The retirement of ageing coal-fired stations and a reliance on intermittent wind energy have left Britain’s system more vulnerable to supply shocks than at any time for at least a decade, National Grid said yesterday. Demand will be at its highest in mid-December, and supply will be tightest in the weeks beginning 26 October and 11 January, National Grid said.
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This includes an additional 2.5 gigawatts of back-up generating capacity sourced via measures such as a scheme to get utilities to keep idle capacity available and paying offices and factories to cut power use during peak demand periods, National Grid said in its 2015/2016 Winter Outlook report.
Now it looks like Anderson was right, and today’s report says that there is an “increased likelihood” that National Grid will have to pay a few bigger factories to shut down their operations on weekday nights to make sure that the general public gets enough electricity.
It said the additional cost of the contingency services was equivalent to around 50p per year on the electricity bill of the average customer. “We have procured our contingency balancing services which we may need to use in order to help us balance the system”.
The maximum potential delivery of gas supplies, including from storage, is 613 million cubic metres – significantly higher than expected peak demand, National Grid said.
‘On the gas side, supplies are expected to be comfortable this year, thanks to good availability of liquefied natural gas on the global market and stable flows from the North Sea and Norway’.
Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said fears of a winter energy blackout were overdone.
National Grid, the company in charge of Britain’s energy network, just published its winter outlook, and what it says is really worrying.
Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, denied there was a risk of people losing their power.
She said the number one priority was to ensure consumers and businesses had access to secure, affordable and reliable energy supplies, and in the longer term the Government was investing in infrastructure and low-carbon energy supplies to improve energy security for future generations.
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The Government is set to commission EDF and two Chinese companies to build a new £24.5bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
