From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
JULY 20, 2021
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
The government seems determined to destroy the electricity grid:
The government plans to strip National Grid of its role keeping Great Britain’s lights on as part of a proposed “revolution’” in the electricity network driven by smart digital technologies.
The FTSE 100 company has played a role in managing the energy system of England, Scotland and Wales for more than 30 years (Northern Ireland has its own network). It is the electricity system operator, balancing supply and demand to ensure the electricity supply. But it will lose its place at the heart of the industry after government officials put forward plans to replace it with an independent “future system operator”.
The new system controller would help steer the country towards its climate targets, at the lowest cost to energy bill payers, by providing impartial data and advice after an overhaul of the rules governing the energy system to make it “fit for the future”.
The plans are part of a string of new proposals to help connect millions of electric cars, smart appliances and other green technologies to the energy system, which government officials believe could help to save £10bn a year by 2050, and create up to 10,000 jobs for electricians, data scientists and engineers.
The new regulations aim to make it easier for electric cars to export electricity from their batteries back on to the power grid or to homes when needed. They could also help large-scale and long-duration batteries play a role in storing renewable energy, so that it is available when solar and wind power generation levels are low.
This has been on the cards for sometime, with I suspect OFGEM playing the leading role.
Reading between the lines, it appears that the National Grid have told the government that their decarbonisation plans are, if not impossible, highly risky and extremely expensive, as far as providing a secure and reliable electricity supply is concerned.
The new system controller will have meeting climate targets as its main objective, and all else will be of secondary importance.
Government will therefore throw out the knowledge and skills built up over many years by electrical engineers who know what they are doing. In their place, we will probably end up with the sort of eco loons who infest the Committee on Climate Change.
Heaven help us all!
I glad I don’t live in GB as it sounds like they are shooting themselves in both feet.
Think of the following scenario: an idiot decides to make some money by selling the energy in his car’s battery. He then is surprised to find that he has no energy to run his car for an unexpected vital journey.
They’ll connect a diesel generator like the Spanish did
As if EV owners having paid dearly for their mobile battery and its appropriate sizing for their transport needs are going to discharge it at the first whiff the grid’s in trouble or there’s rolling blackouts. The last thing you’d do as an EV owner with a full battery so V2G is just another delusional fantasy by the usual suspects.
Hey, with the social credit scores our beloved owners have in mind, those EV owners had better pony up when the collective calls.
Not even necessarily an unexpected journey. Cold morning after a calm night, get in your car to go to work, and…nothing. But you kept your neighbor’s heat on overnight.
EV batteries can endure only about 600 to 800 charge/discharge cycles before they degrade significantly. If you charge once per week they will last 10 years with only a modest loss of range. If you charge once per day so you can put power on the grid or run your house overnight (when solar isn’t producing any power) the battery will last just two to three years.
The payback period for CO2 production for EVs, the period you have to run it for EV CO2 savings to overcome the CO2 cost of producing the battery, is more like 5 years. You would be better off driving a gasoline powered ICE car than an EV if you have to replace the battery every two or three years.
That’s just CO2 on the battery.
What about all the other refined and processed materials that had to be used to make car? The polymers and plastics, metal unibody, etc? What about the electricity that was used to create and transport those materials. I will ensure the green blob that container and cargo ships will not be going either nuclear nor EV anytime soon. Furthermore, England is does not possess all the natural resources in sufficient quantity to produce all these products in-country.
At this point I do not see a way out this CO2 fantasy without the pain points. Whether this leads to a citizens’ revolt is a 50/50 possibility in my mind. The members of the species in the developed countries have on some level lost its primal evolutionary needed will to fight for its own survival.
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Note to the MODS: I have moved again so my originating IP will be different. Was offered a Director of Engineering position at a Nuclear Medicine/Radiopharmacy clinic. Not sure if I have posted anything since I began my move from Texas.
Not to mention, where are they going to dispose of the old batteries? Landfills won’t take them. They are a fire danger if you pile them, so where do they go?
How much does it cost to charge a EV battery? How much would the system pay for peak discharge into the system?
If I make 2$ every time I recharge and sell back, and I kill my battery after (less than) 1000 recharges, I am not a logical thinker … having no car to drive is just one of many self-made unexpected tragedies in my life.
Yes, it ages the battery to cycle it and to do so when not needed is not smart. At the very least, the $2 gained by selling your charge back to the grid should go in a fund for the next battery, which will definitely be more then the $2000 gain from 1000 cycles. It’s a no win situation. AND, they could even makes regulations that you HAVE to keep your car charged so that they can drain it whenever they want.
In Australia, sinking solar energy is the big issue. The HPR battery usually charges when they get money to add load for stability reasons.
The HPR battery recovered most of its capital cost over a two week period in early 2020 when there was a fault on the SA-VIC link. In that case the battery provided stability services that was limited in SA by the lack of available inertia in the system.
Not sure I understand the logic of this so called recovery of cost.. Someone or group didnt do due diligence to ensure the link works and the battery was used to stabilize a system that shouldnt fail except through bad decisions made by ????; because they also have no inertia by design!!!! Sounds like they could have saved both costs by not being dumb in the first place. You cant say justify your economic decision by causing the problem in the first place.
Never been married?
The politicians don’t have a clue what they’re talking about and just base everything on so-called ‘scientific experts’. These ‘scientific experts’ don’t and never have lived in the real world and are increasingly driven by the politicisation of science. We’re already seeing this with covid where those “who know best” tell everyone else what they should be doing. The end result will be MUCH higher energy bills, blackouts and government control all justified by being “good for the planet”.
There is a glimmer of hope, however, in the fact that Joe Public isn’t as stupid as the politicians think. When they see what this is really going to cost and mean they will make their voices heard via the ballot box. UK politicians are driven by many things but the most important of all is keeping their jobs.
It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if all of the net-zero targets are reined in as Joe Public fights back — and I’m sure they will. Many people in the UK don’t believe the climate change propaganda they’re being fed, despite what the establishment might like to claim; and, like taxes, everyone thinks tackling climate change is a good thing until they have to pay for it.
As the massive costs of doing this are realised so people will start to look seriously at whether the crisis is real or not. Given that the problem is nothing like as big as being claimed by “the experts” there will be a backlash against it. Ultimately, truth will win.
Yes, truth will win. But it will take many deaths and much money to be tallied before the “people” realize they have been royally screwed.
Indeed, it took a very long time for truth to “win” in the USSR.
And – unlike then – there’s no voice of reason calling from “outside” to help shove the process along. The whole developed world is signed up to this lunacy.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” – Richard Feynman
Here in NZ, the recent climate change report that came out tries to tell us that a complete wrecking of our way of life in order to avert 0.00002’C/year of warming (their figure) won’t cost much at all. 3% of GDP I think it said.
James Shaw (climate change minister) also told us that it doesn’t matter how much it costs. His party is actually gaining support right now, according to polls.
I’m afraid the people here are going to have to learn the very hard way just what they’re doing to us.
I really hope I’m around long enough to see the backlash to all this if/when it eventually comes – it’ll be delicious to watch.
“Given that the problem is nothing like as big as being claimed by “the experts” “
Or even that there is a problem….
If the “nz” part of your handle represents “New Zealand”, they are not too far behind in this madness.
If there isn’t another disaster of some sort before the next election where old horse face can show her skills in communication we may just be saved as she will have to earn a proper living.
Britain currently has seven operating nuclear power plants. Four of them are due to close in the next three years. After that, regular power cuts will become inevitable. Because Britain’s margin of safety in power generation is already so small, there is a high chance of power cuts before then if there is a windless spell during cold winter weather.
Green plans to replace petrol cars with electric cars and gas boilers with heat pumps will simply be impossible to achieve without a gigantic increase in reliable power plants to feed the national electricity grid. However, no such plans exist.
across the many blogs I frequent, the number of times I’ve seen the rag Grauniad being quoted really makes my scat stink.
It’s a far left vassal of mistruths, lies and gaslighting. The MSM as a whole is not to be trusted, including purported “conservative (with a small c) sources like Fox, The Daily Telegraph etc…. Want to post meaningful factual reports? source the truth, go direct to the source, in this case the Govt Dept. It’s our information after all.
Reading between the lines – –
I once worked in a corporate environment where a new CEO hated engineers as they always told him what couldn’t be done (me included) so he fired all the old hands (me included) brought in a bunch of inexperienced yes men and got his own way.
It took two years to destroy the company.
Believing you can accomplish the impossible by political diktat has a long history of disasterous outcomes.
You worked for Sir Clive as well?
The Grauniad is not fit to be called a newspaper. It is not even fit to be used as a fish & chip wrapper.
I have even heard it said that it isn’t even useful for wiping your backside as there is already shit on both sides.
My deepest condolences, you are doomed.
https://youtu.be/XvuM3DjvYf0
Nice to know that I am not the only one who is a fan of Planet of the Apes (1967) with Charlton Heston. That ending is one of the famous ones from Hollywood movie history. Rod Serling’s hand in the script is clearly evident.
My condolences to the our British allies for the pending decline and fall of your electricity grid. I fear your economy may start going down with it. My other fear is that we in the U.S. may be following in your footsteps if Biden and his far left staffers around him get their way.
Here in the UK we’re somewhere between California and… I dunno, Texas? with this idiocy.
At least Texas is warm most of the time. Far too many Britons are already having to choose between food and heat as it is.
When power bills quintuple over the next ten years maybe the average Joe will start taking a serious interest in what “their” representatives are deciding on their behalf.
Here in the States there is already talk of a “Tax Credit” to give to low income residents (note I did not say citizens) to cover their increased utility costs…Marxism on parade.
Oh, we’re buggered… let’s watch prices shoot up and supply drop in proportion…
Be positive. At least it will solve the issue of illegal immigration. After all who in their right mind would risk their lives travelling from a LEDC to a LEDV
Yeah! Power to the weople!
I advise everybody in Britain to stock up on candles before the rush. You’re going to need them.
This is nuts!
With the banning of petrol generators, chainsaws (in wales) the next step will be compulsory smart meters, there already pushing smart meters by letter and TV campaigns , so no alternative power supply ,only the chosen few will have a reliable power supply ,this is complete madness.
It is madness and you will be wanting your own solar system just so you can have some power. How ironic.
I see your point, but not me personally,
I live in CT now. We lost power last year and a few years before for 8 days during the last 2 hurricanes. I lose power for 1-2 days a few times a year; 3-7 over the last 10 years. We lose power for a few hours most months due mostly to trees / branches falling. Winter snow storms do as much damage as thunderstorms.
My home is well / septic. No power, no water.
So without a generator, I would be lost.
I don’t know if the ban will extend to your country, I’m sure the countries that are thinking/ banning gens are getting thier orders from the same source,, I don’t think rural folk will give up their gens without a fight.
I’m on well/septic too, so I get it. Fortunately, I have a generator. But I’m seriously considering developing a spring I have into a backup water supply.
Wait until they come for your generator in the name of air quality
Its not madness, its the plan. The serfs were getting too comfortable.
I’m seeing a trend. That’s exactly what the medical system did for covid resulting in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary iatrogenic deaths. Results with this will be similar or worse.
So 10 billion pounds will be saved by employing 10 thousand more people. Are they going to pay them negative wages?
Progressive accounting (used by the US Congress also).
Savings occur when they settle for any amount less than their originally planned increase in spending.
Govt pays for a set contract – x amount of work and y number of jobs to do it. The lowest bidding contractor employs half the people and pockets the profit. Most of the work gets done most of the time until it fails catastrophically because there is no provision for emergency backups or preventative measures. Some things are too important to leave to the lowest bidding contractor with an eye for profit not public safety.
Privatization of the state responsibilities toward its citizens.
That is to say, the embryo of cathastrophe:
Like in the recent floods in Germany.
Usually it’s the other way around: the state is the catastrophe.
Just as the state IS the problem!
The idea that only government can run complex things is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Yes and no.
Railways in UK and France were excellent. Then, railway services were privatized in UK and it became a mess. SNCF (France) is still perfoming very well, but privatization is being discussed.
Please don’t put in my mouth words that I did not write: I talked about “state responsibilities“, not of state ownership nor of state running of companies. On the other hand, the idea that privates run better the matters that are responsibility of the state, e.g. freedom of press, has been thoroughly shaken during the last months by the owners of Facebook, Amazon, etc… The cartelization of the uniform thought and ideas has been achieved, uniting several companies that are competing with one another in the free market: there is no formal monopoly, but from the point of view of citizenry, it is as if there was a monopoly.
So the question, MarkW, does NOT boil down to the basic, shallow and naive (or ignorant) dichotomy “state or private”; it is much, much more complex that that.
I love the way socialists always harken back to some mythical age where government agencies always worked and nobody had to worry about how much they cost because there was always someone else to tax.
The only responsibility of the state is to protect you from enemies foreign and domestic.
Once you start believing that government has a responsibility to provide your day to day needs, where does it stop?
If government is responsible for electricity, why shouldn’t it be responsible for food as well?
If government is responsible for food, how about automobiles? If government alone is competent to run complex agencies, why not just turn everything over to the government?
There is nothing complex about it, unless you want things to be complex.
Here in the US, government has never provided electricity, and the system works quite well thank you.
Electricity distribution being a natural monopoly, some U S municipal governments do provide it, and on the whole it works pretty well. Cleveland, Seattle, Austin, Naperville, etc. Where private corporations provide electricity, they’re regulated by government agencies which may not be incorruptible.
There’s some misunderstanding here.
The UK ‘s electricity industry was privatised in 1990 and National Grid was formed as a company and in 1995 it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and shares were traded publicly.
It owns the high voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales and is responsible for 4,481 miles (7212km) of over head electricity transmission lines and 4740miles(7630km) of high pressure gas pipelines as well as 7.8GW of interconnectors in operation or under construction. It operates but does not own the electricity transmission lines in Scotland.
It also has over 9000 miles(14,659km) of overhead transmission lines, 35,682 miles (57,425km) of gas pipelines and a small amount of wind and solar power production in the US.
The worry is, as Paul points out in the article, that National Grid has raised concerns about Government policy with regard to net zero and the response is to replace it with a “future systems operator” more amenable to net zero.
This fear is summed up well by the comments from Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the energy and climate change minister, not quoted in the article above, who said the rules would allow households to
“take control of their energy use and save money” while helping to make sure there is clean electricity “when and where it is needed.Smart technologies will help us tackle climate change while making sure that the lights stay on and bills stay low.”
(how do these people manage to keep a straight face even as they lie through their teeth?)
If National Grid is a private company how can it be “replaced” on a whim of the government?
It is a regulated monopoly because of its ownership of the natural gas transmission network in the UK and is regulated by Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets). So it is involved in the provision of both gas and electricity
Ofgem says there could be a conflict of interest because “potential asset ownership conflicts could act as a barrier to the electricity and gas operations performing their net zero roles efficiently.”
Read between the lines: National Grid obviously has some doubts about net zero.
Actually I don’t think it’s true that National Grid have been warning the government. They are the ones who have devised the crazy Future Energy Scenarios (relied on by BEIS government department and the CCC led by the infamous Lord Deben) that are full of absurd assumptions in order to pretend that net zero can be achieved by 2050. They have been proclaiming that they will be able to operate the grid without any fossil fuels (at least when it’s windy, and ignoring any imports on interconnectors such as BritNed which has a coal fired station right next to the Dutch end at Maasvlakte, Rotterdam) by 2025.
They have understood that the grid infrastructure required to support attempts at net zero will grow like topsy, with all sorts of extra capacity to route power from distant wind and solar farms to where it is needed, and to handle lots of imports when the wind doesn’t blow because no-one built enough power stations that work. Connections to battery farms, reactive power compensation, synchronous condensers, etc. They want the freedom to invest and charge out the costs plus a handsome margin. So they are happy to divest control room functions (who wants the blame for blackouts anyway?). They bought one of the big regional electricity distribution networks that handle the lower tiers of voltage all the way down to household supply. They divested the gas operation entirely, expecting gas to be cancelled.
They are greens to their core.
Take a look through their Twitter to see
https://twitter.com/NationalGridESO
Idau,
Thanks for that. I must admit that I generally stay well clear of Twitter-Twatter
Actually, the local distribution grid comes close to being a natural monopoly, but there are ways around it. Getting the power from the plant to your local grid is not a natural monopoly. Anyway, the maintenance of the local grid is only a small fraction of your electric bill.
The generation of electricity is not a natural monopoly, though many governments have decided to treat it as one.
That was supposed to be in response to taxpayer.
“Once you start believing that government has a responsibility to provide your day to day needs, where does it stop?
If government is responsible for electricity, why shouldn’t it be responsible for food as well?
If government is responsible for food, how about automobiles?
If government alone is competent to run complex agencies, why not just turn everything over to the government?”
Didn’t you forget it’s all been tried in the UK before, and last year was called “furlough”, which was a new variant of the same 1960s policies which bankrupted Britain.
Once people get used to being paid for doing nothing they can’t kick the habit, which is of course why Britain no longer produces its own food (it relies on cheap foreign labour, imports) & house price increases to pay the middle classes for doing sweet FA.
It no longer makes cars in any quantity, it imports a lot of electricity and lots of it is run by the French anyhow, and can’t make its own NPPs.
The list grows longer, so being unable to run reliable electricity supplies is normal for a country in terminal decline for more than half a century.
Railways in the UK were excellent before privatisation? Really? That’s certainly not my recollection of British Rail in the 1970’s – dirty, clapped-out trains, usually late or cancelled, crappy customer service etc, etc.
Railways in the UK were excellent before BEECHING.
After that decapitation of lines which have had to be replaced by BUS ROUTES, the whole concept of a network of actual decent pricing and value added for the entire country collapsed in favour of bums on seats at the highest possible tarrifs the market could stand.
I still don’t understand how commuters working in the city of London actually put up with this crap, but that’s the British “stiff upper lip”, and the “put up or shut up” justice & government system that goes hand in hand with it.
You obviously aren’t old enough .to remember British Rail at its worst (1960s &70s). Privatization came as a blessed relief to those of us that were forced to use British Rail for travel.
Mr. Martins is obviously too young to remember British Rail.
“Railways in UK and France were excellent. Then, railway services were privatized in UK and it became a mess.”
The main failures of the current privatised rail system (which is still much better than the the Old British Rail) is due to the renationalisation of the railway infrastructure.
The public company Railtrack, having been forced into liquidation by John Prescot, had all its assets passed to the government owned Network Rail.
It is easy to blame the franchisees (rail operators) who run the trains for delays and cancellations, most of the serious problems are due to Network Rail, whose engineering failures are such that most of the franchisees cannot operate safely, efficiently and profitably.
Even so the existing system is still far less of a mess than was British Rail.
The government can’t even pass a sensible bill into law!
Agreed. The same thing has already happened in Australia. Appoint a New York Democrat as CEO as the Australian Energy Market Operator and have a state government policy body overhead, dominated by Green oriented Labor political appointees and you end up with a new focus endeavouring to deliver a ‘carbon neutral 2050’, regardless of cost and system efficacy.
The policy body avoids nuclear generated power, as the only proven technology capable of providing base load despatchable energy and reluctantly tilts towards gas in the interim, even though the Labor States don’t want to mine it.
Someone make a list of names of the people pushing this nonsense. Will be needed when the litigation starts. Make them personally liable.
There is a lot of difference between ‘independence’ and ‘in-dependence’.
Politicians and lawyers are the last people to trust, if ever, with ensuring consistent energy supplies at reasonable prices. If ofcom is involved in this then it seems that it it manifestly failing in its duty.
Experienced engineers are the people to trust and they MUST be listened to and their advice taken into account and implemented where possible.
Add to the above: Typo: second it = is. Also heaven help us as as all sensible people think.
OFGen…
Good thing I have a couple of Tilley Lamps in the garage……
Till your paraffin supply is banned.
Switch back to carbon neutral whale oil.
Fundamentally the power sector has gone from managing the grid to serve people’s needs to managing people to serve the grids need. That is the essence of a smart grid.
The other bit of management mentioned is electric vehicles and using the batteries as part of grid storage. EV’s often have batteries that have a capacity similar to the daily electrical consumption for an entire house. That’s how they get 300 km range even though daily use might be only 50 km. By tapping into car batters to create a buffer, the grid operator essentially pays nothing for battery storage of electricity. Meanwhile the poor EV owner’s battery is charged and discharged repeatedly shortening its life. The only redeeming quality from this plan is that its impact will fall most heavily on wealthy virtue signalers.
When they drain your batteries, do you get a credit for it?
I presume they do. You would expect the batteries would be topped off when generation is high and wholesale electric prices are low and drained when generation is low but wholesale prices are high. In other words, you ought to be able to make money. I suspect they would structure it so you might make a little to incentivize their electric car owners but who knows.
Sean,
The EV owners will very quickly learn to unplug their car after it’s charged.
The pittance they would earn would not offset the frequent loss of range that will inevitably happen since the grid will be unstable.
I drive a 2011 Sonata hybrid [not a plug in] and IIRC the Li battery is designed for over 10,000 of charge-discharge cycles, but not to zero or to 100%. So, I am am skeptical about the claims up-thread about very limited battery cycles or needing replacement in 3 years or so. Between 10-15 years? Yes.
That is another major drawback to wind & solar: spend 100’s of billions to install it and then have to replace everything every 15 years or so. Magical thinking!
“…wealthy virtue signalers.” Agreed. Yet the wealthy always seem to find ways to have someone else pay the bill. Guess who picks up the tab?
Up to a point. They ran a V2G trial where participants were paid 30p/kWh for power redelivered, so they were mostly able to see a cash return against the cost of charging. The trial wasn’t really long enough and probably not really intensive enough for the issue of battery degradation to show up, and indeed they tried to sell the experiment on the basis that the software would do a more sophisticated job of battery management to prolong life than the in car software (which seems a dubious proposition to me: just improve the in car software). But of course that cash return is simply dumped into electricity bills as part of the cost of operating the grid. Which is no different from paying a grid battery company to do much the same thing. So the cost falls on the average Joe however you slice it. There’s also a very large chunk of change for the fancy charger that Joe will end up paying for.
If you try asking battery people why V2G is superior to grid batteries, you tend to get blank stares.
Who is going to get rich off this scheme? Follow the money. Make a list.
Its the Lawyer Joke innit:
<in court> Lawyer ask expert (doctor/medical) witness:
“If someone deid in their sleep, is it true that they’d only realise when they awoke in the morning?”
Witness response:
I like the one:
Lawyer: “So how did you know the victim was dead?”
Witness: “His brain was in a jar on my bench.”
Lawyer: “But were you sure he wasn’t still alive?”
Witness: “I suppose he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.”
“This way madness lies” 🙁
The Soviet Union set impossible targets, then imprisoned and/or executed the engineers who failed to deliver them (the charge was ‘wrecking’). The UK is clearly going the same way. National Grid are way better off being out rather than in. What a disgrace, though, that a ‘Conservative’ government could go down this path.
Mike, I think “conservative” now means “a bit less crazy”
“Conservative” means ‘crazy but just slightly more electable than the others’.
“This has been on the cards for sometime”
Precisely why I will not entertain a Smart Meter. They will be used to cut off the power supply.
It’s no secret now that Carrie (Princess Nut-Nuts) has Boris’ balls in her bag, and consequently we’ve had it.
The local utility here is getting ready to install smart meters without asking for permission.
I would start immediately designing a device that will warn when my EV is being drained of its charge to support the grid. It would allow me to manually disconnect in order to prevent having a discharged auto in the morning. An even better solution would be to automatically disconnect the charging cable.
I would also design a device to keep track of what power was sent to the grid from my EV so I could subtract that from what I owe at the end of the month. I would refuse to pay for charging power and to then return it back to the grid for free so they could resell back to me or someone else.
I will put some petrol in my tank – and just go.
You would see a deduction off your bill for power resupplied to the grid. But probably you will give up a good chunk to a middleman when the grid is paying $9,000/MWh in a scramble to cover a shortage.