National Grid has said it is more likely to draw on additional sources of power to keep electricity running after winter capacity fell to its lowest for nearly a decade.
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It has contracted extra balancing services of 2.4GW for this winter, which include having mothballed plants on standby and paying businesses to use less power at peak times. As a result, Cordi O’Hara, the National Grid’s United Kingdom systems operator, said electricity supply over the winter would be “tight but manageable”. “We have procured our contingency balancing services which we may need to use in order to help us balance the system”.
‘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’.
For gas, the company said peak daily demand this winter is seen at 465 million cubic metres/day, broadly in line with last winter.
For electricity, demand is expected to peak in mid-December, with the least slack in the system in the weeks of October 26 and January 11.
In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Keith Anderson, the boss of Scottish Power, one of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers warned that National Grid would “start going to various industries or large users and saying: at certain times of the year, or at certain days, or at certain times of the day, switch off the energy please, because we don’t have enough” if it does not come up with a solution to the tightening gap between supply and demand for energy.
But the report said there was expected to be “sufficient” generation and imports of electricity through connections to other countries to meet even the tightest weeks over the winter.
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said: ‘Keeping the lights on is non-negotiable.
Families could pay more for energy this winter as power stations invest to minimise the threat of power cuts. “George Osborne needs to empower cities and towns to provide local, decentralised energy, which can help provide the resilience that the country needs, alongside a smart, interconnected grid and clean energy”. “Keeping the lights on is non-negotiable”, she said.
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.
“Already energy investors have begun to turn their backs on Britain and we now know it is also damaging Britain’s energy security”.
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National Grid has faced criticism for allowing a fall in spare capacity.
