by Will Jones
Households paid the equivalent of £2 million an hour to gas power stations today after low winds and freezing temperatures left electricity grid bosses scrambling to keep the lights on. The Telegraph has more.
As freezing weather swept into the South East, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) warned that it expected power supplies to become particularly tight between 4pm and 7pm.
The crunch forced grid operators to pay huge sums to gas power plant owners to keep them running. The cost will ultimately be borne by households and businesses through their bills.
At one stage, they agreed to pay the Rye House power station, in Hertfordshire, the equivalent of £1.8 million per hour, transparency data show.
Three gas-fired units in Connah’s Quay, North Wales, were also paid a combined £2 million per hour.
Neso declined to comment on the payments.
It comes as cold weather is expected to spark increased electricity consumption as more people stay indoors, watch television and use their gas or electric heating.
At the same time, a sharp drop in wind power and low availability of power interconnectors with Europe is also putting more pressure on the grid.
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile, Net Zero Watch reports that renewables subsidies hit new highs in 2024. The previous record of £2.3 billion in payments under the Contracts for Difference scheme was set in 2020. 2024’s total has surpassed that and is likely to hit £2.4 billion when all the data are in.
When the cost of energy becomes unaffordable the economy dies.
The signals are not good. They are reflected in the cost of borrowing with government 10yr bonds now at 4.8%. That is higher than they reached during the Truss crisis (4.45%). The £sterling is also falling. The international mood for Starmer’s policies and the ongoing Net Zero fixation here in the UK is clear for all to see. The cold spell of weather will last a few more days, the chill of political incompetence will be with us for much longer, sadly.
Starmer will likely enjoy a shift in focus from the grooming issue. The previous government maintained the insanity. Only Farage has a clean slate on sensible power policy.
Seems like if Pakistanis were in charge of the grid, they could figure out how to alleviate the situation using child labor.
Would that count as part of the grooming process?
The country is being mismanaged at all levels Socialist dogma from the 50s is here again. Force public ownership of industry on us and maximize government interference. Labour’s plunge into bankruptcy has come in record time; this time around.
When the cost of energy becomes unaffordable PEOPLE die.
It won’t be long before the UK suffers from regular rolling blackouts. Just like third world countries. Well done all those Greens, Socialists, CONservatives and Lib Dems with their stupid climate change and Net Zero policies.
“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality”
Ayn Rand
You certain that UK is not a third world economy now. There has been a lot of debate about the timing of Argentina’s lapse into third world status.
From what I have been reading about the “grooming” crisis, you may already have a third world legal system. One in which protected groups are protected from prosecution.
How much are we paying for the 10% of our electricity coming through the interconnectors?
Last year we imported an average12% of our electricity from the EU (our ex-best friends), guess what will happen when they drop below -5C.
At 36.39p/kWh the UK has the highest domestic electricity prices in the IEA, some 80% above the median of 20.22p/kWh.
UK prices are 2.8 times those of the US and 3.5 times prices in Korea.
The article below explains the situation very well:
https://iea.org.uk/were-number-one-in-unaffordable-electricity/#:~:text=At%2036.39p%2FkWh%20the,median%20at%2020.57p%2FkWh.
I don’t know where you got that price from. I pay 25p/kWh. The price has been in the mid thirties at the height of the crisis.
Don’t forget to add the daily fixed charge to your 25pkWh usage cost. If you are using say 8kWh/day that puts another 7.5p/kWh on the bill.
You’re right. That’s the marginal price. The standing charge is high, especially for someone who heats and cooks with gas, and whose electricity consumption is therefore low.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – UK Government
Last updated on the 28th November 2024.
If you pay less that’s great, I’m just quoting their own published figures which does of course include tax.
Yes. The standing charge is high.
The new phenomenon is the anchor dragging.
Cables are vulnerable, they aren’t exactly secure.
One good thing: It’s not that hard to identify the anchor dragger.
That doesn’t help the cable or its users much, though.
Nor are wind farms, or the country they feed as they serious disrupt defence system radar signals.
Family sent a photo today from Nottinghamshire of a very heavy frost (looked like snow) under a clear blue cloudless sky.
All those schemes to clean up the atmosphere are working – nothing to stop the heat loss at night.
Also watched the latest Dakar Rally stage in Saudi Arabia with the competitors commenting on the very cold nights in the desert.
Deserts have always been cold at night for the very reason you identify earlier in your post….. clear skies 😉
As for the cold, frosty weather currently affecting the UK, that’s all about to change beyond the weekend, as the default s’westerlies kick back in, at least for the north. We will then see temperatures back to normal or above for the time of year. The rare negative NAO over the past week or more is forecast to collapse, with reinforced and powerful Azores high pressure dominating the weather for the foreseeable future. Don’t be surprised if this is the only prolonged spell of wintriness we see until spring.
“Don’t be surprised if this is the only prolonged….”
Well we all hope your optimism is correct. Unfortunately weather has a habit of being unpredictable…
“Deserts have always been cold at night for the very reason you identify earlier in your post….. clear skies”
And very low humidity.
H2O affects temperature in the atmosphere?
Outrageous!
/sarc
Which is evidence enough in itself to show that CO2, the ‘well mixed’ gas that is said to be the driver of ‘global warming’ does NOTHING to retain heat. Don’t tell RG, he’ll claim you’re a tinfoil hat wearing nut job.
From a practical standpoint there is little difference between little effect and no effect. From a scientific standpoint, there is a huge difference.
To quote someone or other, you have to make your own choice as to whether you want to be honest, or be effective.
Small nit. The definition of heat is the flow of thermal energy over a temperature gradient. One cannot retain a flow, so one cannot retain heat. Much as one cannot trap heat.
Are you sure about that? I always thought that heat was the sum of the kinetic energies of the atoms constituting a body. What you have described sounds much more like power.
and low water vapor.
Cliche it may be, but it’s the economy stupid. And the signs are not good.
“All is not well over in the accounts department, on the other side of the water cooler. Embattled Chancellor Rachel Reeves has lined up a huge trip to China this weekend coming as the latest episode in Labour’s odd (read: suspicious) series of pro-China moves.
…
But more pressing problems are being felt at home. UK government bonds absolutely tanked yesterday, with 30 year yields the highest since 1998 and 10 year the highest since 2008. The pound is at its weakest for 13 months. Can Reeves really abandon ship with the City beginning to panic…
https://order-order.com/2025/01/09/reeves-under-pressure-to-cancel-china-vanity-trip-as-bond-crisis-deepens/
Things are going from bad to worse for Reeves as the grim economic outlook forces her to consider even deeper cuts to public service spending. Her fiscal ‘headroom’ has plummeted from a fragile £9.9 billion to a pitiful £1 billion, according to Sky News, as market reactions to Reeves’ Budget measures has left the economy faltering and borrowing costs soaring to 25-year highs. She only has herself to blame…
https://order-order.com/2025/01/08/reeves-budget-in-fresh-turmoil-as-fiscal-headroom-plummets/
I haven’t mentioned energy yet as I’m still getting over the eye watering cost of the Chagos islands deal – should Mauritius decide to take it. And Starmer is desperate to get it accepted before…. you guessed it; 20th January.
So, for some things money is clearly no object and for others more closer to home, they matter not.
Ah, our Rachel. Educated in economics, with a degree in economics from the London School of Economics no less. Indeed, you might get the impression that she actually knows something about economics.
Let her go to China, with a one-way ticket. She can take Starmer with her (he’s always happy to be out of the country, and could take the opportunity to stop off in Bangladesh to meet up with old pals).
Her correct title is:
Rachel from Accounts
Guido has quite an entertaining archive on her ’embellishments’.
Ed Milliband will ensure we do not pay 2 million an hour for gas…
He is going to shut down the gas. Simple!
He can’t shut its use down. He can stop domestic production and then buy it in from abroad.
That is what he has planned, anyway.
How does Milliband plan to get to Net Zero by burning gas?
I’m not his spokesperson, but…
Unabated gas will continue to play a back-up role throughout…
Clean Power 2030 Action Plan
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-power-2030-action-plan/242aa00e-a82e-4f29-a785-9d7d690a1230
It isn’t hard to find…
By keeping a full fleet of gas turbines and only using them to provide an average 5% but run for 100% when the wind dies. Sadly the fleet of gas turbines is aging and year by year they stop producing all together. Ask someone to build a replacement that only run intermittently but has to be on call all the time and that is some price you have to pay.
Unicorn farts are not all they seem LOL
That plan is reviewed and criticised in a recent posting and thread by Watt-Logic
‘Unreasonable plans for the CCGT Fleet’
https://watt-logic.com/2024/12/19/unrealistic-plans-for-ccgt-fleet/
One problem not commonly addressed is the aging increases by turning it from low to high to low. Not an optimal plan for longevity.
I think Milliband has overlooked one thing in his plans for Net Zero, and increasing wind and solar power. The chances of January occurring every year are very high. It’s always the little details that are often overlooked….
Milliband is too dense to figure that out.
GB has had a terrible run of PMs, comparable to our last POTUS.
And yet, Octopus are giving me free electricity 4-6 pm today because they are producing so many “lovely green electrons”! Go figure.
Maybe one of you guys can explain this.
Today, like yesterday, UK demand is up at 45GW, just into the amber band of the meter.
Just three miles away from me is a wind farm providing 9x2MW. Considering the cold, and demand, why are 6 of the 9, not turning?
Only a few days ago, they were bragging that last year, ruinables achieved their greatest output.
So what’s going on?
Some of them work some of the time.
There’s enough wind to power them all. I’ve noticed this trend often over the last seven years they’ve been up there. For a great many times, there has typically only been 7 of the 9 actually turning. That’s why I call it the ‘Borg farm’.
Like I said, some of them work some of the time. You could argue the people who have to fix them have green jobs.
They’re not broken.
Then, they are quite useless.
If their link to the grid is tight on capacity then they can make as much as they like but not all of it can be exported, they get paid a constraint payment to recompense for the power the grid cannot take. Scotland has the most turbines and gets the most constraint payments as the biggest usage is down south and the grid does not have the capacity for what is produced, Scotland does not use enough to compensate and its gets worse as industry leaves.
It is a disaster waiting to happen.
Forest and Land Scotland, an Agency of the Scots Government, has 24 windfarms on its managed land with 3 more in construction even though the demand is mainly down in England.
Thus you have the irony of a £4.3bn HVDC transmission cable being built between Peterhead in Scotland and Drax in Yorkshire whilst the latter sits atop a coalfield.
Interesting. So, let me guess! The idea is to keep those wind turbines turning with biomass (wood pellets) electricity from Drax?
The cable is bi-directional and can transport electricity either way depending on where it is needed
That makes sense. For a long time, I’ve suspected they’re on some form of ‘fiddle factor’.
I do not have any information, so I merely speculate.
Is it the cold?
Is it they were turned off because earlier they were producing “too much” and the greenies were not able to get them started again?
Are the blade incumbered by frost?
Or is just blatant stupidity or negligence?
That’s the problem, you’d think, that with demand being near critical, they’d all be turning, and gas would be throttled. Instead, they’ve ramped up the gas. I think kommando828 and you, probably have the answer. Whatever, we still pay…
Please explain what “9x2MW” means. Is it nine 2MW turbines or something more arcane?
Considering I said there were nine turbines, I’ll leave it to you to guess.
Were the windmills that were turning the windward ones? Windward turbines steal energy from the leeward ones. If the wind speed was marginal, there may only have been enough available energy to get only the most windward ones turning.
In this instance Mark, the answer is no. Good thought, but they’re well spaced out, and as usual the wind was coming from the prevailing direction.
Candle market will be solid. Flashlights possibly doing well also.
I have a good supply of both 🙂
Where will they get the batteries?
Wind generators get paid for switching off during periods of high winds, why are they? After all, car manufacturers don’t get paid when they can’t sell cars due to overproduction. (EVs?)
Maybe the wind generators should pay the spot prices for electricity to make up their shortfall during a dunkelflaute.
(
Paul Homewood links to this account – narrowly averted blackouts:
https://watt-logic.com/2025/01/09/blackouts-near-miss-in-tighest-day-in-gb-electricity-market-since-2011/
Blackouts are coming. As is a financial market crisis as government bonds continue to crater. And as is a social crisis as the rape gang scandal isn’t addressed, and out of control immigration continues.
And the beatings will continue until moral improves.
And the insanity will continue until sufficient damage is inflicted.
When the wind doesn’t blow and the Sun isn’t shining…
“German utility Uniper and a subsidiary of the Swiss commodities trading giant Vitol offered to fire up their gas plants during the evening hours in exchange for “super-high” payouts of more than 50 times the market price earlier this week, according to experts.
Under the system to balance Britain’s grid when electricity supply is short, Neso encourages energy companies to bid prices at which they would be prepared to power up their plants.
The Rye House gas plant in Hertfordshire, owned by VPI Power, a Vitol subsidiary, will generate electricity for a price of £5,000 per megawatt hour (MWh), which should earn its owner £6.15m over three hours”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/two-power-station-owners-to-get-more-than-12m-for-three-hours-of-electricity
Lol Lol Labour. You have to laugh, right?
Fanatics do crazy things.
Free market supply and demand economics at play.
How have we allowed the views the views of the vested interest doom mongerers to supersede the truth about energy and climate change. There are plenty of highly qualified people who know the truth and write about it on the internet.To them I say STAND UP AND BE COUNTED. The people are being destroyed by the lies of the elites. You can stop this happening.
Lawfare is expensive and defending oneself is not always successful.
Speak up and be silenced or litigated will turn people to silence.
This is the summary from the link Homewood provided: Its going to happen, its just a matter of when.
On 8 January the GB power market came within a whisker of blackouts. NESO used almost every last MW available with just 580 MW of cushion – only two thirds of the contingency that should be held, and no-where near the single largest infeed loss which is supposed to be protected. And securing that minimal spare margin cost more than £21 million. This should be a real wake-up call about the dangers of relying on weather-based generation, but because NESO tells everyone things are fine even market participants may not realise just how close we came to demand control or blackouts.
NESO has a duty of transparency, so it is disappointing that it relies on people taking the time to dig into the market data to understand the situation, rather than being explicit about it, although I do understand there will be a post mortem in the Operational Transparency Forum call next week. To join the call, register on the link – it takes place at 11am every Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what is said and whether NESO owns up to the near miss on 8 January.
And now we face the same again on 10 January which is also forecast to be tight…
So even a mild cold spell puts the UK grid at risk now.
Windmills and solar cannot power a modern society. UK politicians should give up on this particular Net Zero plan.
If they insist on Net Zero, they can have it by promoting nuclear power plants. Put the same amount of effort into promoting nuclear power plants as you have in promoting windmills and solar.
That’s the solution that will give you Net Zero and keep your economy viable.
Windmills and solar have obviously failed. Wake up and smell the coffee. There is a viable solution to your Net Zero “problem”, you just have to take a different path.
Continuing to promote windmills and solar will bankrupt the UK.
The problem is nuclear has been stigmatized and the public is irrationally scared of it.
Question? Are the Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil out in the cold protesting today?
Every journey begins with a first step.
Hopefully this is a journey to sanity.
Hopefully not too many people suffer.
For ‘suffer’, read ‘die’.
Every Brit should ask WHY there are electrical energy shortages today?
The graph shows the variation of electricity power demand due to variable weather. It is higher in winter than in summer because it is colder in winter than summer. No surprise.
However, global warming predicted that British children would never see snow after 2000.
Some prediction.
British electrical energy demand declined by about 10% between 2010 and 2025. However, in 2010, meeting electrical energy demand was not a problem, even though winter increased energy demand by 10-15% – a severe winter by double that. That was normal. It is still normal.
With dispatchable energy, such demand variations were readily met.
Now British PMs are baffled by the continued existence of winter and do not plan to supply extra energy for heating in winter. Now, meeting a harsh winter’s demand is a severe problem.
Why?
The answer is abundantly clear to everyone, except to the British Parliament.
Next, Brits should plan for energy shortages in SUMMER when the wind is calm.
The only solution is MANY fewer Brits, according to the WEF.
That’s very bold
No need to emphasize it. 🙂
When freezing february comes along your wish to have fewer British may come true.
Cold kills.
With the slight change in season alignement/temp peaks with us for some years, January very often is not the coldest month.
Late frosts are becoming far more common, and nobody yet knows if a sudden Strato warming event may arrive next month.
SNOW in the alps is currently massive.
Of course we could have had a 1983-84 winter to contend with, but that would kill a lot of people, Normandie down at -20 to -30C for 6 weeks.
or
as an example the Mont St Odile air crash survivors…. (20 january 1992).
Coming up 33 years later now.
I remember driving that freezing night across the region.
An extra 6-9 survivors died of cold at down to -20C, while chaos reigned, just 9 survived.
87 died.
SNOW in the alps is currently massive
How can that be? The Guardian confidently predicted the end of Winter sports in the Alps a few years back due Global Warming!
Britain has a ‘capacity market’, which pays the exorbitant fees to occasionally use gas turbines. Germany is similar. Formerly, there were coal fired power stations, but those were all exploded into smithereens. Britain also has about 10% ’embedded’ wind power. It is just there, not controlled, in a land loving control.
One feature of electricity is that it is used in real time, and the grid must be balanced second to second. Britain is committed to ‘green electrons’ first and foremost, so wind has grid priority. This produces bald men who have torn out their hair, trying to balance the grid while wind is fluctuating as shown in the plot, and 10% of that is unregulated. The quality of power suffers and the electric appliances are at risk in every country, not just Britain, as the quality of the electrical power declines.
None of these issues were serious problems BEFORE intermittent renewable energy.
I just can’t believe so many highly educated people continue to so many stupid things. This is stupid.
There are many examples of today’s education departments’ curricula that actually teach students absolutely stupid things.
This, according to the Telegraph, is just how close the country came. Note the last sentence of this. It is going to happen. As Paul Homewood points out, power generation from wind fell below 3GW. So Miliband manages to get wind up to 90GW from the present 30GW. That means you have 9GW of wind and demand will be in the high forties Or higher thanks to all those heat pumps and EVs. Hopeless. Does anyone in government really believe this stuff?
On Wednesday evening we came unsettlingly close to rolling power cuts. It may yet happen, on the next cold night of the year. Perhaps tonight.
How did this happen? Simply put, all the many experts who run our electricity and energy industries, all those who say they know how to safely transition to net zero, all those who tell us they can be confident of the global temperature decades out, failed to predict electricity demand on Wednesday evening.
The National Energy Operator’s Winter Outlook told us in October that peak demand this winter would be 44.4 gigawatts (GW). On Sunday they were predicting peak demand for Wednesday of 43.3 GW. Yet in real life it was 46.8 GW – 2.4 GW more than that maximum.
As so often when it is a cold night, there was almost no wind and hence no wind power (and self-evidently no solar power) on Wednesday evening.
Scrabbling around desperately, paying 50 times the normal rate to some suppliers, the Government just managed to cover the gap. Even so, they would have failed if the Viking interconnector to Denmark had not been able to turn back on capacity, which was offline for maintenance – but we still got less than we expected through the interconnectors.
So if one power station had tripped off, had failed under pressure, we would have seen power cuts. At 8.30pm on Wednesday night two power stations did just that. Fortunately the early evening peak had passed. It was the narrowest of possible margins.
Can Brits hope that gummint block against fracing will be removed? Natural gas is good fuel, easy to transport, easy to burn.