From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Ed Miliband announced Labour’s new Energy Policy at the Party Conference last year. Its centrepiece is a commitment to totally decarbonise power generation by 2030, to be achieved by doubling onshore wind, trebling solar power and quadrupling offshore wind.
You may recall the computer modelling work done by John Brown a few weeks ago, which used 2022 generation data to assess how much wind power capacity we would need if electrolysis was employed to provide hydrogen to back up the grid.
John and I have used the same model to plug in Labour’s plans for wind and solar. Unsurprisingly, but frighteningly, it shows that Miliband’s numbers simply don’t stack up.
First, a few basic assumptions:
- Demand in 2030 is 20% higher than now, factoring in EVs and heat pumps. This figure will, of course, rise dramatically in the following years, but for now we are concentrating only on 2030.
- The model is based on BMRS data, which does not include embedded generation, such as small wind and solar farms. Instead these appear as lower demand as far as BMRS is concerned. The model results however are not affected.
- We have assumed that, on top of wind and solar, the UK has 10 GW of dispatchable capacity, such as nuclear, biomass and hydro.
- There is no electricity generated from hydrogen – there seems to be no way that bulk hydrogen infrastructure – electrolysers, steam reformers, distribution networks and a 50GW fleet of new hydrogen burning power stations – could be ready by 2030.
- Equally there is no Carbon Capture power generation available.
- There are no electricity imports. (See discussion below)
- There is no major expansion of battery storage to the scale needed.
A few basic numbers:
- Peak demand is 56.5 GW
- Average demand is 35.8 GW, adding up to 314 TWh
- Wind, Solar and Others generation are 204, 33 and 88 TWh respectively, giving a total of 325 TWh
You can probably see Labour’s thinking, that there is enough generation to meet demand!
But, as we know, the wind does not always blow, and the sun does not always shine. And this is where the model gets interesting, and not a little scary.
Using 2022 data, the model finds that the power deficit peaks at 41 GW, a 5-minute period when demand is 56 GW and generation 15 GW. It is of course possible to smooth the peaks to a small extent with the help of demand side response and battery storage.
But more critical is the fact that there was a 19-day period last December when there was a rising cumulative power deficit of about 7TWh, at an average of 15.7 GW. Although within this period there were short spells when generation exceeded demand, the net balance remained negative. Put simply, even with smoothing and storage there would not have been enough electricity to go round.
This spell unsurprisingly coincided with the cold snap that month. And as we know too well, we could be facing much colder weather, and over a much longer period than 19 days in years to come. Our model shows that we need at least 7 TWh of storage, but a proper safety reserve would need much more than that.
The model also finds that there would be a shortage of power for 48% of the year, and a surplus for 52%.
As well as the deficit side of the equation, we must not forget that over the year a surplus of 531 TWh builds up, peaking at 44 GW. Without hydrogen infrastructure, most of this will either have to be exported or thrown away.
The model does not allow for imports of electricity. Currently we have 7.4 GW of interconnector capacity, excluding the Irish ones – (If we are short of wind power, it is a pretty good bet Ireland will be as well!). According to DESNZ, this could grow to 17 GW by 2030.
According to our model though, the power deficit would be above 17 GW for more than a tenth of the year, so clearly we cannot simply rely on imports, which in any case would be incredibly risky and make a nonsense of claims of energy security.
For instance, during that 19 day spell in December, there was one 9-hour period when the power deficit averaged 22 GW. Other days were similarly bad.
And just as we will still be critically short of power even with interconnectors, they will not have enough capacity to get rid of all of the surplus electricity produced.
Demand will of course carry on increasing in the years after 2030, as more EVs and heat pumps appear on the scene. Power shortages will therefore become more frequent and larger, even if more wind farms are built.
For more on Net Zero and UK politics go to our ClimateTV section on the subject.
The underground fuels and energy market will be booming.
Today’s Labour policies are tomorrow’s u-turns
You cannot run a stable grid with so much asynchronous, i.e. uncontrollable generation, nor can it provide the inertia and reactive power required also, that is over and above the intermittency problem.
Even with todays load, the gas balancing generation is often around 15 gigawatts. Where is that going to come from if it is shut down?
UK energy policy is a complete mess. One is reluctant to use inflammatory language, but it seems to many to amount to a sort of war being conducted by the political class against its own citizens. In many cases actually against the Conservative government’s own voters!
Starting in 2026 new oil fired boilers may be banned. That includes replacing one that has worn out. “May” is the operative word. This is what the idiotically named Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said to the Telegraph:
We have consulted on new regulations to phase out boilers in homes and non-domestic buildings off the gas grid from 2026.
We will confirm our plans when we publish our response to the consultation in due course.
You could not get a much clearer indication of the contempt which the government seems to feel for the 2 million households off the gas grid. In mostly Conservative voting constituencies.
They have been thinking about this deadline for a few years, they consulted a couple of years ago, and still, now two years away from it, they are not willing to say one way or the other whether its going to happen. How is anyone supposed to plan?
Then there’s cars. An elderly friend asked me to go with him to his local car dealer the other day. He is thinking it would be smart for him to get a new ICE car while he still can. He asked about the 2030 ban on ICE cars. And about the proposed regulation that from next year 22% of a manufacturer’s cars sold must be EVs. The percentage rises as we approach 2030. Its called the ZEV Mandate, and it provides for fines if a manufacturer doesn’t meet the percentage.
Once again, we are now a year away from this. Is it going to be law or not? Who knows.
The manager said that they are selling lots of late model used cars, and could sell more if they could get them in. By people who want to have a reasonably long lived ICE car, and who are upgrading now with a view to driving the next one to the end of its life. My friend said yes, of course that was part of his motivation too.
We are going to see three things in rural Britain if this carries on. One is, people are going to do advance buying and replacement of oil boilers. Two is, people are going to do advance buying and replacement of ICE cars and vans. Three is, if Reform campaigns at all competently we will see a wave of Conservative MPs sent into retirement.
In the UK Green voters are naturally Conservatives. They are upper middle class for many generations and have (largely) never worked outside of academia or the non-frontline public services. Or they live off trust funds.
Workers, they are not.
For Labour to get in power it needs these votes to peel off from the Tories. This cannot be achieved by appealing to the rights of the workers to a fair wage or the needs
of the public for a strong public-sector infrastructure. Greens can always afford to buy private services whenever they, personally need them. And if they had any sense of public solidarity, they wouldn’t be disrupting everyone else’s interests.
But they do care about their holier-than-thou image. They want to look “nice” so as they have bragging rights at dinner parties, gymkhanas and round the pool at the villa.
Offering a hairshirt is good politics.
It’s bad policy, but if it can’t happen, it won’t happen.
That doesn’t matter to the Greens. They just elected a Tory in South Ruislip to get ULEZ blocked (anti-Green policy) in order to feel smug about their pure voting habits. They didn’t care about the environment. They don’t care about the environment.
This speech by Labour is a campaign video. It is not a commitment.
With the ongoing lunacy that travels under the name of energy policy, many of us in a position to do so will go off grid. There is no point being hooked up to something unreliable.
That is the upcoming reality we now face.
Who knows, we might get to the micro nuclear pellet driving a Sterling engine home gen set yet?
Surely Shirley it’s even worse – The Power Deficit will be bigger because of the small scale unmetered generators.
Because they are all ‘renewable’ generators.
So if the Big Renewables fall over, so do the unmetered small scales = making demand rise at the very time supply is falling.
I went to look for numbers but just got brain-ache.
Working the (Wiki) numbers backwards, I make it that there are (end of 2022) about 900,000 small domestic roof-top installations and they are typically rated at 3.25kW nameplate
(The website ‘solarenergyuk’ tells us there are 1.1Million home rooftop installations so what do you make of that)
And they’re all so childishly/breathlessly hyperactive about it all – there’s no real numbers out there.
In the UK, they (all solar in fact) can be counted on to produce 10% of their nameplate ##
And that total UK solar installation is presently 14.9GW nameplate.
Soooooo, if the metered part of that 14.9 vanished as in the model here, by how much would the demand rise via the un-metered part simultaneously disappearing and thus making the deficit larger by that amount?
Do you see Shirley’s problem now….
## Such the joys of The Cambridge Fen, with a week to go for my first complete annual calculation, my solar roof is running at 12.9%.
(Hence the enthusiasm for Big Solar Farms round here)
Great Britain is sooo behind California /sarc.
To put Miliband Minor in charge of anything is utter folly…
At least his brother jetted off to the USA, to help the poor. Helping them by being paid £1 million pa for his services.
Whaddabout Labour’s candidate for Nadine Dorries’ Bedfordshire seat?
“Labour by-election candidate revealed as Greenpeace activist days after Rishi Sunak stunt”
Labour’s candidate in Nadine Dorries’s Bedfordshire seat, where a by-election is expected to take place later this year, has been unmasked as a Greenpeace activist.
The news comes days after the group stormed Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire home for an environmental stunt, causing outrage and security concerns.
The Government has cut off all contact with the green lobbyists since the protest.
Alistair Strathern, 33, is revealed to have posed as a zombie as part of an eco-stunt by the group outside the Home Office last November.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1799787/Labour-byelection-Greenpeace-Rishi-Sunak
A zombie for a MP seems about right.
The government recently produced a National Risks Register in which it assessed the likelihood and effect of all manner of events. In the ‘catastrophic’ row was Failure of the National Electricity Transmission System, assigned with a remote chance of happening. The government and opposition parties are working hard to make this chance less remote.
As has been said many times by British and Northern Irish folk our democracy has broken down completely on the issues that have confronted the UK apart from the leaving of the EU and even that departure isn’t pretty when it comes to observing the quality of the workmanship.
COVID-19 was a massive fail and has almost destroyed the NHS from within. Johnson was never for one moment in control but where oh where was the opposition? Starmer was even worse than Johnson on almost everything.
And as for energy security and policy we haven’t had a sensible Government attitude to it since Maggie reneged on her nuclear promises post 1980. That means Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron,Clegg, May, Johnson, X.and Y all failed. Y was miraculously closest to getting some grip on energy sources but she lasted no time at all.
.
And so two out of the three women did at least pay attention to the UK’s energy needs and it is perhaps Thatcher that let us down most.by going for cheap gas and leaving her nuclear commitment behind gathering dust..
As for the guys – Sunak has a chance to at least suggest his IQ may be better than Starmer’s and all the others in that list.
Just goes to show how very urgent all this emissions stuff must have been before the Great Green Subsidy for Solar & Wind attracted so many opportunists and their bank balances since the late 1990s..
And as for weather today’s temperature may get to the mid twenties C for the first time in several weeks in my neck of the woods.
I’m afraid we’re going to need some spectacular, unignorable failures before the public really opens its eyes to the shortcomings of green energy and Net Zero.
Labour do not have any credible plans – they do however have Milliband, which is a worry