£60 Billion More For Grid Upgrades
By Paul Homewood
h/t Robin Guenier/Philip Bratby
The UK’s electricity network needs almost a further £60bn of upgrades to hit government decarbonisation targets by 2035, according to a new plan.
Some 4,000 miles of undersea cables and 1,000 miles of power lines including pylons are needed, National Grid’s Electricity Systems Operator said.
The investment would add between £20 to £30 a year to customer bills, it said.
The government said the ESO’s plans were preliminary and yet to pass a "robust planning process".
The plans were written up by the ESO, the organisation which runs the electricity network and would run the updated system it is calling for too. It is currently owned by National Grid but will transfer into government ownership later this year.
Its latest £58bn estimate is for work needed between 2030 and 2035 and comes on top of a previous £54bn estimate for work taking place between now and 2030.
The additional infrastructure spend would help get the UK’s offshore wind from where it is produced out at sea, to where it is used by households across the country.
That would be key in making greener energy, according to the ESO, which said the project would be the largest build of its kind for seven decades.
The government said the plans would support more than 20,000 jobs, but these are preliminary ones that would have to go through a robust planning process – a stage at which many infrastructure plans have failed.
The ESO says this is the kind of ambitious plan needed to deliver clean, secure, decarbonised energy. It called for "swift and co-ordinated" progress, and said that without it, the country’s climate ambitions might be at risk.
"Great Britain is about to embark upon the biggest change to the electricity network since the high voltage transmission grid was established back in the 1950s," it said.
New connections and more grid capacity will also be needed as people and companies switch to using electricity for their cars or heating their homes. Renewable forms of generating energy, including through solar and wind farms, will also change the way the grid is shaped.
The undersea cables will have to come ashore at various points, predominantly on the east coast of Scotland and England – and from there, on to places near urban centres via overhead pylons or at four times the cost, under the ground. Hot spots for the new pylons include West Wales and a route through East Anglia.
Speaking to the BBC, Jake Rigg, corporate affairs director at the ESO, said conversation with communities across the UK is ongoing.
Critics have said the plan would deface areas of outstanding national beauty by adding more pylons – the huge steel structures which have been accused of blighting landscapes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68601354
.
Including the cost of £54 billion already committed, this adds up to a gobsmacking £112 billion, a cost of over £4000 per household. The claim that bills will only rise by £20 a year clearly is a lie. Even if the cost is spread out over 20 years, it still amounts to £200 a year, and interest payments will drastically increase this. It is a sign of the times that we discuss these ludicrous amounts of money without batting an eyelid.
As we know with all public infrastructure projects, the eventual cost will be much more then budgeted. It is worth noting that the government decided to take the ESO into public ownership precisely because the National Grid and other owners of the transmission network demanded full compensation for these upgrades, which would increase electricity bills to an unacceptable degree. Instead the government will have to fund any overspend. And the full cost will simply be added to the already crippling National Debt.
I would emphasise that this project is solely concerned with the transmission network, and does not cover the distribution network, which will also require tens of billions to increase capacity to cope with increased demand.
The National Grid’s Beyond 2030 plan clearly states that the upgrade’s only purpose is to build more capacity to:
1) Transmit power from offshore windfarms and other renewable generators, and carry it to where it will be used.
2) Cope with increased demand for electricity, due to electric cars, heat pumps etc.
In short, this £112 billion needs to be spent in order to meet Net Zero objectives, and no other reason.
The report also claims that thousands of jobs will be created and GDP increased. This is the same tired old argument often wheeled out, and it ignores the fact that money spent on this will be diverted from other purposes.
But above all, the bill for this upgrade surely nails the lie for once and for all, that wind power is cheap.
Contracts have been awarded to offshore wind farms on the basis of their strike prices, when the true cost is in fact much greater. The government should never have agreed to the investment of tens of billions in wind farms without taking into account the full costs involved.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Let’s hope that when the film ”CLiMATE – THE MOVIE” comes out on Thursday that the clowns in the climate change committee are all sacked for fraud.
Don’t just hit the targets, blow them out of the water.
Another factor is, we seem to be planning on being dependent on Scottish wind power. A lot of this grid investment is concerned with getting power from Scotland to England.
This is incredibly stupid, given the SNP will use that power over us when the independence negotiations come about.
It’s part of the design, and has been ever since Alex Salmond negotiated preferential arrangements for Scottish wind.
The power lines only go to England, plus a few interconnectors.
No bot, didn’t your programming allow for the fact that once Torness closes, Scotland has only one large fueled power plant at Peterhead. When the wind doesn’t blow, Scotland will become a huge net importer with only 1 place to be supplied from…..England. Works both ways, so Scotland ain’t gonna hold anyone to ransom if they know what’s good for them.
Scotland would probably choose to import power from the EU ahead of from England.
Anyhow, the population is a lot smaller and they plan a lot of wind capacity.
Even if Scotland is windier, England should not be investing in power supply from Scotland. English taxes should be subsidising English investment only.
Scotland has no interconnector links to the EU, and is unlikely to get any now that Norway (not in the EU) turned down the proposed link to Scotland.
It is interesting to note that OFGEM recently turned down most of the proposals for further new interconnectors. Perhaps they finally read my submission to their consultation on the topic in 2020 again.
English taxes should be subsidising English investment only.
Your totalitarian programmers are wrong, bot. English taxes shouldn’t be subsidizing anything.
“Do they need to be directly connected ?”
I think it’s time you rebooted – your logic circuits are rapidly failing.
Programming deficiency? Scotland is not interconnected to any EU country.
Trying to create dissent are you.?
NorthConnect interconnector from Scotland to Norway was cancelled last year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorthConnect
Do they need to be directly connected ?
Even if they do need to be connected, they could build some interconnectors of their own. Throw enough money at Norway and the cancelled interconnector could be reinstated.
Also, I’m sure both Scotland and the EU would love to bypass England even if the economic case is poor. It will be part of their rejoining the EU love-in.
“This is incredibly stupid, given the SNP will use that power over us when the independence negotiations come about.”
Those power lines, like tracer bullets work both ways.
For electricity, England & Wales have interconnectors with other countries, from where will Scotland get the cash to waste on its spending habits?
More Chinese green jobs going.
World’s largest solar company cuts thousands of jobs as prices tumble
Chinese giant Longi plans to axe 30pc of staff amid ballooning solar panel supply glut
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/18/worlds-largest-solar-company-cuts-jobs-prices-fall/
Don’t worry Ed Miliband will sort it out and give you cheap reliable electricity. From the Telegraph:
The deadline prompted a backlash from Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, who said a Labour government would make ESO accelerate its programme to hit the 2030 target. A spokesman said: “We said 2030 for decarbonising the grid and we meant it.”
How he will find the people, the materials and the money to do it all remains a secret only Ed knows.
But Phillip, Militwit and his mates think that jobs are an investment and not a cost. God knows what kind of government we will need after Labour have completed the work of the current bunch of CEN fools – if, in fact, pluralism and democracy survives them.
But where to put these transmission lines?
Half of the lines will have to be to the backup storage facilities, but where will they be?
If they go for pumped hydro, they will need to go to Wales and Scotland.
If they go for hydrogen, they will need to go to the Yorkshire eastcoast (where the underground storage caverns can be built).
Or are they going to fudge the entire issue, and eventually end up with gas as a backup?
Or worse still, kick the can down the road and end up with no stored backup whatsoever – thus plunging the nation back in to the Stone Age in a trice.
Remember that nothing works without electricity, and two weeks with no electricity will mean no heating, water, sewerage, perishable foods, transport, manufacturing, hospitals, banks, police, fire service, or armed forces. They always say we are only three meals away from civil unrest, and that is exactly what will happen.
Ralph
Indeed, felt inches away from break out of cannibalism in Sainsbury’s last Saturday when the credit card system went down and the cash machines were quickly empty.
They always say we are only three meals away from civil unrest, and that is exactly what will happen.
My guess is that looting and arson will commence in some areas in the UK as soon as it becomes clear how long the power cuts will be. An alternative view is that looting and arson will commence in some areas as soon as night falls if there are still widespread power cuts.
And knowing how all major infrastructure projects end up, do you honestly believe that this projected cost will be achievable?
Yup & pigs might fly.
Q: How do you bankrupt the middle-class?
A: £60 Billion More For Grid Upgrades
It is actually 112 billion. The 60 is phase 2.
I have heard even bigger numbers. A year ago they were saying 200 billion.
The amount spent will be determined by when UK runs out of money. Tories say 2035. Labour says 2030.
The government is flailing about on Net Zero. It was only a week ago they announced “More Cash for Wind Farms Near Towns As Net Zero Shift Stretches Grid”, suggesting that Scottish wind farms far from the centres of population would get less for their electricity, see https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/10/more-cash-for-wind-farms-near-towns-as-net-zero-shift-stretches-grid/.
That’s just a vacuum door way of introducing the topic of zonal pricing, which they have opted for under REMA. AFAICS it will mean a substantial reduction in price transparency and limited competition. The idea that this will save money is based on models. They are very coy about putting numbers on it, but savings for a few Scots in the Highlands while increasing prices in England is only going to be popularin Scotland.
But Wind Power is cheap, up to 5x cheaper than Gas, Oil, Coal, Nuclear – it must be because the science is settled and that’s that, no ifs, but or WTF.
Well we all knew that it is simple to prove that something is cheaper if you ignore all the associated costs – everyone knows that the new dress or suit you buy is a bargain, it’s the shoes, coat, hat, gloves, handbag that just don’t get included that proves it.
The bill for Nett Zero will exceed £5trillion, and could be as much as £15trillion – the fact is that the power network upgrade will never come in below £500billion is a fact known to ESO, CCC and the Government, and this is just the start of the bill – do you really expect this number to be bandied about, it is crippling and at the end will actually achieve NOTHING, the energy source is intermittent and unreliable, again this is papered over with claims of “storage”, a future invention that has not been proved to either work at scale or even be affordable.
As with everything to do with Nett Zero, it is a fantasy they have bought into and cannot see a way out off.
You will keep saving money with wind power til there is no economy left.
. . . and ‘trillion’ will be erased from financial vocabulary.
This money would be far better spent on RR SMRs than on intermittent wind and solar. Why is the govt. farting about? Just tell RR to get on with it!
I’m not normally a betting man but I would bet a large sum on the contract for SMRs not going to RR.
So, iah, are okay with government making choices for the market, you just wish they’d choose something else. So fascism is okay, as long as they make the right choices.
That”s what governments do. Why is that fascist?
RR SMRs
The only valid argument against SMRs being constructed at various convenient locations is that there are currently no SMRs for sale.
So bloggers should choose your power supply technology, not people involved in the energy markets.
SMRs might be good. Might not. Being endorsed by people on da web adds nothing.
So bloggers should choose your power supply technology,
My preference would be to choose my preferred power supply technology, mainly on the basis that it would work.
Gross speculation, Mick.
They’re not off the shelf. Several years, so even more important that they’re ordered asap. RR have installed them safely in submarines for fifty years, so why doesn’t the government get on with it instead of wasting the money on renewables, which will take just as long.
That’s BS, iah. Military reactors are vastly different from civilian reactors.
Gross speculation, Mick.
On a technical basis, there’s not much speculation about using proven designs that are proven to work.
On a technical basis, there’s not much speculation about building a fleet of PWR nuclear power stations at Sizewell C and other locations 1994 onwards (broadly based on the Sizewell B design, but twin reactor). As a design, Sizewell B works.
On a technical basis, there’s not much speculation about building a fleet of coal-fired power stations 1983 onwards, initially based on the DRAX design, various locations. As a design, DRAX works.
Baseload = nuclear / coal
Peak lopping = mainly gas and Dinorwig(s)
Intermediate = load following by coal and some nuclear. Perhaps with Dinorwig(s).
Separately, commencing 1994, design and prototype alternative designs for power generation e.g. alternative designs for nuclear, gasification of coal seams etc.
I recognise that the process of development of power generation on a technical basis is not 100% foolproof. The process can be undermined by flawed beliefs, incompetence, corruption and short-termism.
Paul, you wrote, “In short, this £112 billion needs to be spent in order to meet Net Zero objectives, and no other reason.” However, on-shore and especially off-shore wind turbines (i.e. the misnamed renewables) have a low energy-return-on-energy-invested (EROEI) ratio which makes them totally unsuited for a modern, thermodynamically competent electricity grid. [See here for a poular account of EROEI: https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 ]
In other words, this whole enterprise is economic and engineering incompetence amounting to a great deal of wealth destruction for most ordinary people. Outside war time, has there ever been such an unnecessary catastrophe visited upon the British public?
Regards, John.
The only logical conclusion is that the ulterior plan behind the Uniparty’s Net Zero agenda is deliberate impoverishment and deindustrialisation, or at least the plan they are following like subservient puppets (or unthinking muppets) at the bidding of their psychopathic globalist overlords who believe that “the real enemy, then, is humanity itself” (Club of Rome).
I expand on this in my recent email to some local politicians: https://metatron.substack.com/p/net-zero-climate-change-broadside.
Dekulakization.
Millions of Kulaks died.
So, the grid is going to be owned and run by the Government….I wonder what could go wrong….
“Ye of little faith”
Stay calm. The winds and the waves of climate will be rebuked and all will be completely taken care of by this new government entity.
It’s ludicrous! It doesn’t matter how many pylons or miles of wire you string around the country, if the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining they’re nothing but lumps of expensive metal and miles of expensive string doing nothing but blighting the environment.
And costing the taxpayer/electricity user an arm and a leg to no purpose.
The money would be better spent on state-of-the-art gas or nuclear generation which would be near-100% reliable, cheaper, and (given the emissions from the mining and processing needed for the pylons and their shipment and installation) cleaner as well!
Yes, Mike, the transmission lines and pylons will, as you say, “blight the environment” which is one of the reasons I call this sort of policy BLIGHT-WING politics.
Regards, John.
Previously National Grid had talked of spending £18bn a year through 3035, or £200bn. So this is just a down-payment.
Here’s the latest crazy idea
https://www.current-news.co.uk/uk-us-transatlantic-interconnector-to-be-explored/
That has to make £60bn look like chicken feed. What a lovely target for ROVs.
the “sun would never set” on the nations’ solar farms. Ultimately, the idea is that should enough solar capacity be developed in the US,
What part of the USA has the open space to place enough solar panels to suggest this concept, and have the solar input (think Texas versus Maine)? Isn’t a connection to the central Sahara (think southern Algeria) a better fit?
One to Morocco is apparently in progress.
Transmission losses?
Ask Gert Wilders to vouch for the bona fides of Moroccan Religion of Peace fans.
Hawaii? Don’t know how many time zones between there and N.Y., but I guess volcanoes might not make it easy in Hawaii. Daft idea, anyway.
John, the American southwest has a million square miles of nothingness.
Aye, sure, … pull the other one …. it has a record which plays “I told you so a long time ago“ and the OIL that will HAVE to be burnt to produce all that new material (raw materials mined & processed ) HELP ! I’m getting triggered again ! ( and they wonder how there’s so much ‘mental health’ issues )
…and I wonder where the steel for the pylons and the copper for the cables will come from….
Well, studies I’ve seen suggest that no wind turbine and no solar panel has ever generated enough energy to make another.
And that is without doing a tap on the Grid.
Actually Harry the high voltage cables are mostly aluminium based. Then again aluminium is often referred to a “congealed electricity” as it consumes so much to make it!
North south ‘electrical spine’ to export energy to England
A new north to south electrical spine could be created to allow green energy generated off the coast of Scotland to be transported to England as part of a £60 billion plan, according to a report published today.
The study by the Electricity System Operator (ESO), the organisation which runs the network, said the new infrastructure could carry electricity produced off Peterhead to Merseyside and help meet growing demand from households and businesses across Scotland and the north of England.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24193538.north-south-electrical-spine-export-energy-england/
Cooo! can you just imagine, just imagine if we charged the Ing-lish a tidy sum for that exported goods… and then we could be like the Norwegians ( we always aspire to according to the SNutParty ) and profit from our ill-gotten resources … Aye ,great we’d finally get Real Cheap power – maybe even free electricity ( when it’s spare ). Sounds like Germany after the War – Export export ….
if it’s going to “feed” the good people of Perth, West Lothian, maybe Lanarkshire, Carlisle, Preston on its way there’s going to be precious little left by the time it reaches Merseyside!
Better to build a proper power station there and have done. More reliable, cheaper and almost certainly less polluting as well.
Aren’t the good people of Lanarkshire and Carlisle getting their juice from the Beauly-Denny connection? I bloody well hope so because it cost almost a billion quid and is an eyesore within a mile of the house where I grew up.
I notice the proposed route to England runs through West Lothian…..now that poses a “question”…… who should get a vote on the issue?!!!!
(probably not a very good joke)
An excellent joke Ray although somewhat esoteric perhaps!
https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/west-lothian-question/
help meet growing demand from households and businesses across Scotland and the north of England
[citation needed[
Begging the question. Why would households have higher demand? They are limited by their existing service. Uptake of EVs and ASHPs is low.
And businesses? They are closing. Everything is moving to China.
Ever-so-cheap?
The UK’s Wind Industry Gets £1 Billion in ‘Constraint Payments’ for Producing Nothing at All. In Scotland, which has been overrun by these monsters, power consumers are being slugged for tens of £millions each year!
The league table of rip-offs here —
https://stopthesethings.com/2024/03/19/uks-wind-industry-gets-1-billion-in-constraint-payments-for-producing-nothing-at-all/
Wires are only a small part of the issue – actually getting power to flow through those wires to where it is required is the tricky bit that never properly gets discussed.
This is a good explanatory article from Drax that details Reactive Power and just how critical it is. It also points out that solar (Reactive Power does not exist in DC generation) and wind (asynchronous) cannot assist in Reactive Power generation nor absorption. It also points out that low power levels over transmission lines (think all these new transmission lines to wind farms subject to highly variable load) creates more “blocking” reactive power. And then there are new appliances that cause end user created reactive power i.e. Heat Pumps and EV chargers that cause yet more problems.
The principal solution for Reactive Power control (and also to provide essential inertia for short circuit level control) is the synchronous condenser. These are effectively power plants generators that are not powered……or they can be rapid start Open Cycle Gas Turbines that can run their generators decoupled from their turbines such as this example at Indian Queens. This is actually what is meant by the recent government announcement regarding Gas fired “back up” plants. They are NOT intended as secure power plants at all just sticking plasters an an open wounded system. Cheap to build but very expensive to run.
Forget the Micky Mouse figures that National Grid or the government is quoting – they are complete fiction AND they know it. Bear in mind National Grid are responsible for just 2% of the overall grid mileage. The cost of high voltage grid reinforcements will be an order of magnitude greater than they are trying to con you into believing. This figure will, however, be dwarfed by the cost of upgrading the other 98% of lower voltage cabling of the District Network Operators system to account for the increased loads. Again bear in mind up to 200 domestic customers are normally connected (single phase) to 300kW circuits at the substation. The whole system has been predicated on individual low use levels - primarily lighting and small appliances with varied consumption patterns. Heat Pumps run almost continuously or rather more to the point they will not work absent a massive upgrade in every single property’s supply. How much do you think re-cabling the entire UK comes in at?
And then all the synchronous condensers (phoney gas plants) SVC units, STATCOMS, UPFC and half a zillion other bits of kit just to make all this renewable crap work… or most likely not.
£Trillions should be the basic unit to quantify what all this totally unnecessary crap is going to cost. AND THEY KNOW IT.
Everything will prop up everything else, until it doesn’t.
Reactive power is a mystery to most electrical engineers, you have to put it in then take it out, lack of reactive power is often the reason for black outs. Reactive power is provided by rotating synchronous generators, big spinning turbines, You do not get much from solar, windfarms and interconnectors, despite massive air cored coils.
Ray S: this is way beyond my understanding (although the Drax link helped a bit). Given the critical requirement to keep things under control, why is there not more outcry about the looming problems? Surely the professional institutions should be raising the roof, or are they keeping their heads below the parapet?
Curiosity question: what impact, if any, do large inflows over the interconnectors have on the system? Aiui, they work in DC which has no reactive power effect, per your remarks. So does that help keep things stable or does it make it trickier as a large element of the supply has no reactive component?
Hi Mike, firstly regarding the interconnectors, you are correct in that on their own they provide no reactive power nor (equally importantly) any system inertia. As a result interconnectors can actually represent a threat to system security – if they trip offline they can collapse the system.
This actually almost happened just before last Christmas. Poster “It doesn’t add up” Is currently trying to ascertain quite why our much vaunted battery back up systems were not used to hold the system up and pumped hydro storage had to be the salvation. Hopefully he will advise on here of the findings. For my part I suspect that the reason the battery back up failed to respond adequately was exactly due to lack of reactive power levels to allow power to flow from these often disparate sources.
Regarding your other point, as I tried to infer above, the problems are well known but just not openly admitted to. The “new” gas plants are actually there to try and balance the system acting as providers of inertia and reactive power.
^^
A supply network that relies on lots of steam generation usefully avoids the risks created by renewables.
it’s impossible to decarbonise electricity generation . Full stop.
Are we going to be able to watch this new Heartland documentary screened in the USA on Thursday. CLIMATE CHANGE – THE MOVIE?
Mike Travers report at https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/07/Travers-Net-Zero-Distribution-Grid-Replacement.pdf is worthwhile reading on this topic.
And how will our depleted miltary manage to provide the defence of 4000 miles of undersea cables and for hundreds of square miles of windmills spread out all over the North Sea?
Never mind the completely daft idea of protecting a cable all the way from North Africa to the UK.
£112bn could build 60 RR SMRs provding 28GW of reliable power. Equivalent to 70GW of installed windmills which then still require a parallel backup system when the wind doesn’t blow and all this expensive NG infrastructure.
Net Zero is designed to destroy our economy using the false excuse that we have CAGW caused by unilaterally buning hydrocarbon fuels. There is no CAGW, as proven by historical empirical evidence and the work of Happer & Wijngaarden on CO2 IR saturation.
The national security angle hasn’t been considered anywhere near sufficiently by the CCC or politicians.
A well-executed raid by hostile unmanned subs could KO the UK’s primary energy source overnight. Significant damage could easily take years to fix, with the cost of financial and social damage too high to dare discuss.
It’s the grossest incompetence by ALL politicians and CS’s involved. Jail would be too good for them.
What about the proposed USA to UK interconnector plan 3000 miles what could go wrong, totally ridiculous.
Och I’m lernin aan affy lot o’ e’ stoff here e’day. Congealed electricity, No’ enoff power fae e’ winmeels tae mak mair o’ ’em et ceterra … AND the biggest scam with the batteries … all that lithium this n that … the lumps of that stuff after processing still can NOT power anything – Effectively just making a big storage container of “stuff”. When you mine coal / oil/ gas, it is a fuel “ready to go “ can do something …. but this new stuff has to be charged / recharged to keep on going ….. like filling up a fuel tank/container //…. with what ? – from where ?
The proposed interconnctor from Morocco (allegedly rated at 3,600 MW) is pure insanity on a stick. Such a connection is vulnerable to just about any and everything (IFA1 from France was once knackered by a ship’s sea anchor in a storm) and is a security risk to the UK of itself.
Taking out potentially 10% of UK supply (at the flick of a switch?!) would instantaneously collapse the grid which is only geared for a maximum (Infrequent Infeed Loss Limit) loss of 1800MW. What nutters think up this sort of stuff?
Exactly. If such a system was taken out by hostiles or bad luck matters not, if it’s out those responsible for procuring it should be jailed. Our political class should have some very serious skin in this game.
Cargo cult electricity
Some 4,000 miles of undersea cables and 1,000 miles of power lines including pylons are needed, National Grid’s Electricity Systems Operator said.
You can hope and pray that you never have a domestic or foreign enemy who would decide to cut any of those very long and unprotected power lines or even an natural storm. That really does not happen in real life, no one cuts your natural gas lines from your natural enemies.
We need regional nuclear and fossil fuel power that can operate independent of huge grids that are easily disrupted or destroyed.
Move to where the power is. Cable from Morocco . . . or move to Morocco?
The moment (19 May 2016) when Ivanpah became sentient and tried to destroy itself ought to have been a hint.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/21/fire-breaks-out-at-worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-ivanpah/
“the country’s climate ambitions”
A phrase used by my Con MP in a recent e-mail.
You have become a government with a nation, not a nation with a government.