From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
We came perilously close to rolling blackouts yesterday, something which I have not seen reported in the media –(correct me, I may be wrong!!).
The ever alert Kathryn Porter has the full story here.
This is her conclusion:
The reference to the Viking I/C, by the way, is that it managed to provide 700 MW on a dipole, which was intended to be offline for maintenance.
Below is the Elexon chart for generation and I/C supply during yesterday:
https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type
Annoyingly, they don’t seem to have an option to show which fuel categories are which! But I have filtered out below everything except for Biomass, CCGT, Nuclear and Wind, in that order. (I/Cs at 5.30pm were supplying 6.3 GW, Pumped Storage 4.7 GW, OCGT 0.9 GW and Others 3.8 GW).
With Biomass and Nuclear running flat out, CCGT supplied 24.2 GW at that time. Wind ran at 2.6 GW. It needs to be pointed out that wind has often fallen to less than 1 GW in winter.
This particular near miss appears to have caught the NESO by surprise, because demand turned out to be 3 GW higher than anticipated three days before. And as Kathryn points out, alarm bells are already ringing for Friday evening, when winds are forecast to be even lighter than last night.
Why did we get into this awful mess?
It does not take a genius to work out why? We shut down more than 20 GW of reliable coal capacity, and thought we could replace it with medieval technology that only works when the wind blows!
“something which I have not seen reported “
It was -5C last night and now it has risen (well over twice 1.5C) to -1C and against this backdrop what is being reported this very day?
“2024 first year to pass 1.5C global warming limit”
Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as “climate breakdown”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7575x8yq5o
That is utter nonsense and they know it. They still have ~10 days left and then it’s all change.
NB The fireplace is proving invaluable – while it’s still legal!
It was -6C at 9AM where I live. Not the coldest it’s ever been but cold enough. Guterres is a cretin and should be ignored.
Which is the bigger one: him or Miliband?
We need a new scale or index for this…
I offer the Guterband. An index combining the two prime crazies
5 on the Guterband scale would be decisions considered a risk to life and stable society.
The ultimate end of the scale could be the Greta Guterband. there the decisions are not only crazy but blessed with complete scientific ignorance.
I like the name, but I’m not certain about the measurements you incorporate. Environmentalism only uses science as a convenient fig-leaf for political and social engineering ideologies. Must have a think on it.
Bang their heads together and they still wouldn’t have the brain capacity of a single amoeba
You would hear a hollow sound if you did that.
Just imagine, if we were all using heat pumps and BEVs.
Well, there wouldn’t be enough electricity so we wouldn’t all be using heat pumps, some of us would be keeping warm by shivering or sitting round bonfires in the street while our heat pump would at least be silent.
We’d use those green & red leather coloured benches in Westminster Palace, to fuel the bonfire. Guy Fawkes would be proud.
Here it was -9 C this morning. Heat pump’s been on ‘Emergency’, i.e., electric resistance heat, for most of the last week since it has rarely been above 4 C. Love the wood stove, but keeping it fired all night gets to be a pain. Guess I should have also installed an outside wood burner that you only have to charge a couple of times a day. They’re becoming very popular around here, but do require electricity to work properly :<)
Very interesting Joe, they’ve been telling us in the UK, they’re good at all temperatures. But, I’ve always considered, what happens if the temperature differential is small, or negative.
My heat pump is over 10 years old, but I guess you could say I still have a hybrid system when you include the wood stove. The new ‘cold climate’ air-source heat pumps are supposed to work more efficiently. There is a good write-up on them at the Consumer Reports website (https://www.consumerreports.org/heat-pumps/can-heat-pumps-actually-work-in-cold-climates-a4929629430/).
-23C here right now.
Currently 29F here in the south of England and the trees just ain’t moving! Some sun, though, but the low, thin, Wintery stuff; not much energy in that. My gas boiler is keeping me warm (unless, of course, the power goes off and the thing won’t light up). In that case it’ll be down to the kitchen and put the gas oven on low – I can light that without a power supply! I can also light the gas hob and cook, so all is not lost. Hey, I could bake some bread!
All week it has been cold. Currently 18F.
Heat pump is working overtime.
Had to supplement with an electric space heater.
I suppose electric space heaters are banned in England? I would not be surprised if that was true.
No, not banned – that’s why they came dangerously close to power-cuts yeaterday.
Thanks. No doubt it was more than space heaters.
No electric space heaters are not banned in the UK.
Unfortunately with electricity costing around 35pence ($0.42)/kWh they are not that popular…
It is 1754 here on Vancouver Island and the outside temperature is 6C, no wind, cloudy but no rain. Latitude 49d, 15m, 49.02s. The inside temperature is 24.5C thanks to electric baseboards and my wife, who is consistently and constantly cold and lets me know.
Friday funny.
“Corbynomics guru Richard Murphy has taken a break from his new campaign to “say yes to the power of the state” to provide his wisdom on the latest gilt market meltdown on BBC Radio 2 today:
“This is not a crisis. I actually think this is a Musk moment. I think that Musk at the weekend called for people to bring down the UK government and city traders tend to be quite keen on Musk and I suspect they’re having a little game, seeing how much trouble they can cause for Rachel Reeves.
https://order-order.com/2025/01/09/corbynomics-guru-richard-murphy-gilt-crisis-is-musks-fault/
Rachel from Accounts is currently on her way to Chynah to lick Xi’s @rse
The Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England planned this trip months ago.
As there is no crisis – except in the fevered imagination of the Daily Mail (who praised the Truss Budget with their brilliant economic minds) – this is a very sensible thing to carry on doing.
Now, the question of whether the UK will kowtow to China… That does seem a lot more likely because that the USA has turned against democracy. Musk calling for the UK’s democratically elected government to be overthrown and Trump looking to invade NATO allies in Denmark and Canada.
Yes, it looks like a bigly win for Xi as his agents in America trash their own country.
You’re dreaming.
Its not the Mail, its FT, Telegraph and well qualified and experienced commenters from the finance industry.
No, its not a crisis, yet. But there is a crisis well visible, and getting closer every week. They are currently paying a bit over 5%. What happens if it goes to 6-7%? You say it cannot happen. How sure are you? The combination of no growth, increased borrowing for current spend, buyer resistance…?
Labour is doing what it always does, borrow and spend on the contributing unions. But the difference is, this time the environment is much less favorable, and much more likely to punish it this time. At a guess March – April is when it may come home to roost. May, its not certain, and its not yet a crisis. But there is a good chance of it becoming one.
Also Musk, however much one dislikes him and his cars, did not call for overthrow. He named something which is a disgrace to Britain, and it released a logjam. No, Kemi Bandenoch is not QAnon. Nor is the Mayor of Manchester, Burnham. There is a reason why they agree on an inquiry. Just as there is a reason why Labour oppose it so vehemently.
Its not certain but there is some chance, and a growing one, of a Reform landslide at the next election, on the back of an energy crisis, a financial crisis, and inability to control immigration. The longer apologists for Labour keep denying there is any problem, the grater the disconnect between political class and country, and the more likely this is.
And by the way
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/10/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-reeves-china-bond-pound/
Here we have Barclays Chief Economist, senior named figures from Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, all saying basically the same thing. Here is a representative quote:
James Moberly, of the investment bank [GS], said in a note to investors: “We believe that a continued sell-off in gilt yields would raise pressure for the government to implement corrective fiscal action in March, rather than waiting for the Autumn Budget.”
The idea that serious concerns about the UK prospects, in particular rising gilt yields, rising mortgage and loan interest rates against a background of no growth – the idea that this is a Daily Mail fantasy is just ridiculous. Like the other claims on the other topic.
That is another Friday funny
Lol
USA has turned against democracy. In one sense that is true. We are returning to Constitutional Republic as we were established 200 years ago.
Yes, we are turning against one party authoritarian rule by the Democrat part, so in that sense we are likewise turning against “Democracy” as that party chooses to define it.
“Save Democracy” are code words.
You understand.
Could you please elaborate on your USA turning against democracy theory? I live in the USA and, watching the vote count very closely for obvious reasons, I seem to have missed that potential theory.
When we are governed by Executive Orders and our elected officials are ineffective and/or unwilling to govern then this isn’t a democracy and/or Constitutional Republic.
OK, I hear you, but we probably have a different definition of the word. The new guy who will be making the Executive Orders was elected democratically.
By that definition, certainly. The context implied the election of Trump was the cause.
Got a cite for this invasion theory?
I’m gonna take a guess at the Guardian. A Guardian-reading acquaintance of mine was also proposing that Putin was going to invade Portugal.
Trump has made jokes about Canada becoming a state. Nothing beyond that.
Radical Leftists can’t take a joke.
You are seeing what you want to see.
“the USA has turned against democracy.”
How silly.
You have an interesting if slightly twisted understanding of recent events.
How does calling for an investigation become calling for the government to be brought down?
Even if he did call for the government to be brought down, and I’m not saying he did, how do you know he isn’t calling for an electoral overthrow?
An indicator of when the grid is at the end of its supply options is when the open cycle gas turbines are fired up. This is the last line of defence against blackouts, a very expensive last resort.
We are currently at 11.30 am UK relying on them for 300MWs
That tells you things are very tight.
Solar is producing 3GW at present.
That will go by 4pm.
Also the Irish interconnect. We almost never get power from Ireland. The interconnect is there to supply Ireland. But right now it is providing the UK with 0.24GW.
Ireland interconnector is now up to 1.03 GW
They must be burning turf like there’s no tomorrow!
If you “hover” the mouse over the graph you get a “pop-up” showing the average numbers, in MW, for the corresponding (5-minute ?) time period, with the specific contributor directly under the mouse pointer bolded.
See attached screenshot, from which “CCGT = maroon” and “Wind = dark blue”, for example.
Note also that “Nuclear” is “dark green” …
There is a serious problem, can’t we ask Nick Stokes to explain why burning gas is not the answer, and tell us the correct answer?
That has to be worth a try.
I think I can speak on behalf of Nick and tell you that the reason is because after your fifth word you used a comma and it should be a period/full stop. Also the “c” in “can’t” should be capitalized.
Answer from NS came there none…
Wind and solar are free: nowt times nowt equals …
On Elexon’s website the graph for interconnectors (your “I/Cs”, what I abbreviate as “ICTs”) only show positive numbers, i.e. imported electricity flows.
The (yellow) “EXPORT” button underneath the graph is actually a “Download data” link, which I use extensively to import data into various (Excel-clone) spreadsheets.
Once pre-processed (sorted to oldest-first, extract “one line per Settlement Period” instead of “one line per item” …) the actual data also contains negative numbers for the “INT*” lines, for when the GB grid is exporting electricity over that specific interconnector.
NB (1) : For historical reasons I use the NESO (30-minute) data for the interconnector flows, which also include the “Embedded” — i.e. estimated from other measurements — wind and solar numbers. The NESO ICT numbers aren’t identical to the (30-minute) Elexon averages, but are close enough for my “back of the envelope” calculations.
NESO URL : https://www.neso.energy/data-portal/daily-demand-update
That file “only” has data for the last month or two. Click on the “Demand” rectangle / link then “Historic Demand Data” for annual files back to 2009.
NB (2) : The Elexon “Wind” data are actually “Metered Wind” averages. I use the formula :
My “Total wind” = Elexon’s “(metered) WIND” + NESO’s “(embedded) WIND”
.
My “vision” of this Tuesday and Wednesday for the GB grid is attached below.
Note that for the “evening peak” — 17:00 to 19:00, or 5 to 7 PM — on Tuesday (the 7th) there was 17-18 GW of “Total Wind” available.
For the “evening peak” on Wednesday, however, there was less than 4 GW of “Total Wind” being generated … and the ICTs were solicited for an extra 1 GW at that time …
I am going to guess you were writing about Great Britain. It would be useful to put the geographic information at the top of the posts.
Medieval technology.
Don Quixote.
Jilting at windmills.
Why Don would want to jilt a wind mill is beyond me.
shouldnt of married it in the first place – the major.
Wrap up warm…
Britain’s gas storage levels are worryingly low, with less than a week’s worth of gas in storage – Reuters
I’ve just dug out the camping-gas stoves…
That’s worryingly low, is it?
Presumably when we go Net Zero, Milliband will ensure a week’s worth of storage in batteries – ie at least 7 TWH.
How much does battery storage of 7 TWH cost, and has there ever been such a thing made?
From perlexity
The largest grid-level battery installations are continuously evolving, with new projects and expansions regularly increasing capacity. As of January 2025, the world’s largest grid battery storage systems include:Vistra Moss Landing Energy Storage FacilityLocated in Monterey County, California, this is currently the world’s largest lithium-ion battery energy storage system1
2
Edwards Sanborn
Gemini
Crimson
Desert Peak Energy Storage I
Waste of money and worse.
About $300,000 per MWh, so multiply that by 1,000,000, and you’re at a cool $300 billion per TWh, so essentially the entire annual GDP for 7 TWh.
Also, the best estimates of what we really need range from 25 TWh to 100 TWh, the reason being that October/November tends to low wind plus low solar, so you have to cover multiple weeks with no chance of recharging between them.
Finally, global battery production is currently 2.5 TWh per annum, so the whole thing is technically impossible anyway.
With all the blackouts impending in our net zero societies- time to invest money in companies making generators!
You lot across the pond are going to need to have a sit down with your
(cheap)“Free Fuel” provider and request more(cheap)Free Fuel be sent your wayUK wind power real-time, with constraints:
https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/#5/55/-3.2
Worldwide weather modelling:
https://www.ventusky.com/
I assume “we” means the UK? Not spelled out in the article.
Well everyone who wants the Net Zero farce to be called out turn on electric kettles and other power hungry gadgets at 6.00pm GMT.
Deep fryer, Air Fryer and the Microwave all together, still not enough. Quite happy to see one ASAP so the idiots running this are finally called out.
You know how that’s going to go though, right?
2024: “It’ll never happen, this is a first-world country.”
2025: “They were exceptional circumstances, and we’ve put measures in place.”
2026: “These are once in 100 year events, we were overdue for another one.”
2027: “This is the third time in a row, surely you people were prepared this time.”
2028: “We’ve always had blackouts, why are you only complaining now?”
2029: “Well, we can’t go back to gas now, it’s illegal and the ECHR won’t allow it.”
Wind isn’t fully reliable because the wind doesn’t blow sometimes.
We now see that gas too is unreliable, because of the fickleness of international markets and lunatics like Putin.
That’s one unreliable renewable source versus one unreliable fossil fuel source; albeit the reasons differ.
Only one area of unreliability is discussed in this article, as per usual.
Yes, Putin controls North Sea Gas, and the American fracking industry….
The fickleness of international markets and unscrupulous propheteers like Putin can me mitigated by simple fracking and increasing domestic supplies.
You simply could have stopped at…
Wind isn’t
fullyreliableSomething we’ve been stating for some time now
Just some North Sea gas licences being issued would be a start. Dropping the windfall tax would be the next step to increase investment in the area’s with a current licence that have been abandoned.
Wow, I’ve seen gymnastic performances before, but that one was positively Olympic.
Ya know …. it would be really helpful to provide some location. The only clue is that URL for “…co.uk”.
Very nice Paul. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid.
What do the colours on the graphs represent?
It’s only the white stuff you have to worry about with the dooming-
Warning over ‘concerningly low’ gas levels amid -20c ice blast fears
story tip
My energy supplier is Octopus, they had a “saving session” on Wed 8th from 5-6pm that is when they pay you to NOT use energy.
The first Saving Session of January is today between 5-6pm!
I haven’t seen this mentioned in any of the press reports but as they are a major supplier surely lots of people opted in (I did, not going to turn down free money) and so there would be a reduction in the domestic load at the peak hour.
Of course it is not really free money somewhere along the line the consumer is paying for these handouts.
Labelling windmills as medieval is being kind since I think they were around as far back as the 4th century.