Today Net Zero Watch has published a new report I’ve written on the risks of blackouts in the GB power market. The report was primarily drafted late last year but sections were re-written after the near-miss on 8 January which brought home the risks of the current policy trajectory.
“Ed Miliband’s green delusions are going to be disastrous. He and his officials need to get serious about the cost and security of our energy system,”
– Nick Timothy, shadow energy minister
The 8 January event was not the only incident this winter, but it is by far the most serious. On 14 October 2024, the grid saw the first Capacity Market Notice (“CMN”) in two years (there were further such notices on 3 December 2024 and 8 January 2025). This was despite NESO determining in its Winter Outlook that the spare capacity margin for this winter would be higher than in recent years.
“The current Base Case de-rated margin is 5.2 GW (representing 8.8% of peak cold spell demand). The associated loss of load expectation (“LOLE”) is below 0.1 hours. This is higher than the 4.4 GW (7.4%) published in the Winter Outlook Report for 2023/24 and remains comparable to the Early View published in June. The higher year-on-year margin is driven by new interconnection, growth in battery storage capacity and an increase in generation connected to the distribution networks. In combination, these changes more than offset generation retirements and other temporary capacity reductions.”
– National Energy System Operator
A CMN is issued when it is deemed that the spare generation capacity available, over expected demand, falls below 500 MW. In order to resolve the market tightness on 8 October 2024, NESO was obliged to procure up to 5 GW of capacity over the interconnectors, at a cost of around £13 million. On 8 January 2025, it was even more expensive to keep the lights on, with more than £21 million being spent on balancing actions, before accounting for the cost of the Viking interconnector trade which was still not public as of the Operational Transparency Forum call last Wednesday (and apparently the price had yet to be agreed with Energinet). On the same day, there were also three Electricity Margin Notices (“EMNs”), which are issued when the market is tight, as a warning that special measures may be needed to secure the system.
NESO continues to dispute the tightness that day, insisting that it had 3.7 GW of “headroom”, but this rather begs the question why it was necessary to issue EMNs and CMNs, or pay Rye House £5,500 /MWh in the Balancing Mechanism, or enter a deal with NO PRE-AGREED PRICE to buy electricity from Denmark over the 700 MW of Viking which came back early from maintenance. Replies these questions have not been forthcoming other than vague references to “market uncertainty”.
On 8 October, 28 October and 20 November 2024 frequency events were triggered, when large interconnectors unexpectedly stopped flowing, leading to NESO’s operating frequency tolerance being breached. More worryingly, recent years have seen frequency drift outside these operational limits hundreds of times a year, even without the loss of a major source of supply like a generator or an interconnector.
In addition, there was an extended period of dunkelflaute in early November, where renewable generation was minimal and the country relied on large amounts of gas-fired generation to meet demand. It lasted for five days, far longer than the capacity of any batteries available in GB to operate. Cutting edge chemical batteries, which are not yet operational, may last for 100 hours – the average of the current fleet of GB batteries is around 1.5 – 2.0 hours. Other technologies, such as pumped hydro, have the capacity to run for longer, but GB lacks the geography to build enough of these facilities to cover a dunkelflaute. Dinorwig, Europe’s largest pumped hydro power station, located in Wales, has the ability to run for five hours.
As the energy transition progresses, and the Government pushes on to its Clean Power 2030 ambition, the risk of blackouts will rise. These become significant from the winter of 2027–28 onwards, as nuclear retirements and a push to replace conventional gas generation with intermittent wind and solar, alongside possible effects of electrification, stress the electricity grid, potentially to breaking point.
There is a small glimmer of hope in the recent announcement from EDF that it hopes potentially all of the AGRs could run for longer and possibly into the 2030s. This would require a change of approach from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (“ONR”) in relation to the graphite issue, but as I have outlined before, the current approach does not reflect a sensible approach to risk management in that ONR requires that 100% of the control rods must be capable of being deployed in the event of a 1 in 10,000 year earthquake (10 times stronger than the largest earthquake in British history) despite the fact that only 15% of the control rods are needed to stop the reaction and there are two backup shutdown methods should the control rods fail for any reason.
Hopefully ONR will adjust its approach since this is not a risk-neutral decision: winter blackouts would likely cause fatalities, and if these can be avoided by extending the lives of the AGRs then ONR would be irresponsible to force them to close: deaths from blackouts caused in part due to the premature closure or delayed opening of nuclear reactors are every bit as damaging as deaths from radiation.
There’s a way to go before any new nuclear extensions are secured, and it is important to recognise that without these extensions the power grid is going to look very shaky by Winter 2027. The cancellation of one of the new CCGTs at Eggborough also does not help, nor does the uncertainty around the futures of the Drax and Lynemouth biomass plants once their CfDs expire in 2027.
The only real way to secure the GB power grid to the end of the decade is to build more gas-fired generation. No other form of dispatchable generation can be built quickly enough. Unfortunately, there are no signs of the Government recognising the risks presented by its Clean Power 2030 Plan – indeed, the word is that Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, refuses to meet with, never mind listen to, anyone that does not share his wind and solar ideology. Allegedly. He has dismissed all suggestions that the Plan is unachievable by stating that NESO (which is now part of the civil service, and whose sole shareholder is Mr Miliband!) believes that it is. Hardly comforting.
I will also re-link my UnHerd interview on the subject of blackout risks.
(Behaving. like) an agent for a hostile foreign power or a nitwit-which is likelier?
Privatisation of the public gas and electricity supply industries has failed and the country is in an extremely dangerous position that could never have occurred under the previous nationalised regime, in that one man who is totally unqualified and an unquestioning believer of a nihilistic climate agenda has total control of the nation’s energy. All of the checks and balances of deep engineering knowledge and experience that formerly existed have been swept away. The industry has allowed it to be fronted by the billing experts the suppliers, whilst the actually more important aspect of engineering has been hidden and infantilised by the over- bearing influence of the regulator. The control that the regulator has over the operation and ultimately share value of the electricity distributors and gas transporters, has effectively shut down their ability to properly raise fundamental engineering issues directly with the Government. As a result the energy minister has total control over the industry.
Privatisation is not to blame. Before privatisation the nationalised industry under union control gave us the 3 day week. After nationalisation supply of electricity and gas expanded, and prices fell in real terms. We have seen increasing central control ever since the EU decided it was going to determine how we should be supplied, pushing coal closure and interconnectors to try to create dependence. It was further damaged by our own domestic political instruction to impose renewables at any cost and to prevent nuclear investment. Energy is now state controlled with companies acting as contractors to the state, controlled by regulation and massive carrots and sticks in the form of subsidies and taxes.
I don’t disagree with what you say, but we have thrown the baby away with the bath water hence my contention that privatisation has failed.
Technically the CEGB was always run by one man and its was always a man who imposed their view about things should be done. The only restraint was getting enough money out of the Treasury for investment. That said it worked pretty well but it came at a price and privatisation did lower prices. The real fault though was another example of hapless regulator of which there are many to chose from in the UK. You don’t see this issue from US regulators in the energy space who thoroughly protect the consumer.
Any thoughts on the prospect of blackouts on the island of ireland of uk suffers blackouts?
Keep up the good work Kathryn. We need your logic to prevail. Reform are taking note of this lunacy being forced on us by a Government that has no idea how important affordable, reliable energy is!
They are already planning for 15-20% power cuts.
https://cruie-live-96ca64acab2247eca8a850a7e54b-5b34f62.divio-media.com/documents/CRU202358a_Scenarios_for_15-20_Flexible_System_Demand_ESBN_Paper.pdf
It remains true that most of the time when renewables output is low Ireland is importing via Moyle and E-W interconnectors. The Greenlink interconnector from Pembroke power station in Wales to Waterford is about to go live, which will lead to interesting battles over who gets the output and how the West Midlands will be supplied aswell as South Wales during low renewables periods. The Celtic interconnector to France is supposed to be complete by 2027. However Eirgrid have long regarded the aim for 80% of annual supply to come from renewables as extremely challenging (political speak for near impossible).
Part of that is simply because when the wind dies you don’t get much renewables supply, and storage on a scale to cover Dunkelflaute is unaffordable. Another part relates to grud stability. This chart illustrates the principles of grid operation designed to ensure that there is a sufficient level of inertia providing conventional generationon the grid
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12fcfe6e695b58a2a497ed4521dd30b631cb058268799591829498342f4e951b.png
There are periods of curtailment when the wind output (light blue) is below the forecast line (brown). These occur overnight when demand (yellow line) is low, allowing conventional generation to make up a minimum share of generation, which is further enabled by maximising exports.
When the wind dies away (or when it got shut down by hurricane force winds during Storm Ophelia on the last day of the chart) then supply is met from conventional generation plus imports. However, Ireland has been busy closing its conventional generation, banning the use of peat and shuttering coal fired generation at Kilroot and Coolkeeragh while only investing in limited CCGT capacity. The decline of the Corrib field and the lack of LNG import capability and dependence on gas supply via GB, which is under threat from North Sea closure and intention to shut the methane network, will leave the grid stretched – certainly if they hope to power burgeoning data centres. Hence the extra interconnectors. But if the GB grid goes down the result would be that it would probably collapse the Irish grid too, as it would be unable to make up the loss of interconnector supply. Hence the planned power cuts.
You write informed and insightful material. I would just like to comment that, like many posters on such websites, you repeatedly insist that gas is the only solution. That is not so and I refer you to the Ireland Alternative Fuel Obligation. The “gas” in gas turbine refers to the fluid that drives the impeller, not the fuel. Gas turbines are aero engine derived, originally to run on kerosene but very robust and flexible, and can burn pretty well any clean fluid fuel. If we follow the alternative, as many have, and adapt our CCGT stations to receive, store and burn distillate fuel it will be cheaper and more secure without high investments – not compared with other solutions anyway. By-the-by the high grade crude potentially available from Rosebank could probably be burned dierectly without refining (just topping which is done off-shore).
Generating companies are not commercially stupid. If it were more economic to use oil than gas they would do so. As it happens the Little Bar CCGT plant does have a reserve capacity to use oil in the event ofan interruption to gas supply. However, the additional problem is that it gives rise to higher emissions, so when it sought planning permission for the facility it was on the basis of emergency use only. Fuel switching comes with increased risk of tripping out, something that was deemed unacceptable back in 2005.
https://www.elexon.co.uk/mod-proposal/p195-neutrality-for-ccgt-bmus-switching-between-gas-and-distillate/
Kathryn,
Well done for highlighting the absolute stupidity of relying on Wind Power.
Has nobody noticed – the wind does not always blow, and this can be the same for near parts of Europe.
It is also fickle – no amount of Solar or Nuclear can match the vagaries of the Wind – only Gas can.
The Wind can blow well producing 15GWs for a week or two – suddenly it can stop for days.
Just as suddenly it stopped, it can start for half a day & die again.
Just look at the traces produced by
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Note, they would appreciate a small donation to keep them going!
See
It is illuminating to study the Wind and look at the tremendous job the Gas
does to provide a reasonable constant power output.
Keep up the good work, Kathryn.
John Bowen, Retired Chartered Engineer.
A most interesting and valuable report Kathryn – thank you. But there was something I didn’t understand. In the Executive Summary you say that chemical batteries, ‘not yet operational’, may last for 100 hours. That sounds pretty good. But in a footnote (page 5) you say that pumped hydro, that can only run ‘for a matter of hours’ (5 hours for Dinorwig), ‘lasts longer than chemical batteries’. Have I missed something or is there an inconsistency here?
PS You may be interested to see this: https://cliscep.com/2025/01/28/the-case-against-net-zero-a-ninth-update/#respond