The National Energy System Operator (Neso), the company controlled by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband which runs the national grid, is still insisting that Britain did not come dangerously close to a blackout last week. Even if a major power source had “tripped” offline during the evening of 8 January, when the windless cold weather meant demand was high and supply low because wind farms were barely functioning, Neso claims it could have kept the lights on. Of course, it has not said exactly how.
Still, a forthcoming report by the energy consultant Kathryn Porter, whose blog detailed how tight margins became last week, suggests that Miliband’s plan to make Britain a “clean energy superpower” — using fossil fuels for no more than 5% of its electricity by 2030 — will make the risks much worse.
Porter’s document, to be published next week by the campaign group Net Zero Watch, points out that on a typical winter day, by far the biggest source of electricity is natural gas, which in the colder months currently supplies around 30 gigawatts (GW) — almost two-thirds of the total peak demand. In winter, solar panels are almost useless, while the output from wind fluctuates enormously. On one day last December, it was more than 22GW, but in cold weather it often falls below 1GW. On 8 January, it was 2.5GW.
Miliband insists that there will one day be means to store vast quantities of energy generated by renewables, which can then be used during those periods when the weather means they don’t work. But for now, writes Porter, such technologies “have yet to be deployed anywhere at commercial scale, and some are utterly unproven”. For example, Miliband claims he plans to build more batteries and connect them to the grid. However, existing types of battery “can only run for a matter of hours”, while “periods of low wind can last for days and even weeks.”
Aside from gas, the UK’s only constant electricity source is nuclear. Yet at least two of Britain’s existing reactors are set to close by 2030. Hinkley Point C, the only new one being built, is “very unlikely to be open” by 2030 according to Porter. Interconnectors — the undersea cables linking Britain with Europe that proved essential to avoiding disaster last week — are “also at risk”. In recent years, some have been damaged by accidents, and several countries also facing energy shortages may well decide to restrict electricity exports with the goal of protecting their own consumers — as Norway already has.
Yet another problem Porter identifies is the need to expand the grid massively to connect the new wind and solar facilities promised by Miliband. “Renewables require many more wires and associated grid infrastructure,” she writes. “A gas power station requires a single connection, but a wind farm requires that every single individual turbine is connected.”
Under the Government’s plans, twice as much infrastructure will have to be built in the next five years as has been in the last 10. Already, though, there is evidence that construction is not keeping pace. Last year, the power firm Drax finished building three new gas power stations – more than enough to have covered any shortfall last week. They already have contracts with Neso to supply power when needed, but aren’t running because they are not yet connected to the grid.
Nevertheless, gas will have to fill the gap when the wind refuses to blow over Miliband’s clean energy superpower. In fact, it will be essential to retain all 35GW of existing gas-fired capacity – even though, according to the Energy Secretary, it will be used just 5% of the time.
This will create even more difficulties. Many of the UK’s existing gas plants are close to the end of their normal operational life, and extensions are often impossible. In prolonged periods of disuse, they will have to be protected by “nitrogen blankets”, their tubes filled with nitrogen gas that will take many hours to flush out, as well as by monitoring systems and frequent testing to make sure they work when required.
On Wednesday, Ed Miliband told the Commons energy select committee that by ending dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets, his Clean Power 2030 plan will enhance energy security. Porter disagrees. “The country is not sleepwalking into a security of supply disaster,” she concludes. “Under CP2030, it is running headlong into it.”
Watch UnHerd‘s conversation with Kathryn Porter HERE.
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SubscribeAn evil British communist and clear wrecker of our future in the UK.
It is blindgingly obvious that net zero isn’t just a fantasy, its a dangerous fantasy.
We know today that the pursuit of net zero will devastate consumers and the economy and for what?
We also know today that if we “achieve” these ridiculous targets after impoverishing the country, it will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to global warming; none.
This is clearly insane.
A disturbing article topped by a still more disturbing photo image of Miliband depicted as the stereotypical evil Jew of antisemitic mythology. Shylock insisting on his pound of flesh because “it is the law” knowing well that it will kill. The evil effects of Miliband’s fanatical policies are quite sever enough without what comes perilously near a depiction of Miliband that would sit happily in Der Sturmer or some Hamas propaganda. It is even more disturbing when we reflect that his father almost hankered for the British to lose the last War to Germany because the British were so Nationalist.
Kathryn has done some excellent work. Miliband’s CP2030 plan is economic madness. It will cost £260-290bn by 2030 to save just ~£7bn in the cost of gas we use for electricity. His sums don’t add up.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/miliband-cheaper-electricity-claims-do-not-add-up
‘Miliband insists that there will one day be means to store vast quantities of energy generated by renewables, which can then be used during those periods when the weather means they don’t work.’
This means that we need to build at least 10GW of excess capacity to use that to have energy to be stored.
Because of efficiency percentages, 10GWH of excess energy will only translate into roughly 5GWH of available stored energy.
Building excess capacity on that scale is expensive.
And the amount of battery storage would be immense.
Your mobile phone is charged by mains power and gives out electricity at trickle power.
Backup electricity systems will give out electricity at mains power and be charged by trickle power , ie any excess electricity in the system.
So restocking backup electricity supplies will take a long time, during which time we would have zero backup.
Agree. My first job in 1977 was a Technical Manager in a battery factory. Although I moved to Corrosion Engineering, it is essentially the same science. Batteries then and now haven’t changed very much; different chemicals are used and the chemical reactions in charging and discharging are much faster. But, we still store DC power in batteries. There is, say, a loss of 15%-20% of electricity from wind turbines in the sea and in transmission to the battery, further large losses in converting AC to DC for storage and then from DC to AC for distribution (with the distribution step taking away another 5%). So, as you say, 50% would be lost.
50% is a frightening inefficiency. My guess is, that Miliband is adopting the age-old management strategy of shouting as loud as possibility to get people to improve things.
When can we openly say that making things worse is the whole point of this con? If people like Miliband put some horsepower into nuclear, they might have a bit more credibility. Nothing is cleaner with the track record to prove it. And in case some anti-nuke person mentions accidents, no one died as a result of Three Mile Island.
The terrible threat posed by ideologues should not be underestimated especially when such people are gifted with enormous political power. Ed Miliband is such a man. He should not have been gifted with this position. An ideologue: “an adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic.” Oxford dictionary
Net Zero is a scam.
Miliband is deliberately replacing “dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets” with dependence on mineral supply chains that are 90% controlled by China. I don’t see that as progress, personally.
It takes 100 square miles of wind farm to match the output of a single small nuke occupying a space not much larger than a football field. And that’s when the wind blows. We need to find a new word just how stupid these policies are.
In the postmodern age willing ideology into being is by far the most effective way of achieving world-saving results. The fact that it causes more suffering than it cures is just an unimportant side effect. In fact, it doesn’t really cause any harm, because I don’t want it to. So there – settled! And the rest of you commentators are just right-wing, climate denying, racist, mysoginist, transphobic yobbos. (Cue sound of loud grown-up raspberry.)
I wonder when the penny will drop and all the world will realize that NetZero is the stupidest, cruelest, most wasteful idea every to come from the mind of man.
Shall we then send all the climate madmen to Bedlam Hospital, as in the olden time?
The thing I find so disturbing about all the net zero worship is the wilful blindness of the majority of adherents to this new and disturbing pseudo-religion. These ideologically driven zealots seem unable to understand that much of this unilateral, virtue-signalling incoherence is, in fact, increasing global emissions of greenhouse gases.
If we ‘offshore’ production of manufactured goods to countries using ‘dirtier’ forms of energy production and then transport the resultant goods long distances – burning more fossil fuels in the process – Milliband and his acolytes may be able to engage in congratulatory back-slapping and ego-preening but the cruel fact is that more greenhouse gases will have been discharged into the atmosphere than if we had continued to manufacture said goods ourselves. The same goes for buying energy, or the raw material to generate energy, from offshore suppliers – the net cost is higher greenhouse gas emissions than simply maintaining the UKs own fossil fuel sources as well as the means of energy generation.
I am not a climate change denier – far from it. Neither do I think that the decarbonisation of our energy supply is anything other than a worthy aim in the medium to long term. I just think that the wholly ludicrous approach to the problem as embodied by Milliband et al is, as a matter of fact, making things worse in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and, at the same time, immiserating and impoverishing our nation.
This incoherent, ill considered project is, quite simply, madness.
Strange how all this net zero drive really needs is money being pumped into very inefficient and otherwise commercially wholly unviable ventures…
I wonder who their lobbyists are, maybe the british people should pay those lobbyists too…
Follow the money, a lot of people are getting seriously rich from this scam. They are not going to stop while the state shields and supports them.
They are immune to argument or logic only economic collapse will end it by which point it will be too late for the UK.
The whole thing is a massive scam from “Climate Science” at universities all the way to the industries building all this useless expensive unproven tech.
Unfortunately there are now a lot of vested interests in the new religion, and lots of piggies snuffling in the trough. I’m not sure how it can ever be dismantled. It’ll just have to collapse, which it surely will.
Ed Miliband does not believe his plans will backfire horribly, which, inevitably, they will, because a man who has never tried to achieve something substantial and therefore has never failed, does not believe he is capable of failure. He is forced, like the rest of us out in the real world, to learn the hard way.
And this terrifying hubris born of inexperience is not only the problem we face with Miliband but with the entire Labour cabinet, none of whom have ever tried to do something difficult and failed. This explains the fantasy-like quality of, for example, Reeves’ plans for ‘growth’, Cooper’s ridiculous ‘smash the gangs’ solution to our border problems and pretty well everything Starmer proposes.
A priority for the next grown-up government should be to do something to disrupt the university-spad-MP-Minister career path which puts all these hopeless people in power over us.
The miserable Kier Starmer is just intelligent enough to realise how foolish he looks. However he is surrounded by a coterie of hatchet faced harpies, Reeves, Rayner and Cooper. There is no way out, he can only look wanly at pretty boy Streeting, care-in-the-community Lammy and mad-as-a-box-of-frogs Milliband.