand saved on a price incentive.
The cost is of course added to bills as part of the Balancing Mechanism charges. If the scheme became universal you would be bribed with your own money. Meanwhile the ordinary punter gets to empty their pockets in favour of green zealots.
It is interesting to look at the alternative of running an OCGT. If we start with gas at £25/MWh and 40% efficiency the marginal cost of power is just 62.50/MWh. This is negligible against even lower priced smaller DFS events costing £3,000/MWh. If we look at the Capacity Market cost even at say £60/kW/a or £60,000/MW/a you only need to run the OCGT for just over 20 hours a year for it to be cheaper. Even if the OCGT charges a premium price for peak lopping of £1,000/MWh you only need 60/(3-1) = 30 hours to break even.
My energy supplier and I had a long session of email table tennis regarding there statement that “I had to have s Smart Meter”, first it was too save me money, then it was the law and so on and so forth – eventually I hit them with Demand Pricing, oh no they cried, that is not the plan, except that I pointed out it was in the scheme outline back in 2017 and nothing had changed since.
We have “agreed” that they will stop, cease, desist, in their futile attempts to get a Smart meter onto my property.
However, they will be back, especially given that the Government plans to fine energy companies for each and every customer not Smart.
Well done, I think you are right about the eventual outcome however. Buy a generator to keep the basics going and fight tooth and nail to avoid a ‘smart’ gas meter. Good luck (me too!).
“…it was the law…”
There is law (e.g. binding targets) for the suppliers, not for domestic consumers (yet). There is powerful pressure on business consumers since they can be, and are being, denied connection on reasonable terms if they try to switch suppliers.
Politicians actually believe that consumers benefit from having a smart meter, and therefore can not understand why the planned fifty-seven million meters were not snapped up by 2019 – which is when the roll-out program was supposed to be complete!
I sent an angry email to Shell Energy complaining that they were still calling about smart meters despite telling them no – twice. They stopped the calls but said Ofgem will force them to start again in a year.
And last week it was Outfox and their partner SMS at it. Email, text and mobile call all on the same day. Complaint email sent and reply received that they will stop.
At 09:25
Demand 31.2GW Generation 22.9GW Transfers 8.3GW
40.0% fossil fuels
26.8% interconnectors (from our ex best friends)
19.6% other sources
13.8% renewables
https://grid.iamkate.com/
I wonder how much of the 13.8% of so called renewables was biomass (tree burning in former coal power stations which would generate more power burning coal) as that as 2.5 GWs when I looked at 11.45 am.
We also appear to be importing electricity from both Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland for some reason.
Also why are we pretending all this imported electricity is from zero carbon sources other than to virtue signal. We need a grown up discussion about what is actually technically feasible without the pretence.
It should be presumed the highest CO2 fuel on the grid in decreasing order is the source of the electricity to stop this clear misrepresentation e.g. with imports from France when it generating more than it own demand we will presume all the coal, oil, gas generation is due to our import demand and attach a CO2/ MWh figure to this import.
Then we have the Dutch HVDC link converter station being next to a running coal power station which seem to be ignored when it come to Co2 emissions.
We then have Norway who are clearly importing fossil fuel (including German lignite) electricity at times when its cheap and abundant then when there are shortages exporting hydro (at a high price) as well as importing electricity to export – a good example of why we also need to also require a electricity fuel mix declaration to actually include fuel used not just produced e.g. Scotlands 100% renewable nonsense when most (it was 60%) of the electricity used in Scotland was from nuclear power although since Hunterston B closed this has got more complex but Torness still generates 32.8% of the electricity actually used in Scotland and there is clearly not a plan for how to replace this and Scotland would not be able to use as much wind generation as it has with being part of a larger electricity grid and the subsidies paid by English electricity consumers.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/data-statements-relating-to-electricity-from-renewable-sources-eir-release/#:~:text=In%202021%2032.8%25%20of%20the,around%20the%20year%20of%202028.
Look on the bright side…we are importing so much because it is cheap….it is so cheap because it is being subsidised by other states. Others are currently subsiding our supply. Makes no sense but then again nothing ever seems to anymore.
Mr Zed
We do indeed need a grown up conversation in wider society about all of this, but how do you have a sensible conversation with imbeciles? or with people who are more concered with the latest unfolding story in whatever soap they watch.
We are doomed, I say doomed.
Its more complex than that as I believe there is some kind of taxation/ carbon cost on fossil fuel generation in GB but I suspect this isn’t the case in mainland Europe as they still have lowish cost industrial electricity in Germany so I believe most of the green tax/ charges are dump on residential consumers so it doesn’t affect the price of exported electricity so it become in a generators interest to export and aren’t a few of the big 6 electricity owned by companies with European electricity generation assist so this might be beneficial for them
@lordelate
I wouldn’t worry to much about the imbecile issue (The narcissist are a bigger problem) as its not as bad as it sounds as many just want a leader to follow but they mean well.
Exposing the white supremacist malthusian nature of the just stop oil types as many involved mean well but are misdirected by making it impossible to not know its not possible to feed 7 billion people without fossil fuels & environmentalist have a history of wanting population control on the poor what is an “accidental” famine between friends.
Most people just have other issue that are more pressing like the cost of living, housing, crime etc. But watch soap to see people with a worser lives than them but not to point of making themselves depressed.
So avoid these kind of issues until it unavoidably affects them or the wellbeing of children. Shivering or sweltering in the dark would also have the effect on making people want to know how the hell that happened and ironically the people glued to social media will make the most noise.
The best way to change the net zero narrative is to highlighting how much it sounds like the snake oil salesman’s solutions see carbon taxes & renewables when we don’t know what the weather will be like in the future with any reasonable certainty but we do know humanity is more vulnerable to extreme weather/climate events than what we can reasonably mitigate with our engineering capability as there is no evidence changing Co2 levels at this point will reduce the risk of extreme weather and we are actually make ourself more vulnerable if we take the climate scientist prediction in good faith & they prove to be correct on a warming planet this would also mean less wind so investing so heavily in wind power makes no sense considering the alternatives like nuclear fission are better way to produce energy from just a logistical view point. There is also the problem that the winter could actually get colder.
EU carbon taxes are actually higher than UK ones at the moment. The UKA price is £35/tCO2e, while the EUA price is €52/tCO2e.
Cheaper prices on the Continent are a function of lower weekend demand and the return of nuclear in France to export mode.
A good place to look at the rough composition of interconnector imports is here:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
It’s only approximate, but gives an idea. In reality, the actual power supplied will come from sources near the other end of the interconnector, rather than a full grid mixture. So if MPP3 is operating at Maasvlakte co-firing coal and biomass, that will be the supply to BritNed next door. If it isn’t then the mix may well include solar and offshore wind. The French supply to IFA1 and Eleclink comes from the Gravelines 5.6GW nuclear complex most of the time, being directly connected.
A different question is if the export were stopped, which power stations/generators would get turned down? Clearly, the French nuclear stations would not – their power would be routed away from the coast. Perhaps it would be some hydro power in the Massif Central. Or perhaps it would oust some German coal. Meanwhile we might run more gas, or maybe the wind picked up.
1425GMT: Wind+solar 16%.4% LESS than is coming in on the interconnectors!
If there was proof of dangerous AGW then the costs and risks created by the requirements of a worldwide net-zero might make sense.
There is no proof of dangerous AGW.
There is precious little proof of any sort of AGW (apart from mildly beneficial). Doubling CO2 to 840ppm will reduce outgoing by 1% (negligible) and greatly beneficial for plant growth and drought resistance.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/van-wijngaarden-and-happer-radiative-transfer-paper-for-five-greenhouse-gases-explained/
Ross is right. We are on track for blackouts because the nuclear and gas fleets are aging and anyway they want to turn off gas-fired generation by 2030 or 2035. I covered that here, it’s a mess:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/wait-for-the-blackout
If we had a functioning government they would take over the remaining coal plants to make sure they are there for our use. If Labour do form the next government then they will have to confront the reality that their plan for 2030 is undeliverable.
Since it’s impossible, it would be a great point of attack: pretending it is possible is eventually lying. Unfortunately the gov’t’s plan for 2035 is also unworkable, so they would be firing blanks were they to attack on this.
That doesn’t alter the fact that someone, somewhere, in an interview of the Leader of the Opposition, should put the point to him that his 2030 plan is effectively lying to the electorate, since it is impossible.
Neither Labour or Conservatives actually care if the British plebs are plunged into freezing darkness in winter. They are following their overlords (WEF/Davos/UN) diktats to substantially reduce western living standards down to those of the third world to fulfil their fantasy of global equality. It’s on par with Stalin’s collectivism and the Ukrainian Holodomor. Killing millions of their own people didn’t bother politicians then and likely won’t bother politicians now. As long as they can control the media propaganda, they control the people. The same applies to the relentless mass immigration inflicted on us, which is in direct dissonance with the ‘Net Zero’ propaganda. We are unable to get rid of this Uni-party through the current fixed voting system. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” JFK
David, Thanks for your excellent article.
For some reason I was unable to put up a comment on your substack so I will post it here:
I suspect the outlook may be a bit worse than it looks from your figures. Do the projected future capacities allow for plants being down for maintenance, outages, etc? While maintenance is usually scheduled for the warmer months, it seems likely that some of the fleet will be unavailable when peak demand hits.
A minor point….Hinckley Point will probably come on stream one reactor at a time, not all at once.
“It has produced a vision”
A better word would be “fantasy”.
A better word would be “fantasy”.
An alternative description could be “delusion”, created by a belief. As others have commented, the belief in the requirement for net-zero is similar to a religion.
Certainly not a Damsel with a Dulcimer…
I was reading that in the first Labour government after the war it was stated by Atlee that we were an island built on coal and would therefore never be short. Manny Shinwell was appointed Minster of Fuel and Power. 1947 saw one of the coldest and longest winters for a long time during which there was a coal shortage and many families suffered for it. I have heard it said that that was one reason Labour lost the general election in 1951. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong. But perhaps our present politicians should remember. We need energy – lots of it.
Nye Bevan, actually:
“This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.”
I have been hoping for a wide area grid failure for the past 5 winters, that is the only way to show the politicians and the eco loonies the consequences of the Net Zero.
However the winters have been rather mild across all of Europe for a long time, the last bad one I remember was January 2010, and I am beginning to lose credibility with my family and friends!
I do however make sure I increase my usage when ever they have a DFS requirement, paying consumers to switch off, seems like a desperate con trick to persuade the sheepies to have a smart meter, when the ultimate aim is to charge more when power is short.
The naive PTB expect the population to meekly accept that they cannot afford to have the lights and heating on, when on the lit up posh estate they are charging their Teslas on the drive.
Then their is the utterly stupid V2G (Vehicle to grid) when the plan is to suck power out of BEVs when the grid is short, surely all you have to do is unplug your BEV when it is fully charged! Then the technical stupidity of converting dc to single phase ac and expecting a BEV to power another BEV on charge 100 miles away! The grid is not designed to work backwards, what about phase balancing and reactive power!
When the grid eventually fails, it will be a really big one, a few days hopefully. My advice, get a generator(£350) and a few jerry cans of fuel, at least the lights will be on and maybe if the gas stays on, some heat. Your £6000 solar system and battery may last a few hours and then what.
The other ever increasing problem will be meter tampering (my local commercial radio station is running adverts asking us to report anyone who I suspect of tampering). This will overload the system and then local breakers will trip out.
Just when are they going to start digging up every residential street in the country to upgrade the cable size to handle all the heat pumps and BEVs, the consumption per day now for the average 3 bedroom house is 8kWh (the OFGEM cap is based on this) it will go up in winter to around 100kWh per day(5kW heat pump on all the time). The OFGEM cap would have to be around £16,000 a year.
Lets start telling the sheepies the real cost of Net Zero and see how they go along with it
“…start telling the sheepies…”
They have been told. When informed of the realities, they look at you as if you have two heads.
They have been told.
I’ve not seen any large-scale medjia “campaign” bringing together:
1) lack of proof of dangerous AGW
2) UK cost of net-zero to date, perhaps approaching £1 trillion (?)
3) estimated UK cost to achieve net-zero, perhaps over £4 trillion (?) , assuming the various parties are all competent (ha!)
4) alternative UK costs of a non-net-zero grid. I guesstimate that UK domestic energy costs could be cut by 50% with an established non-net-zero grid
A word to the wise is enough. A thousand words to the silly is not enough.
Exactly my own experience.
Blackouts have been avoided by making large payments to industrial customers to reduce demand and by those unwilling to do so leaving Europe. But that only goes so far and as demand rises, blackouts are inevitable.
There is a balance on demand that shows it falling across Europe as industry closes down and moves away although in some cases it can move within Europe to countries that still have cheaper electricity and costs. The people are doing their bit by shunning heat pumps and battery cars keeping demand in check. On the other side of the equation is governments dedicated to reducing reliable generation capacity. Some good news is that the French nuclear fleet has been successfully repaired so it back to capacity and at some point Flammanville will come online.
Is this why our peak demand doesn’t even reach 50 GW when a decade ago it was near 60 GW?
Or is that triad avoidance via diesel generators?
The late Christopher Booker suggested that counter-intuitively the grid is most vulnerable during the summer. The argument being that the grid is less prepared for a sudden loss of capacity such as the one that hit London a few years back.
The grid becomes more vulnerable when renewables displace other generation, because the level of inertia from spinning generators (flywheel effect) falls. Obviously renewables will be a higher proportion of supply if it is windy overnight and particularly on sunny, breezy days (mainly May and June). Grid inertia is quoted in GVAs, or sometimes just seconds with the GVA~GW of demand assumed. It gives an idea of the available reaction time for other generation to adjust to grid disturbances.
With a conventional grid, inertia is typically around 10 seconds (it can also vary depending on how much industrial large motor demand helps provide inertia). National Grid are aiming for trying to operate with as little as 2 seconds of inertia, which means batteries better work quickly and in enough volume to prevent a catastrophic change in grid frequency that then causes blackout trips.
I am still waiting for the details to be revealed on what happened on 22nd December, when we came very close to blackouts with grid frequency falling to 49.275Hz. We do know the initial problem was the sudden loss of 1GW on the IFA interconnector, which should have been dealt with without the frequency falling much below 49.7Hz. Batteries failed to do the job on time, evidently. Most of the rescue came from Dinorwig, but that takes 12 seconds to reach full power.
level of inertia from spinning generators
There is very little general understanding of the importance of this element of grid stabilisation. In my experience, there are electrical engineers who fail to understand the importance or the principles of frequency stabilisation.
I thought I had a “working understanding” of frequency stabilisation over 40 years ago, but age and lack of use has undermined that “working understanding” !
Interesting post, thank you. In the U.S. regional grids are controlled by ISOs, Independent System Operators. One of their prime functions was frequency regulation. Utility’s connected to their grid were required to maintain a certain amount of “spinning reserve.” This consists of utility generating turbines not currently connected to provide for current grid load, were nevertheless required to be kept spinning so as to be deployed, as needed, to maintain frequency. The importance of constant frequency is under rated and misunderstood by many.
It doesn’t add up…
Is there anyone keeping a track of these events in a database somewhere so we can highlight this to our MPs at some point. Where did you hear about this event?
What time was this? As I’m curious to see what local synchronous generation is left in Southern England & if we have at least built some synchronous condensers.
If the loss of a 1 GW interconnector can do that what the hell happens if there is a frequency event on the French/European grids – do the HVDC cables trip and potentially take upto 4 GW (presuming Belgium, Netherland and Denmark aren’t effected)? As I believe the lost of the 2GW French interconnector was a factor in the 1987 partial black start (there is a interesting film made by CEGB – “RIDING THE HURRICANE” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHP_tjTJQBM.) Would low frequency load shedding & gas turbine/ diesel generators be able to act in time especially as I suspect no one has addressed the issue of embedded generation or are we looking at a controlled shutdown and black start?
Surely the law must prohibiting running an electricity grid like this and why would they do this as I would have thought building more synchronous condensers (e.g. https://new.abb.com/news/detail/101299/abb-synchronous-condensers-go-live-in-liverpool-to-stabilize-the-uks-power-grid) especially at former power station sites would be the sort of project national grid would be lobbying for as I believe being a regulated monopoly this is surely an easier way to increase you profit compared to fighting with rural communities over new high voltage transmission lines which are clearly advertising to connect wind farms those communities
Does anyone what know the minimum Dinorwig and the other pump hydro can generate as I’m curious to see if it is feasible for the pump storage turbine to be left running at their minimum output to increase inertia in the short term for when the engineers are eventually called in to review what is wrong with the GB grid?
As I would suspect a partial black start of Southern England would in 2024 need rolling blackout in the Midlands, South West/South Wales and probably further North too to bring some power back as quickly as possible especially if Sizewell B trips (can it keep it’s reactor on line with no load?) and we need to wait a few days for it to restart I just hope the GB electricity grid isn’t run by the same sort of wishful thinkers left to manage the graveyard shift at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (see February 2021).
When the Mains frequency starts to wobble, best grab a box of candles while the lights are still flickering. It’s gonna be dark soon.
Geoff
A generator is definately the way forwards however I would strongly suggest not one from China, I have come across a couple now where the electrical components are of such poor quality as to be unusable, (ie: rapid failure from new and parts not supplied or not available).
It is of course getting harder to source genuine european made stuff without spending an industrial sized amount of money.
I amost think old commercial plant is more robust, I have myself a 1960’s 6kv lister powered gen set which although noisy (thankfully in a garage away from the house) has done sterling service over the years. My favorite bit being the wall mounted electrical cabinet which has ZERO electronc components and was made by someone who took pride in their work.
LL
Mine is a second hand Honda, only 2kW , but it does lights and gas boiler, as well as keeping fridge and freezer going (although not happy cold starting fridge and freezer at same time) In 20 years I have used it twice, both cable faults, both taking about 12 hours to fix.
LL: Like GeoffB, mine is a Honda, but it was new and runs on LPG. Very reliable and a couple of gas bottles last a long time. I have no problem switching over to it to run fridges/freezers/CH pump/lights etc.
Honda are indeed well egineered machines, I have a couple of smaller stand alone generators that have briggs and stratton power which have given no trouble, one must be over 30 years old now (a Macro special I recall).
Although only in kent we live at the end of the local grid and the lines have always been susceptable in poor weather to tree damage which seems to be getting worse as UKPN seem to do no or minimal line maintainance nowadays,so I have developed a siege mentality over the years.
Spot on LL. Curiously I have a bit of “yankee” finest generator engineering circa 1950 and whilst possibly not the most efficient, it is virtually indestructible.
Sometime ago there was some discussion (can’t remember which thread) about potential problems with running a modern boiler and its controls off the feed from a generator. I didn’t understand the issues but these comments seem to suggest that it should work OK?
As at 11:00hrs 25th Feb we are importing 25% of our energy from Europe via the interconnectors https://grid.iamkate.com/
Surprisingly at 12:05 solar is producing more than wind which I presume shows that there is not much wind around???
Thank god it wasn’t cloudy
It used to be said that the populace would never accept “shivering in the dark”.
I remember towards the end of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike, having a discussion with a very senior Police Officer and a Colliery Manager about the strike, the attempts to get miners to return to the colliery (not to work, as you couldn’t operate any colliery with a couple of dozen very assorted men, of which, until right at the end, most had “glass-backs” anyway.) It was around the time when some striking miner in South Wales had been arrested for dropping breeze-blocks from a motorway bridge onto strike breakers driving to work. I pointed out that Scargill’s refusal to condemn even this, would not play well with public opinion. I also pointed out that if blatant illegal behaviour was acceptable to the NUM, that we should perhaps be thankful that they weren’t more proactive in disrupting the grid, on the basis of the “shivering in the dark” hypothesis.
The Police Officer was sceptical about how this could be achieved, but looked glum when I pointed out that it would be easy enough then for the NUM ‘hard men’ to obtain explosives from the collieries’ powder magazines and people well experienced in using them from supporters in NACODS. There are many isolated but strategically vital high voltage pylons to choose from.
Thankfully this was never put to the test, but in the ‘noughties’ I frequently used and saw others use the “shivering in the dark” hypothesis in discussing the blindingly obvious problems of increasing the amount of Ruinable Energy above a notional 10% of generation.
At some stage, someone amongst our Beloved Leaders noted this particular issue and I know that there has been a lot of thought and work (at public expense, obviously) to increase the resilience of those parts of the grid feeding “essential” services, not to mention the denizens of Westminster.
It is also, perhaps, worth noting that, living on the very edge outside the “Green Belt” of a city, we have experienced significant power outages a minimum of three times a year, every year in the 18 years we have lived here. My neighbours seem to grumble a bit, but accept this as normal. I have no doubt that it would have to be a massive and long lasting blackout involving a major city, before MPs would not just shrug their shoulders as usual and blame it on “extreme weather”.
It used to be said that the populace would never accept “shivering in the dark”.
The restrictions imposed on the UK populace during Covid indicate what the UK populace will put up with, providing it’s supporting a belief.
“Help the planet” – and variations thereof – is a phrase used by many believers.
True, but for many, the restrictions were pretty pleasant – no work, no commute, no school run. And they got to show how virtuous and good they were. Being cold, hungry, a lot poorer and with no end to all of that is very different.
I am still wondering if everything that has happened since, say, 2008 and Miliband’s Climate Change Act has been driven, at least in part, by an arcane game played by our Beloved Leaders in the various branches of the Uniparty, to see how blatantly ridiculous a policy can be devised and implemented, before the peasants with pitchforks and flaming torched start assembling.
For MB:
In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.
Theodore Dalrymple
A dismally high proportion of the UK population expressed a desire for permanent restrictions post-Covid e.g. masks, curfew and more, Economist article July 2021
https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/07/10/some-britons-crave-permanent-pandemic-lockdown
Thank goodness for Ukraine, who are keeping our enemies at bay; because, and as a result of the government’s stupidity we, and Europe, are at the mercy of any enemy power.
That is to fall for the fantasy view perpetrated by all sorts of idiots in the media and government that Russia was on the verge of invading the West. It ignores the fact that the war in Ukraine is centred around an ethnic Russian population issue and that it was the West that caused the war when the elected Ukrainian president was overthrown by EU funded groups with the US poking its nose in back in 2014.
You might like to listen to the latest Triggernometry podcast, although probably not to be frank since you’ve swallowed RT’s talking points so comprehensively.
I see. Nothing to do with expansion and large deposits of natural reserves, etc? While I agree with your premise, my point was that if this country is on the verge of blackouts – brought on by net zero policies – what security has this country got?
And that is to ignore everything Putin has said and done since taking power. And the wishes of most of the population of Ukraine. We should stop them from aligning with the West rather than Russia because Putun might get upset?
The fantasy of big numbers from small changes by very large numbers of people once again. The only way people will turn off anything is if the price is extremely high – and even then, consumption of say a washing machine for 50 minutes will be affordable. And nobody will turn off their heating, cooking, lights, TV, broadband. Government simply fail to price time and convenience in judging behaviour.
The story of the blue LED is instructive on how scientists, including highly qualified and experienced experts can get things totally wrong. A bit of government funding and it becomes self perpetuating
Interesting. But moderation in everything! A world of cold white light is unhealthy. Especially now that virtually no urbanite is ever exposed to bright sunshine. The protoplasm in every one of our cells has evolved to readily absorb infrared and ultraviolet but not other wavelengths, for a reason.
That would not work.
The charger can only draw power, if there is a car connected that can accept the power. Turning the unit on would do nothing.
It is like turning on a water tap, to a pipe that has a blank on the end….
R
Which perhaps tells you something about whether you will be free to charge your EV whenever you feel like it…
I don’t think it is much of a secret that the government will take control of charging your battery car. In the UK chargers must have remote control and in Germany legislation is in place to do the same and extends to controlling your heat pump as well. A very clear sign of governments failing to provide sufficient generation to meet their planned increase in demand.
You can create a large grid disturbance by simultaneously turning off all the chargers in use. At current levels of EV penetration the effect would be manageable. if we take say 9,000 miles per year at 3 miles/kWh that’s 3MWh/a per EV, or an average charging rate assuming 8 hours overnight of 3,000x(24/8)/8760 kW, or just over 1kW per vehicle. So with 5 million EVs you might be able to organise a 5GW disturbance against a summer overnight demand of 25GW or less, which is probably enough to crash the grid, especially if grid battery control systems were also compromised or unable to switch to charging more to make up for the loss of EV demand, because they too were also already charging on cheap power.
hackers could potentially access the smart meters and incapacitate the grid by such means as suddenly turning on thousands of smart meters full-pelt at the same time
Fixed it.
On the other hand they could also shut off huge numbers of meters and cause a massive drop in demand that will shut the grid down since it looks at small changes in both directions.
Correct.
Furthermore Gezza, the more asynchronous, non reactive power producing, non inertia supplying, embedded low voltage supply (solar and wind) there is online with minimal large spinning turbines, the much weaker the system is.
Counter intuitively the grid is in many ways much more resilient in winter – all the major grid failures of the 21st Century have occurred in May (twice) or August (2019) . So if you want to take the grid down the best time is a simultaneously windy and sunny late afternoon.
To get enough people to simultaneously switch on high power appliances unpredictedly is actually the subject of a novel I am struggling to write. How to hide the exact timimg?
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-have-changed-the-numbers-on-my-watch/#google_vignette
I have been at this for a few years…seems reality may overtake my writing pace!
Surely the ev has to be connected for a power surge
Bloody obvious to you and I but hey…….!
Whoever wins the general election, the next government will be committed to decarbonising the National Grid – by 2035 in the case of the Conservatives and by 2030 in the case of Labour.
Which means your fossil-fuel electricity generators have already stopped putting capital into their businesses. Your FF generation infrastructure is deteriorating. Now. And it can’t be fixed. No one in the industry trusts the government.
And the supercilious government is so sillyass that when the feces hits the turbine, they will “fix it” by saying, “Okay, we’ll give you 5 more years.”
Companies with shiny new gas turbines are already talking to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, India, etc about relocating. They are not going to wait around for the government mandated time, regardless of which government. Britain has told them, “We don’t want you.” The fine government thinks the generators will hang around til 2030 or 2035. Have they got a surprise coming.
The UK governments have messed up the market so badly that nobody will build any new gas generation because the ROI is not good enough. Move across the North Sea to Germany and they have the same problem having closed their nuclear plants they need more gas generation. They are battling with the EU over state funding as they have seen that is the only way they will get built.
On a slight tangent did anyone else see the recent photos of the Lidl warehouse solar panels up in flames?
Know as ‘smoke emitting diodes’ in the trade, ‘run away’ is pretty much the only solution once they get going.
3 distinct Focus groups in Rochdale. Q. “what are the biggest issues facing the country at the moment?” folowed by “What are the biggest issues facing Rochdale?”
“In every case NHS, cost of living and crime were raised far more frequently and by more people than world affairs. Others included education and schools, immigration and the management og the local council.” Sunday Times today.
Don’t they have climate up North?
Taking remote control of EV chargers only works if a car is connected to it at the time – simply switching it on does nothing at all if there is nothing to draw power! It may work at night with enough connected cars but seems improbable.
A much more plausible grid breaker was identified some time back in a student’s Masters dissertation.
https://horusscenario.com/
There are numerous physical ways to take down a grid by damaging relatively small sections. For example the Sellindge interconnector sub station in Kent hosts the ElecLink and IFA1. 3GW could be taken out together with the National Grid main flow and would definitely collaps the system. Just one device would likely be all that is required – alarmingly simple.
Alternatively if enough people could be orchestrated to covertly and simultaneously switch on large loads, the effect would devastate a grid designed more to accommodate losses than sudden demand surge. (TV pickup but on a much larger appliance scale)
Ray, I suspect the whole Wallbox Copper SB charger is bad is ignorance writ large. Generally, EV chargers are programmable, such that if an EV is connected, and power is suddenly restored, the charger is going to do some processing before it actually turns on the juice, if it turns in on at all.
Therefore, I suspect you can’t really synchronize turning on large numbers of them simultaneously.
Just wondering. If you take control of a charger what is to stop you sending false data back to the supplier saying that the charger is refueling a double deck bus?
Encouragement to ‘economise’ and use less electricity is to disguise we are paying more for less. In my apartment block, communal electricity usage is 30% down on previous years but electricity bills have been higher each year.
Still the focus is on generation, but even if there was enough supply, the grid… from power station, to point of use… cannot carry and distribute the 2x to 3x increase from an all electric powered Country.
There are no plans to upgrade – except connect up a few windmills – and we don’t have the spare resources to achieve this nor can the supply of copper and aluminium alloy needed be scaled up sufficiently in the timescale to meet the global demand to jump over the decarbonisation cliff.
The Chinese must be laughing their heads off.
Whoever wins the general election, the next government will be committed to decarbonising the National Grid
‘Disembowelling the National Grid’ might be closer to the reality.
Was the recently discovered hacker problem and unknown, unintended consequence….or was this the plan all along? As we say in the States, “We may never know.”
What’s even worse about the “smart” meters is that they only register energy flow, not the direction of that energy flow… so if you’ve got, say, 600 Watts of solar panels trickling energy into your home circuitry via a microinverter to offset grid draw and lower your power bill, if your home draws 0 W, the “smart” meter is charging you for 600 W of power usage, when in fact, you should be getting paid for putting energy into the grid.
That’s why, if you’ve got solar panels, you have to have two meters… one reading the amount of energy your panels produce, one reading how much your house draws… and you have to pay a monthly fee for the ‘privilege’ of feeding power to the grid, which in my area amounts to about 1 MWh worth of power fed to the grid.
The old-style meters, if you produced more than you drew, would spin backward. We’ve taken a step backward with these “smart” meters, and in the process, we’ve stifled innovation by making it more difficult for small power producers to offset their grid draw.
The idea will be to allow time varying tariffs. If we get much more solar we will reach the point when sunny days May through July will result in useless solar surpluses. You might even get charged for dumping your surplus on the grid. At the same time, you might find installing a Powerwall to save the power for later doesn’t produce a good return.
IDAU your assessment of OCGT is very informative. We were advocating this approach in the late 1970s as economic peak-loppers (using cheap gas). The close-coupled CCGT is not really well suited to short term generation. I note that the USA are installing a large number of OCGTs to balance the unreliable sources. OCGTs are also used in weak-grid areas.
To placate the eco-warriors the OCGTs could work on bio fuels allowing some storage into the bargain.
All too logical for the warriors though.
Right down in deepest Cornwall (close to Jamaica Inn) is the Indian Queens OCGT that runs on “distillate oil” i.e.diesel. It is there to stop that leg of the grid collapsing and when not actually generating it runs as a synchronous condenser mainly balancing the reactive power down there. It is exceptionally profitable for Triton Power. Could do with quite a few more all around the country and I am fairly confident that is what we will get sooner rather than later.
https://archive.ph/hPMbc
Interesting posts. Thank you. In the U.S., the push is on to install synchronous converters in local substations. The company, ABB has a great website featuring these machines. Of note is the huge cooling system attached to them. These machines work as intended, but are very inefficiency; hence the massive cooling array. I would add this is old technology, originally used for PF correction inside the electrical systems of large manufacturing concerns to control demand factor charges from the utility company.
I don’t think explaining that Net Zero will be cripplingly expensive and/or lead to the chaotic intermittency of electricity will win the argument against climate activists. This is because the UN/WEF/BBC have indoctrinated people so thoroughly and effectively to believe that no expense or hardship or impoverishment is too much when it comes to saving the planet. Even if it means we are going to have to do it all on our own.
To win the argument it is necessary to tackle the very basis of their claims that increasing CO2, anthropogenic or natural, will cause runaway global warming. Hence the need to advance wherever possible the work of Happer & Wijngaarden and historical data such as the temperature and CO2 levels over the last 500m years since the Cambrian Explosion, the Antarctic Vostok ice core data, the warming out of the last ice age, the Roman and Medieval warm periods etc. etc.
The real climate deniers are those who deny there was any change to our climate before the Industrial Revolution.
Problem whilst it’s that core CO2=warming belief that needs tackling, those who are indoctrinated won’t change their minds, no matter what data/evidence you present. It’s only the masses, when faced with the PERSONAL cost of these ruinous policies, will change their minds. Whilst we still have some semblance of democracy left, we must focus on the electorate, not the alarmists, as without a vote, they are nothing. The downside of course, is trying to change voting allegiance away from the core Con/Lab/LibDem parties to an alternative. That’s the hard part.
To win the argument
No, Mr Brown. You will NEVER win an argument against social constructs. Climate science is a social science. You can’t argue against it.
But a solution is coming: Long, frequent power outages. You can wax esoteric about atmospheric trace gases only for as long as the power is on. Unfortunately, it is going to take people dying to get energy back on track. They will be martyrs, but no one will know it.
To win the argument it is necessary to tackle the very basis of their claims that increasing CO2, anthropogenic or natural, will cause runaway global warming.
Agreed, but it’s generally easier to win an argument by dismantling the opposition’s claims rather than offering counter-claims, and the starting point is probably:
Where is the proof that humans are responsible for dangerous AGW ?
I constantly challenge alarmists to provide the causal evidence. They all go silent. Even that professor who was sacked for not flying home when asked to, but instead took a slow ‘low carbon[sic]’ route, admitted he had no evidence for his belief “but would probably do so again”! I suspect he also failed to realise the plane flew without him anyway, and even if that seat was empty, didn’t emit any less CO2.
Good, let the lights go out, reality is a better tutor than any amount of alarmist propoganda
That’s what it has come to. The sooner power fails, the sooner solutions will be implemented. The longer this goes on, the bigger the collapse will be.
But the bigger the collapse, the longer it will be before government tries this absurdity again.