From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Britain is importing record amounts of electricity from abroad at a cost of £250m a month following the closure of coal-fired and nuclear power stations, new analysis shows.
Some 20pc of the grid’s power needs were met through interconnectors with neighbouring countries during the second quarter of this year, according to energy company Drax.
The amount of power imported from abroad was double the volume generated by wind and solar farms, at about 12.2 terawatt hours. It was also about four times the amount of power exported.
Drax said the gross cost of importing power currently amounted to more than £250m per month – equivalent to about £3bn if sustained over a year.
The company said the rising use of interconnectors followed the closure of many of Britain’s ageing coal and nuclear power stations.
Coal generation is on track to end completely as part of efforts to reach net zero carbon emissions, while no new nuclear power plants have come online since Sizewell B in 1995.
The analysis for Drax was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London as part of the company’s quarterly electricity insights report.
Iain Staffell, an electricity systems expert at Imperial College London, said: “Much of Britain’s conventional power generators like coal and nuclear stations have retired in recent years.
“Fewer dispatchable generators means less competition and higher prices, making cheaper electricity from the Continent much more attractive to import.
“The Government must be mindful of the need to retain sufficient dispatchable generation capacity on our system for both energy security and affordability reasons as it works towards its ambition of having a clean power grid by 2030.
“Britain is always going to need weather-proof sources of power to keep the lights on.”
However, Mr Staffell added that interconnectors could also help to boost British energy security if domestic power generation was sufficiently maintained.
If Labour succeeds in reaching its targets to make the national power grid net zero by 2030, for example, he said there would be so much generation available that much of it would be available for export, bringing money into the UK.
He said: “Being able to either store this power at home through more storage capacity or selling it abroad is an attractive proposition.
“During periods of high winds in the North Sea but calmer weather on the Continent, exporting power could be potentially lucrative for the UK and help to lower bills for consumers here.”
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I don’t know what planet Mr Staffell is on! When it is windy in the North Sea, it is almost certain to be windy over Northern Europe, where our exports will go. We would end up exporting at ultra low prices;
and it won’t be the windfarms making a loss, it will be us.
It is actually astonishing that imports are double wind and solar power, even despite the tens of billions in subsidies thrown at renewables. It is also very scary that we are now so reliant on power from Europe, over which we have no control.
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Oh how we laughed when the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was branded, and the MSM ridiculed us for doing so. Let’s see them publish some facts for a change such as these and see who’s laughing then.
Don’t you know who will be laughing? One name that immediately springs to mind is Two Kitchens Miliband…
“”…was filmed by the BBC with his wife Justine in an austere-looking kitchen in their London home.
It then emerged they have a second, bigger kitchen in the home, leading to claims he used the other to portray a more humble family life.
But the Labour leader insisted the smaller kitchen is the one they use.””
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31875297
Yes indeed all those political meetings held at chez Miliband are hosted in a small austere kitchen…. How very Islington. (The lies that is).
They do this all the time.
Private Jet Plane owner (and all of a sudden climate expert ) John Kerry claimed that he does not own a private Jet – because his wife owns it.
John Kerry is also homeless (the hobo amongst politicians , because his wife owns the Mansion.
Sea level rise and all of a sudden climate expert Obama bought 2 Sea level front beach properties for 20mio dollars (and installed 5000 gallon GAS tanks in Marthas Vineyard instead of windmills and panels).
Now, now – the Kerry Family P.J. was sold off after the Hypocrisy hit the fan!
Leasing Jets is much more Green,
Learn sumpin’ everyday! ; >)
This is a shocking report. If the numbers are correct and for the moment we have to go with DRAX own analysis, then the renewables value to society if far worse than we imagined.
Take the core finding.
The cost of importing electricity via interconnectors is annualised at £3billion
The current tax payer grants given to renewables is around £8 billion/yr. This may be an under estimate, if anyone has a better number please advise.
What this translates to is this.
If we take the £1billion granted to DRAX themselves for burning North American Forests annually, that leaves a rough cost of £7billion granted from taxation to the Wind and Solar electricity generators annually.
That is more than twice the cost of interconnectors and from the DRAX report Wind and Solar only provides half what the interconnectors supply us.
In other words the cost of Wind and Solar is at least four times the cost of interconnected power supply which is predominantly from French nuclear power.
I wonder if our new Net Zero Minister Ed, is able to see the reality here?
THEY AREN’T BURNING FORESTS – grow up! Using the language of propagandists isn’t smart.
DRAX was recently fined £25million by the monitoring authority because it failed to declare the nature and origination of its wood pellet consumption.
I apologise if the term burning forests is some form of trigger to you. It is a description of DRAX own activity.
Pronounced… Drags
Can anyone explain the viability of biomass for electric generation? Billions of ash trees are being destroyed in North America by the emerald ash borer (‘this is what climate change looks like’) yet no one seems to be harvesting this fuel resource.
Ontario biofuel generation today: 0.1%
The emerald ash borer is an invasive insect from eastern Asia. It probably arrived North America in some wood.
This pest has now been found in western USA and is expected to wipe out ash trees there as it has done in the upper midwest USA–millions of trees killed. Nothing to stop it. Only a matter of time and it is already spreading in the west.
Once the ash trees are infected, they are quarantined. Can not move the wood. Climate change has nothing to do with this calamity. The ash trees typically grow in wetlands where other trees will not grow.
Climate change taught the emerald ash borer to kill ash trees?
Was it tuition free education or did they get their student loans forgiven.
/s
Since Drax didn’t declare the origin of their wood pellets you are simply regurgitating what you have heard from unreliable sources. Show us your research demonstrating which forests are being burned.
That’s right! They’re burning pelletized wood made from timber operations in Georgia (US). And as such, are putting cash in my pocket, as I own stock in several of the processing companies that sell to Drax. So if my British friends want to keep importing wood pellets from the United States, and ship them across the Atlantic, feel free, folks! Maybe I ought to buy some stock in shipping firms…
typical “I’m allright jack”
In contrast to – metaphorically – cutting your own throat by insisting on Net Zero Grid by 2030, like we in the UK are being obliged to do – by a Government that got less then two votes for every nine eligible and registered electors, just a few weeks ago.
Auto
Joseph,
You may find this investigative report from the BBC of all organisations informative.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63089348
Don’t know why JZs comment was down voted, he is absolutely correct. They are burning chips from trash wood that would be burned or abandoned in most cases.
How about used as mulch? Or composted into a soil amender?
All of the 6.5 million tonnes of wood pellets burned by Drax each year are produced overseas. Many come from Drax’s 17 pellet plants in the US and Canada.
That’saround 13 million cubic metres of softwood or 9.5 of hardwood. Say a 50/50 mix of hard and soft woods, that waste is 5% of the total and 80% of Drax supply is from the USA then 180 million cubic metres of wood produced the waste for Drax’s pellets.
Does the USA produce that much waste timber per year to send that amount to the UK. As the UK won’t take all of the waste, even if it took 25% that’s 700 million cubic metres of wood felled and used elsewhere.
I’d like to know the true numbers
Because people here associate biomass with wind and solar, which is a mistake. And, because the Brits hate Drax and for good reasons such as the availability of coal nearby – so people keep saying that American forests are being destroyed to provide those chips- which of course is false- they read news stories about woody biomass written by climate nut jobs and believe it. The climate nut jobs hate not only woody biomass- they hate all forestry. Forestry folks LOVE fossil fuels- they couldn’t get by without them- all their machines uses diesel. The climate nuts say burning wood is worse than coal which is crazy. For the several years I’ve been active here, I always defend woody biomass and get slammed for it. Maybe they think forestry folks are a bunch of LGBT Marxists. 🙂 Also, there is a good case against other biofuels such as corn to be added to gasoline which is crazy.
None of this should surprise any person capable of critical thinking. The problem is that too many are incapable of critical thinking or are directed by emotions instead of thinking.
Like 80% of all Bostonians.
no one except the money people think that Drax and wood pellets is GREEN.
The greens did once.
The money is green.
Wrong, they put “biomass” in the renewable/green” category
It is renewable- and it’s green in the sense that- though CO2 is emitted, the forests recapture the same amount- since the forests in America are increasing the total amount of CO2 stored- though, most forestry people don’t worry about carbon at all because they are NOTHING like the wind-solar whack jobs. Woody biomass needs to be distinguished from bio-fuels- like corn going into gasoline. But- and apparently few people here understand this- talk to any wind-solar nut job and they’ll tell you they hate woody biomass “because it’s worse than coal”. So, maybe Drax says it’s green because that’s their propaganda- since they’re not allowed to burn coal- they want to justify what they’re doing- but should they put up a million acres of wind turbines and solar panels instead? What he f*uck is wrong with growing trees- putting most of the wood into high value products, with the left overs going into energy production? People who like nice wood in their homes and furniture have to realize that forests don’t just grow nice trees- the woods are full of poor quality trees. Having a market for them helps us produce better trees. It’s just thinning- like in your garden. The idea that entire forests are being destroyed to produce chips is the worse form of bullshit. People here don’t believe bullshit from wind and solar lovers but they believe this bullshit against woody biomass.
What people here don’t understand is that the wind and solar whack jobs UTTERLY hate woody biomass as fuel. I keep saying it because I’ve been fighting those whack jobs here in Wokeachusetts for years. It is green in the sense that it IS renewable. And, though CO2 is emitted, the forestry work captures it back.
Miliband is a socialist and socialists can’t count. So no, the penny will never drop with Mr Ed.
“if domestic power generation was sufficiently maintained.”
UK has PLENTY of GAS and COAL if it chooses to access them.
Wind and solar are totally UNSUSTAINABLE
“” if it chooses to access them.””
Last time I checked Parliament was totally gung ho for net zero – regardless of the consequences.
That just got worse with this skewed election.
A result which is typical of FPTP. Something all major parties campaigned for in the 2011 binding referendum and which got 68% support for maintaining FPTP.
Sorry but skewed elections are what the electorate wants
The referendum on the voting system was deliberately rigged.
Only the one (worst) alternative was given as a choice.
You didn’t realise that Ben? Really?
Maybe that’s your introduction to the wiles of the Parliamentary dictatorship?
How was it rigged? The two main parties campaigned against it because they like the 10-15 years of total power it gives them.
The fact that two thirds of the population agreed is down to the fact that they were either happy with that situation, there has NEVER been a majority of the electorate in favour of a government in the UK since WW2. Even Bojo’s landslide was on a minority of about 43% of the votes cast.
If that’s your idea of a democratic system then don’t complain about the result if you reject a alternative which is only worse according to politicians.
The AV/IRV system is used in Ireland and Australia for some elections. But STV is more common globally. Possibly UK voters can’t cope with anything more complex that putting a single cross against a list of names and can’t be arsed to vote more than once in an election. You get the government you deserve.
Only one alternative was offered
Wake up
You think that Cameron would have allowed more than one or that the electorate would have made a positive decision for what you regard as the best? A two vote process change to PV then choose which system are you serious in a country that has spent 64 years arguing about the Common Market and EU are you serious??
I may be asleep but you are naive.
If you hate FPTP then any port in a storm.
This government has a plan, contrary to what many think, and the plan is [green] austerity on steroids. It begins with a clamp down on free speech and punitive financial measures against old age pensioners.
Thus far Parliament (they’re all cut from the same cloth) has ruled out the plentiful shale beneath our feet – and probably always will. For his part, the mad monk has been doing a lot of ‘considering’:
Ed Miliband says he never considered quitting over axed £28bn green pledge
Ed Miliband is considering blocking a handful of outstanding applications made as part of an oil and gas licensing round that opened in late 2022. Labour had pledged
Ed Miliband considers scrapping planned nuclear plant
Ed Miliband ‘considers scrapping wind power target’
Etc
The simple truth is we import a lot of juice to make ourselves appear greener than we are whilst clearly we are anything but energy self-sufficient. We could be…
Labour pledged cheaper greener electricity by 2030 during the election campaign. It could well be one of their biggest [and most obvious] lies yet. They haven’t the faintest idea of how to go about it – completely ignoring the fact that it cannot be done.
“”As you know, Government has established a new ‘Mission Control’, with responsibility for
accelerating delivery of a clean GB power system by 2030.
This letter provides a formal commission to the ESO, in advance of becoming the
National Energy System Operator (NESO), to provide practical advice on achieving
clean power by 2030 for Great Britain.
This advice should consist of a range of pathways that enable a decarbonised power
system for Great Britain by 2030 and an enduring contribution to economy-wide
decarbonisation beyond 2030. Across the pathways, please provide the following….”
SoS and Chris Stark letter to ESO
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66cda5c1e39a8536eac0532e/sos-chris-stark-letter-clean-power-2030.pdf
The way things are going I can see imports going up and up and up.
Mad as hell, Tooting.
“The price of energy is to rise very soon” is being advised to the population. Why is this, as “green” supply
is supposedwill to cost less, Millibrain said yesterday. How can no one see that one of these is a lie, and it is the Government who control the market (via a Quango, but we all know about those). Come on Reform, call them out!Once in a while the truth sneaks through…
“Under my plan, electricity prices will NECESSARILY SKYROCKET.” – Barack Obama
And road tunnels built in the late 19th century can come in handy, too… like the Blackwall tunnel
[Transport for London (TfL)] is proposing that car journeys at peak times – weekdays between 6am and 10am northbound or between 4pm and 7pm southbound – will cost £4.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/tfl-blackwall-silvertown-tunnels-charge-b2577241.html
£4?
“”Drivers could be charged £5.25 to use Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels, Sadiq Khan suggests””
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-10-18/drivers-could-be-charged-525-to-use-blackwall-and-silvertown-tunnels
For TfL read Sadiq Khan….
“”If you’re unlucky enough to be using the tunnels in peak times on a roundtrip, cars and small vans will be charged £8, motorbikes will be charged £5, large vans £13 and HGVs £20. “
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/the-new-toll-price-for-the-blackwall-tunnel-and-silvertown-tunnel-has-been-revealed-071024
Welcome to the war against the car.
So, back as far as 2008, Government knew a Green New Deal would have devastating economical impact.
This huge dependence on the interconnectors is covering up the loss of coal, gas and nuclear generation either already implemented or planned for the near future in the UK. When a blocking high appears over Northern Europe then any country left with excess generation will be able to name its price as the bidders try to out bid each other but it can only be bought and used once. Any losing bidders will be forced to blackout a part of their country and the one using the interconnectors most will suffer the worst.
“”This huge dependence on the interconnectors is…”” Utterly bonkers
“”Britain paid the highest price on record for electricity in London last week as the capital narrowly avoided a power blackout.
The National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) was forced to pay £9,724.54 per megawatt hour to Belgium, more than 5,000% the typical price “”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11047167/UK-forced-electricity-Belgium-heatwave-stop-blackout-paid-5-000-MORE.html
They learn the square root of naff all in power.
There is no ‘dependence on interconnectors’.
Interconnectirs simply provide cheaper electricity.
“”Interconnectirs simply provide cheaper electricity.””
Except… when they clearly do not:
The National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) was forced to pay £9,724.54 per megawatt hour to Belgium, more than 5,000% the typical price “”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11047167/UK-forced-electricity-Belgium-heatwave-stop-blackout-paid-5-000-MORE.html
What planet are you on?
Nope. Interconnectors simply provide connections to foreign electricity but that does not guarantee lower prices, nor does it guarantee on demand access.
Unfortunately they provide a means for the nut zero crowd to go ever deeper into wind and solar, until even the alternative producers cannot meet their basic needs, at any cost.
Yes. Interconnectors magicly produce supply. Good grief man.
It appears that the UK and Europe are sprinting towards a return to horse drawn transport, whale oil lamps, and heating by burning lumps of coal in the fireplace.
We are already pretty much at zero draught horses. There is a growing movement to ban the “exploitation” of all horses for any purpose. It seems they can’t give consent, not even compelled consent. Keeping horses is tantamount to rape in the mind of some. (Pretty sick moral equivalence if you ask me, but no one ever does.)
And while there is not yet a ban on fireplaces and woodstoves in the UK, there is an increasingly vociferous camplaign that compares the scent of woodsmoke to second-hand tobacco smoke (another fight we didn’t take seriously enough when we had the chance). It is only a matter of time.
Which leaves whale oil lamps. So as not to unpick your satire completely I’ll let that one go!
Save the Whales?
Auto
Sure, save the whales for later. 😉
Can’t kill whales, not even for their oil.
Is Drax an energy company or a subsidy farmer?
Well the history is that Drax was sold off out of the British Energy company when the nukes were sold to EDF.
At that time it burnt coal and agricultural waste.
Then the EU dictated that coal was to be essentially taxed out of existence.
Drax had no way to leverage its coal plant except by burning woodchip.
They tried to add a gas plant but I think planning permission was refused after the Greens sued them
Well, let’s see: If importing $3 billion worth of electricity into the UK in a year amounts to more electricity than is produced by the UK’s windmills and solar, and it costs $8 billion to subsidize the windmills and solar per year, then the UK can stop subsidizing windmills and solar, import the energy they would have produced, and still save about $2 billion per year.
Net Zero is insane and undoable. The problem is UK politicians have not figured this out yet, and continue down the “Road to Ruin” in their efforts to implement Net Zero.
This is not going to end well.
A couple of years from now, they will ask: How did you know this? Answer: It’s obvious, and was obvious back then. Anyone with half a brain can see this trainwreck coming. Which doesn’t say much for UK politicians.
Anyone with half a functioning, not brainwashed, brain….
£3 billion a year? Pffft! Four years and you could have bought an aircraft carrier, another couple of years and you could buy its air wing. Color me unimpressed.
If one has no money, £1 is a fortune.
£250/month. I’m sure that they pay the going rate. Free electricity today for 1 hr – it’s windy!
Millibands eco communist views are designed to destroy Britain. How else can you can explain why none of his ideas stand up to proper scientific scrutiny.
A common misconception is that the UK imports because it has to.
No. It imports because French nuclear and Norwegian hydro are cheaper than our gas. Especially when that gas is pushed off baseload generation by renewables
As NW Europe will tend to have similar weather conditions over large areas, impacting solar and wind production, my assumption is that international electricity markets for the GB grid will by their nature be “buy high, sell low” in nature.
Even so, the net cost of “4X GWh of imports + X GWh of exports” is likely to “only” be on the order of [ 0.75 x £250m per month ~= ] £185-190m per month.
.
“Rod Evans” wrote below :
WIth apologies to the WUWT IT team for (again ?) using their servers to store some of my (relatively large) image files, a comparison with my processed “Elexon + ESO” 30-minute datasets can be performed.
Drax’s “Latest report – Q2 2024” report can be downloaded by clicking on the “Download PDF” button at the top of their home page : https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/
The ATL article appears to be based on the Figure that appears on page 3 of that report, a screenshot of which is attached below.
NB : I can only attach one image file from my local hard disk per WUWT post, hence my splitting my “comment” into several posts.
The important point is their split of “inter-connector (ICT) flows” into separate “Imports” and “Exports” lines.
For Q2 2024, for example, (20% Imports – 5% Exports) = 15% Net ICT flows …
That image has a “thin / narrow portrait” aspect ratio of (roughly) 1:2.
My computer screen results in the image files of my spreadsheet graphs having a “thin landscape” aspect ratio of roughly 3:1.
The attached file is just a “resized” version of the screenshot from the Drax report for easier visual comparisons.
As it happens I calculated the (monthly and) quarterly numbers from my (large) “daily sums” spreadsheet for (August and) Q2 2024 last week.
The “Percentage of Demand” graphic from Q1 2020 is attached at the end of this post.
i am obviously biased, but I think my “ICT sum” numbers are a better representation of the GB electricity grid’s components that teasing out the set of (positive) “ICT Imports” accumulators.
.
Copy of Drax “squeezed” image :
Results from my spreadsheet :
Security! About as secure as going skydiving without a parachute.
About as secure as mail in ballots.
What ever happened to the requirement for chain of custody?
Well chains, can be used in a custodial sentence.
Mr Staffell appears to believe that electricity can be generated out of nothing. He and we are in for a rude awakening. The buffers at the horizon beacon.
Reminiscent of the USA shutting down oil exploration and buying foreign oil.
And when it’s not windy, the lights and heating go off. Winter’s going to be fun
Look to China for your net-zero future and the industrial devolution-
China’s Too Hot, No Power! 750,000 EV Owners Suffer, Queuing 10 Hours, Can’t Charge (youtube.com)
story tip
This was hard to read, I can’t believe someone is actually this stupid. We are not in a climate crisis, CO2 is not the control knob for our climate, we are not going to reach a tipping point and suffer irreversible global warming. Therefore net zero is nothing more than bad government gaining more power and control over us. Fire up all retired fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid and update the grid. It will save you a lot of money and life will be better for all of us.
And they couldn’t see this coming??? Yes, they really are that stupid.
What is particularly nutty is that the UK has spent over 250 million GBP so far this year, to throw away electricity. And a significant chunk was specifically in the month where they had to import 250 million GBP of electricity.
This is an excellent example of the difference between dumbfuck technology and real world, beneficial technology.