From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Citizen K
Yet another margin alert:
How can “extreme temperatures” reduce the “availability of some generation”?
Extreme heat or?
Yet Another Electricity Margin Alert
- Sunday, July 26, 2026
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Citizen K
Yet another margin alert:
How can “extreme temperatures” reduce the “availability of some generation”?
Extreme heat or?
The local airport KMWC in North Western Milwaukee County has been showing calm weather day and night for the last two weeks or so. As far as I know, that’s unusual.
Anyone who thinks that is a good idea to replace compact power generators that work at large scale and consistently 24/7/365 and at ~90% productivity with technologies that are dilute, unreliable, widely distributed and working intermittently at a combined measured productivity ~18% or less, (actually down to ~15% across Europe in 2025) must be in error or malign.
The low productivity of Weather-Dependent “Renewables” means that their installations have to be about 5-6 times larger just to contribute the same amount power to the Grid. At whatever scale they are installed, they are still unreliable. If the installation costs of “Renewables” were equivalent, (they are in fact much higher when fully accounted including subsidies, Grid connections and other accounting fixes), their power costs more than conventional gas, coal and even nuclear technologies.
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-costs-of-weather-dependent-renewables-against-conventional-power-generation/
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/a-few-graphs-say-it-all-for-renewables/
“How can “extreme temperatures” reduce the “availability of some generation”?”
In the June heat wave, three French nuclear ractors closed down completely, and others ran on reduced power. Similar in July.
think – inland water cooling makes discharged water hot.
Local environmental laws forbid hot water discharge above certain temperature. So, limited water supply or too hot water discharge above man-made rules.
PS KISS – the wind minimum was unstated, a lie by omission
Nuclear didn’t “Shut Down” from the heat. They were “Shut Down” due to regulations regarding cooling on Hot Days and the potential to warm the cooling rivers to A point beyond regulated maximums. If they were cooled differently, hot days would have no bearing on Nuclear Generation.
Whatever you think of the reasons, the power is unavailable, and that affects UK.
Duh, of course. Turning off the power generation always makes power unavailable. It’s a choice made by regulators, not system design.
Solar “turns off” every night for 12+/- hours depending on season.
Wind “turns off” whenever there is no wind or too much wind. !
It’s also not all nuclear plants.
Pretty much true for any plant using a steam cycle – which would include geothermal. Not an issue for for simple cycle gas (combustion) turbine plants and less of an issue for combined cycle plants.
GA had proposed an HTGR design with a “gas” turbine using Helium as the working fluid allowing operation with a dry cooling tower.
That would be true for any steam cycle plant that dumps it’s waste heat into small bodies of water. Dumping into larger bodies is less of a problem as the outside air temperature goes up.
It’s not a question of “whatever you think”, Nick, it’s a question of what the legislation requires.
The fact is the nuclear plants were shut down by the regulators, not that they failed.
To be fair, he didn’t say that they “failed”.
True, however, that was the implication.
No, just that, if reactors aren’t producing, for whatever reason, that means less power available to UK. It just does.
If its dark, cloudy (not unusual in the UK) and there is no wind…
… that means there is far less power available to UK.. It just does.
And no matter how much regulators wish it, they can’t make wind turbines generate power when there is no wind.
Similarly dependency upon Solar means Panels “aren’t producing” at the time of Peak Demand, that means less power available to the UK…It just does…every day
Yawnnn…. Zzzzz even a cave child can figure this out why post it at all seeking downvotes or what?
Not that the Nuclear Generation ran out of fuel either which Wind does regularly and Solar does nightly.
Same goes for Wind if the breeze is below 9mph or above 50-55mph (goldilocks zone) Wind “Shuts Off”.
Also Solar ” Shuts Off” daily at 4 pm in summer and won’t “Turn on” until after 8am the following morning.
This is the inconstant problem with weather dependent generation.
The fuel may be free but nature decides If and When you receive fuel.
If nature refuses to comply “the power is unavailable”.
ALL the fuel is free. No one gets a bill from Mother Earth for gas, oil, uranium, or what ever, either. The cost comes from the processing required to get the energy into the hands of the consumers where and when they need it, in a form they can use immediately.
“When they need it” is the key. FF can guarantee generation when it’s needed. Wind and Solar can’t guarantee availability any time of day.
… and as for solar panels, heat can reduce output efficiency by 10-25%.
According to some who post here, it’s not possible for warmer air to result in warmer water, so obviously this regulation was never necessary. /sarc
Even as /sarc/ that makes no sense.
The heat for warmer water is coming from the water pumped through the system to keep the generator cooled below a critical threshold. The outflow is heated water. Perhaps it should be pumped through a radiator to cool it prior to discharging
Historically, the National Energy System Operator (NESO)—formerly National Grid ESO—has never issued an Electricity Margin Notice (EMN) during the summer.
There have now been three this year.
Using attribution analysis, what are the chances of 3 EMNs being issued in one summer , without the installation of increased renewable sources?
And if we have EMNs in summer, what will we do when demand is 15GW higher in winter?
EMNs were issued on June 24, 26 and July 8. Each during heat waves when nuclear reactors in France were closing, or expected to. Summer EMNs are rare, but so are nuke closures.
Nick totally dodged the question. What are the chances of 3 EMNs being issued in one summer , without the installation of increased renewable sources?
June 24 was pretty much the solstice when there are more hours of sunlight than on any other day. Nuclear power might not work when conditions are bad, but solar power didn’t work when conditions are cherry-picked to flatter them.
There only rare because in prior years, electric production was more reliable.
During the worst of the late June heat, French nuclear output was cut by roughly 4 gigawatts (about 7% of total national capacity).
Wind power dropped in Britain by about 80% from normal.
3 in one year isn’t exactly rare.
Especially considering the fact this year is the first time they have been issued.
What has changed in recent years.
The biggest change has been the removal of reliable fossil fuel and nuclear plants and their replacement by unreliable wind and solar.
BTW Nick, these nuclear plants have been their for decades. There have been heat waves before, so presumably these plants were forced to shut down or curtail production in years prior.
Yet these curtailments have never caused a problem like this before.
Since when are French nuclear plant responsible for backing up the UK’s idiotic wind and solar farce.
The problem is ALL down to the UK.
Why not tell the whole story Nick?
France has 58 operating nuclear power plants. France doing fine.
https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/generation/nuclear
https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/generation/wind
[Onshore wind: average capacity factor for May-2026: 12.6%]
[Offshore wind: average capacity factor for May-2026: 24.5%]
https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/generation/solar
[Solar: average capacity factor in 2026-May: 19.3%]
Regarding climate activist pretending to be scientists, one may paraphrase Churchill:
“Never in the course of human history, has so much harm been done by so few, to so many.”
Don’t do anything..! Just stand there…and distract..!
???
If the “extreme heat” is caused by a blocking high pressure system, that weather event causes wind to still over larger areas making wind generation impossible.
Then there’s the negative effect of higher temperatures on the productivity of Solar Generation.
That means we need to install even more wind turbines! (100 + N) X 0 still = 0 ).
Now now, that’s obviously White Supremacist Math. Not new DEI math where (100+N) X 0 = 150.
For what values of N?
N-finite.
It is around 0,3% per degree of Celsius. You can definitely see it and feel it, but it is not critical in the heat. My rooftop with 24kWh batteries was working fine during record Europe heat, we went from 40,3C in 2007 to 42,2C now and my solar system had no problem to run my 2 AC’s and keep my house at ideal 25C.
Panels were maybe 70C, so 45C above nominal, so 13,5% below nominal power production.
Roughly 6500W in my system instead of nominal 7500W.
Still plenty to run household, AC, hot tub, pool pump, many hours garden pump for watering.
The UK grid has to contend with a lot of solar PV now too. As well as doing near nothing 3 or 4 months of the year, at the moment as the sun rises and sets it is rapidly going from nothing to about 40% of demand back to nothing, that all has to be balanced.
I could understand with wind power, although there isn’t a perfect correlation between temperatures and average wind speeds. In recent weeks we’ve had quite a few “red flag” days with high heat and a lot of wind (granted, this is the western US, which is semiarid).
There is an Omega block over Europe at present. It is expected to last another week.
Wind power varies as the cube of wind speed, so wind power will plummet.
I wonder how many Net Zero advocates know what the word ‘cube’ even means, when they say that the wind is always blowing somewhere.
A cube.. That’s what they put 3 of in the soy-decaf latte. !
Or my gin and tonic on a scorcher day…like yesterday here.
How can “extreme temperatures” reduce the “availability of some generation”?
Solar panels lose output as temperatures rise
SO we can’t have air conditioning in Britain because of the effect on the reliability of the grid, which is totally stable even though we are getting unprecedented EMNs in summer?
Which is it, Miliband?
Oh good God no we’ve been down the wrong road with wireless phone charging on top od the the dunkelflauting-
Watch what happens when you charge your phone wirelessly | Watch
We’re doomed unless we can have big thick copper cables without the losses-
Bail refused for man accused of damaging EV charging stations across the Central Coast and Newcastle
You can easily get bail after killing someone. But damage an EV station and it’s lock ’em up and throw away the key, time.
He should get a reward, not an arrest.
They say that “there is no risk to consumer electricity supplies” so why did Octopus offer to pay their customers to NOT use electricity? This is the email I received from them on 9th July afternoon:
Good news! There’s a Saving Session later today.
When temperatures soar, energy demand spikes in Europe as everyone tries to stay cool. We have an opportunity to support the grid and pass savings onto you.
And don’t worry, it’s totally fine to keep your fans on! Just try shifting heavy-lifting appliances outside of the session, like the oven, dishwasher and tumble dryer.
8 – 9pm Thursday 9th July (today!)
Do you accept your challenge to use less power?
During the hour, you’ll get 137 Octopoints for every unit of electricity you save compared to normal. This will be added to your account within 14 days.