Note that Fatih Birol completely reversed the "net zero" recommendations of the IEA on 10th March! 6 weeks ago! And seems not to have been fired yet! Please make sure Ed Miliband is informed ASAP!
The whole of the Iberian peninsular appears to have lost power and indications its because of an EHV failure in France. We live in Tarn, SW France, there is no problem so far with our supply.
But if everyone in western Europe depends to a greater or lesser extent on French nukes this sort of thing can be expected.
No official admission of the cause as yet, but aside from an unlikely cyberattack, there is this:
Desde el pasado mes de enero, tal y como adelantó elEconomista.es, Red Eléctrica afronta un problema en el control de tensión de sus líneas. La creciente integración de energías renovables y la caída de demanda provocan unas elevadas oscilaciones en los niveles de tensión que podrían llegar a estar detrás de la causa de este apagón.
Since January, Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has been facing problems with voltage control on its transmission lines. The growing production and integration of renewable energy and falling demand on the grid (due to domestic solar) have caused excessive voltage oscillations which could have caused the blackout.
With not enough stable inertia on the grid and too much solar and lots of inverters injecting harmonics with insufficient filtration and lots of reactive power flows that heat transmission lines while flowing in the opposite direction (caused by phase differences between voltage and current cycles) the grid can become unstable. The article I linked mentions powerline disconnections to resolve local problems, but they can easily cascade across the grid.
I think the recent decision to row back on nuclear and coal closures just got a big boost.
Its apparently 'a fire' on one of the French/Spanish interconnectors. How it started is anyone's guess at the moment, but there has been a lot of electrical storms in SW France.
El operador portugués REN dice que el corte energético en Portugal es el resultado de un corte en la red española por un "fenómeno atmosférico inusual". Se debe a "variaciones de temperatura extremas en el interior de España". Esto ha provocado oscilaciones anómalas en las líneas de alta tensión, un fenómeno conocido como "vibración atmosférica inducida". Se calcula que costará recuperar el suministro una semana. (Reuters)
"Oscillation induced by the atmosphere". A Carrington event???
I looked at the latest incarnation of the REPD database, dated January 2025, and compared it against July 2024 which we looked at previously. Over the six months we have seen:
An increase in operational generation of 1,035MW, comprising 513MW Onshore wind (primarily Viking), 139MW of batteries and 345MW of solar;
Under construction there is 7,742MW of offshore wind (primarily Dogger Bank and Sofia), 1,429MW of onshore wind, 4,846MW of batteries (which won't generate anything themselves), 2,374MW of solar, 450MW of Energy from Waste incinerators, 240MW of tidal stream and some oddments;
Awaiting construction is allegedly 15,243MW of offshore wind, 6,336MW of onshore wind, 16,404MW of solar, 32,364MW of batteries, 3,090MW of pumped storage, 1,083MW of Energy from Waste, and a further 115MW of Tidal Stream. This clearly includes some projects that are not going ahead, such as Norfolk Boreas.
Neart na Gaoithe has only just made full capacity albeit 4-5 years behind when it should have been constructed but still allowed AR1 ASP at a mere £162.82 MW/hr in 24 prices. Dogger Bank A&B (2.4GW) is behind schedule but will be on line this year with Sofia (1.2GW) not far behind will be following on line by 2026. East Anglia 3 (1.4GW) has just started offshore construction so will be late 2026 before online. Inch Cape maybe the next one in 2027/28 the rest its not clear if FID has taken place on them or not so unlikely to be realised this side of 2030. AR7 offshore wind sites will be beyond 2030 surely.
I thought it worthwhile to share a note I got from a “climate crazy” this am…
I had said…
About Germany…Its sad is what it is ……and the UK is not far behind..... Look there was a very good reason why sailing ships were replaced with steam ships and so on and why the idea of drying cloths on a line by the sun was moved inside with an electric spin and warm dryer,.. not a single real engineer in sight when they dreamt up this wet dream of renewable power….. All the politicos that made this move should be shot and pissed on.
He said..
Your perspective that Wind and Solar is not effective as a future energy source fundamentally misunderstands the drivers and benefits of the transition to renewable energy:
• Combat climate change
• Achieve energy independence
• long term cost reduction
No politico deserves to be shot and pissed on in investing into a better future.
I said…
Is this comment some kind of joke?
Its very clear that wind and solar are intermittent way beyond any viable energy solution and will increase the cost of energy and lower prosperity.
Also, contrary to some short-sighted beliefs it will force western countries to become even more dependent of offshore resources…. not less.
Its still unclear that we can make any impact on decarbonization using this technology once all the hidden sources of carbon use are calculated.
And this also assumes decarbonization is necessary any way.
Hence, we appear to not have enough bullets or piss to put down all this stupidity!!!
Working out the cost of the system and the cost of extending it probably keeps some underemployed quantitative analysts off the streets but the real need is to explain to the voters that the wind and solar experiment was never going to work and it should never have got started
Trillions of dollars have been invested worldwide to get more expensive and less reliable power with massive damage to forests and farmlands, not to mention tragic human rights abuses.
Recognition of wind droughts, wind lulls, or Dunkelflautes, could have averted this policy blunder, maybe the worst ever.
Independent Australian investigators documented the impact of wind droughts on the electricity supply over a decade ago but nobody in officialdom took any notice, at home or abroad.
Prudent farmers are alert to the threat of rain droughts, how come the wind farmers never checked the reliability of the wind supply to become aware of wind droughts?
Wind droughts become an existential threat to thousands or tens of thousands of people when the wind drought trap closes on a windless night during extreme weather conditions coinciding with outages of conventional power.
Just been reading Paul Homewood's blog where he calculates 25% of bills are now renewable subsidies. This is without the grid and distribution network £bns over future years which together with the costs of the idiocy described here will probably raise that percentage to 50%.
Electricity costs twice as high as they need to be to produce an unstable supply system.
Whatever the so-called motives behind this, there can be no justification for continuing such madness.
The deeper issue is this fact isn't cutting through. Even the few politicians that want to take up the mantle would rather point score in the few opportunities they get in HoC rather than ask straightforward questions that would begin to lift a lid on this because there is no mileage in doing that from a political perspective. We need a Churchillian MP that just keeps on and on about this and doesn't let go then we might start getting somewhere and at least arrest the speed of the madness.
Its not even as if you can go offgrid yourself and avoid this insanity because that % of the electricity bill is impacting everything else you rely on in the wider community and supply chains. They are economic and social terrorists
Many years ago, possibly in his 2009 book The Real Global Warming Disaster, the great Christopher Booker spelled out the sheer logistical impossibility of installing the huge quantities of wind turbines being projected by Miliband back then when the 2050 decarbonisation target was “only” 80%.
His glib talk now that he can triple this and quintuple that renewables supply between now and 2030 to decarbonise the grid by 95% is pure pie in the sky. Actually that won’t matter much as very few people want to adopt the pointless EVs and heat pumps which all the extra electricity is supposed to supply. The UK’s dependency on fossil fuels for its primary energy supply was last reported by gov.uk to be 75% in 2024 (versus 79% in 2019), barely scratching the surface on progress towards Net Zero: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e4f5d855239fa04d412067/Energy_Trends_March_2025.pdf.
So, in short, not only is the goal almost entirely impossible, the supply chain is unlikely to be able to catchup, huge subsidy is required to encourage private capex investment, and by 2060 most of it will need replacing or we will be back below our goals unless SMRs have been deployed with capital we don't have and won't be able to borrow for because our interest payments on debt will have, and sorry to swear, totally fucked our ability to find large capex projects?
Indeed with many other countries following suit supply chains are stretched but because of UKs rushed approach the only way it could be achieved is by further importing the equipment and gifting the so called green jobs to other countries. I despair of the unions here and many politicians who aren't seeing through this and pressing the government hard to increase local content at least in exchange for this madness. Of course that would need Milibrain to back off the 2030 goal to 2035 or later and he wont accede to that so on we go.
Thank you David. It appears that a traditional milestone, generally added to project plans as the project slips, has already been incorporated in the UK electricity grand plan: "And then a miracle happens".
I hope you enjoyed giving the good news that folly is delayed.
Here's a simple confirmation of the unpredictability and unreliability of what actually happens.
The contribution of wind to generation on the GB grid for the first quarter of 2025 (17.8TWh) was less than that in the first quarter of 2020 (18.8TWh).
5 years of increasing capacity, but less useful generation.
I believe part of the problem here is the considerable number of long term outages in Scotland currently to facilitate the upgrade of grid carrying capacity leaving it at about 60% of capacity for next two years. Thus it was pointless adding any more windmills in this period hence we see the most recent additions of Viking and Moray West always being curtailed they can afford to offer a lower price to NESO than those sites with a ROC or actualised CfD).
Separately I also see Greencoat UK Wind reporting this week reduced output from their fleet from lower than forecast wind resource. Clearly 2nd guessing the weather even a few days ahead is fraught with uncertainty. For example just take a look at how NESO own wind forecasting tool ( https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/wind-generation ) ends up with massive deltas of the order 20-30% swings in under 24hrs (forecast already reduced by 2GW today early afternoon to late evening) leaving generators having scrabble around to find alternative power or let NESO try and sort it out. This is the increasing risk with even higher levels of renewable penetration ie higher uncertainty on forecasting forcing increasing levels of reserve power to be held as well ever higher levels of dynamic response. This all adds costs but worse is the ever increasing level of complexities and unknowns interactions between all these different systems that could lead to an unexpected event. I doubt we would get a national blackout as the low frequency disconnect systems would prevent that but you never know.
The key point about forecast unreliability is that it almost certainly contributes to price volatility. When wind output is low and the weather is stable, so are prices. There is a modest uplift for peak demand hours as you might expect. But unless demand is high enough to start stretching available dispatchable capacity, when prices start to reflect bidding wars across interconnectors to keep the lights on. When wind is stronger prices become very sensitive to demand levels. It's a topic worthy of some research.
20 year contracts and 65%+ load factors are simple mathematical changes to make offshore wind appear cheap. Drag out the time to repay the capital and presume more power consistently. Neither seems particularly real.
The aggressive environment or some other feature has caused various manufacturers significant early life reliability issues that have caused financial provisions to be made. That is before 20year contracts.
The 65%+ load factor seems stunning given that power has a cubic relationship to windspeed. Which means at relatively low wind speeds, power developed is much lower than most people would naturally estimate.
Wind and solar output declines as they age. Offshore wind is the worst and I think Dr Gordon Hughes puts it at 4.5% per annum.
What is worrying is the increase in solar capcity which, while easier to build, is already getting to worrying levels of output during sunny low demand days as it becomes a significant part of grid input for a few hours at midday, leaving little room to keep the grid balanced. I don't know what proportion is domestic solar over which NESO have no control.
I wonder what plans they have to control this distorting input?
NESO have very little control over any solar. Basically, only the handful of largest transmission grid connected solar farms are required to indicate prices at which they would curtail (obviously, they are probably only able to increase output at times when they are already self-curtailing because prices are negative). But so long as the day ahead price was positive there is every incentive for solar farms on CFDs (still just a handful) to maintain full output, and likewise for those on ROCs.
They have at times paid Dutch solar farms up to €500/MWh to curtail to cut imports on BritNed. The Dutch are now moving away from net metering for domestic solar and will soon be charging for grid use for any installation that exports solar. Belgium has similar problems, and Germany has long had solar surpluses that cause grid problems.
The latest data from DESNZ show total solar capacity of 18GW, of which 4.2GW is <=4kW and a further 1.2GW is 4kW< capacity <=10kW, which probably covers the domestic element plus some smaller installations on commercial premises. The generating parks are basically the 11.2GW of capacity >=50kW, with the rest being mainly larger commercial schemes for factories, offices etc. Smaller installations that are roof mounted are on average less productive through poorly oriented roofs, shading, etc. so only achieve about 10%, whereas a solar park in the South West might manage 13%. However, increasingly it is important to solar parks to optimise revenues rather than total output. Even for solar on CFDs which guarantee a fixed price normally, the fact that midday midsummer output may have a negative value (because new CFDs pay no compensation when the day ahead price is negative) means that there is interest in using batteries to shift output to more remunerative evening hours, and to maximise morning and late afternoon production.
There's tsunami of Solar with CfDs from AR4 onwards many of which are built but have ridiculous contracts with LCCC many years in the future for a backstop?
The recommendation (or so I understand) & selling point used to be that domestic solar (on houses) provided ‘free’ electricity when the panels were operating giving the house occupants ‘freedom’ to use all the power hungry appliances all at once. Trouble is humans being what they are, on a sunny day, no-one - except the truly dedicated or slightly deranged is busy doing the cleaning using, using power tools etc. The reverse at a national scale is seen on a dark windless cold December evening when everyone gets home & puts the lights & heating on.
The inherent imbalances in the system are so obvious it is difficult to understand why our esteemed Minister can’t put his logical ‘Houston we’ve got a problem’ hat on. It is almost parallel universe stuff. Extra-ordinary.
The freedom is illusory. With a typical 4kW installation you could spend 4 minutes boiling a 3kW 3 pint kettle for a large pot of tea. Your electric hob and oven are constantly switching on and off under thermostatic control, so one minute the draw to cook Sunday lunch will be almost zero, and the next the rings and oven could be drawing up to 12kW, leaving you alternately importing and exporting. It's a similar story with your other appliances - the fridge, the freezer, the washing machine and dishwasher, although the power draws will be less. The tumble drier might be a more consistent load, but you might not use it on a sunny day. A decent electric shower is 11kW meaning a big draw on the grid and anyway most don't spend an hour in the shower in the middle of the day. Charging your EV swamps the panels with a 7kW draw.
So anyone with modern metering that measures the instantaneous import and export will struggle given the low value of export electricity (in locations with lots of solar it is probably negative in reality). A battery might help but it will need to be capable of supplying a good chunk of the larger loads, and it may not really be economic overall.
Of course those on old fashioned FiTs that simply pay for all solar generation and assume a portion of it is exported at a good price don't have to worry too much about these details, although they will be metered on imported power from the grid.
There is some mitigation from the fact that intermittent stochastic demands for appliances will average out across a number of households. If you simulate 600 kettles being switched on at random times over a half hour for breakfast then in any minute the number being switched on is about 20 with a standard deviation of about 4.5, and so the demand oscillates around 80 kettles if they take 4 minutes to boil. If you halve the power of the kettles, then because they take longer to boil twice as many of them are on at any time, so there is no grid saving of power required.
The reality is that demand cannot be shoehorned around when solar is producing in much of a meaningful way, so we end up with huge surpluses particularly on sunny summer Sundays when demand is low because you are eating salads and barbecues. Already in March these have been Europe wide, driving wholesale day ahead and balancing prices into negative territory. Yet it tends to be any wind generation that gets curtailed because the mechanisms are in place for the grid, whereas very little solar is grid controlled.
Commercial solar is adapting. The large solar farm at Cleve Hill near Sittingbourne has its panels oriented in alternate rows that are canted to face East and West at a shallow angle, instead of facing South to maximise total capture. Production in the early morning and late afternoon has much better value than at midday, when it may be worthless. The arrangement probably does better to maximise the limited output on overcast days. In addition it has a large battery capable of storing 300MWh from its nominal 373MW capacity at 150MW, so less than half maximum output for a couple of hours for redelivery in the early evening.
The one at Cirencester which recently had a fire in its battery park is even more interesting. Its panels are on rotating mounts that can orient them about a North-South axis to face East or West following the sun according to the time of day, or have them flat in overcast conditions. Such extras cost money but they have obviously done their sums.
This is fascinating and will massively improve the next generation supply network (batteries are also improving all the time I've been told - so my older son tells me!)
But - and going back to the humanoids - while I will listen (and roll my eyes) to the insistence of the rush to full renewables - impossible for all the reasons we know about her - I can get an inkling of the attraction of the concept - the radicalism, the innovation, the excitement of the leap forward.
Again - but - the impact on all our everyday lives, landscapes and costs are unescapable. Here in East Yorkshire - not only do we have massive housebuilding projects everywhere and roads creaking at every available junction - endless upgrades, endless delays, endless frustrations in the here and now - but also we have vast acreages of land gone solar or 'going for solar' - and in Essex some friends of mine with some farmland have enormous pylons going up - of course they do.
It affects us all -our quality of life, our enjoyment of being alive, our outlooks on others have been quietly diminished and destroyed.
I didn't ask for it, I certainly didn't vote for it and now I can't do anything about it. It's really quite unpleasant. And for what?
I don't think it will improve the next generation supply network: it will cost a fortune. All these batteries are massive costs that we never needed before, and the consequences of higher levels of penetration of solar are going to add plenty of other costs.
If there is a high proportion of homes with solar panels then the cables that connect them to their local transformer will need to be upgraded, so the streets must be dug up. The existing ones are designed around random loads that average, just as in the kettle example where even at peak hour the average use is 80/600ths of a kettle per home, or 400W. But if they are all exporting 4kWs the cables need to be beefier. So does the transformer - another expensive upgrade - and the power lines that feed it.
There is so much solar capacity being built in the South West that they are having to build a new transmission line to deliver it to other parts of the country. Having large amounts of solar causes other problems with over-voltages that have to be controlled by either curtailment or extra devices at local substations, and also with a need for extra measures to ensure the grid is stable as output varies with passing clouds.
Even then, as we are already seeing, it is not economic to do anything other than curtail summer midday solar peaks because they only occur for a few hours per day in summer months, meaning that anything you do to try to make use of the extra output will only have relatively few hours per year of use, making it very costly. Yet these peak hours account for a large chunk of total solar output.
There was a very good reason that solar subsidies were halted in 2017: we avoided these problems by and large at the level of installed capacity back then. Every increase now makes them worse.
We still bankrolling solar through CfDs though and not forcing the bigger sites into the BM either. I can't believe NESO haven't cautioned against solar saturating the system and pushed for changes in future AR's.
I see we have publication
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8940/the-cost-of-energy/publications/written-evidence/?page=4
This link does not provide the documentation, just a search page when I used it on my phone. Could you please revisit the link
Because it is insane. Theresa May, another traitor, is in the wrong party.
Note that Fatih Birol completely reversed the "net zero" recommendations of the IEA on 10th March! 6 weeks ago! And seems not to have been fired yet! Please make sure Ed Miliband is informed ASAP!
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-iea-director-birol-says-there-is-need-investment-existing-oil-gas-2025-03-10/
https://tilakdoshi.substack.com/p/after-years-of-pushing-net-zero-propaganda/comments
Re Interconnectors.
The whole of the Iberian peninsular appears to have lost power and indications its because of an EHV failure in France. We live in Tarn, SW France, there is no problem so far with our supply.
But if everyone in western Europe depends to a greater or lesser extent on French nukes this sort of thing can be expected.
No official admission of the cause as yet, but aside from an unlikely cyberattack, there is this:
Desde el pasado mes de enero, tal y como adelantó elEconomista.es, Red Eléctrica afronta un problema en el control de tensión de sus líneas. La creciente integración de energías renovables y la caída de demanda provocan unas elevadas oscilaciones en los niveles de tensión que podrían llegar a estar detrás de la causa de este apagón.
https://www.eleconomista.es/energia/noticias/13337393/04/25/espana-sufre-el-peor-apagon-de-su-historia.html
Since January, Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has been facing problems with voltage control on its transmission lines. The growing production and integration of renewable energy and falling demand on the grid (due to domestic solar) have caused excessive voltage oscillations which could have caused the blackout.
With not enough stable inertia on the grid and too much solar and lots of inverters injecting harmonics with insufficient filtration and lots of reactive power flows that heat transmission lines while flowing in the opposite direction (caused by phase differences between voltage and current cycles) the grid can become unstable. The article I linked mentions powerline disconnections to resolve local problems, but they can easily cascade across the grid.
I think the recent decision to row back on nuclear and coal closures just got a big boost.
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/spains-nuclear-shutdown-set-to-test-renewables-success-story
Its apparently 'a fire' on one of the French/Spanish interconnectors. How it started is anyone's guess at the moment, but there has been a lot of electrical storms in SW France.
The Portuguese have a different explanation:
El operador portugués REN dice que el corte energético en Portugal es el resultado de un corte en la red española por un "fenómeno atmosférico inusual". Se debe a "variaciones de temperatura extremas en el interior de España". Esto ha provocado oscilaciones anómalas en las líneas de alta tensión, un fenómeno conocido como "vibración atmosférica inducida". Se calcula que costará recuperar el suministro una semana. (Reuters)
"Oscillation induced by the atmosphere". A Carrington event???
well I suppose its just a little behind 'Putin' in the 'anything but renewables' explanation.
So, essentially, Miliband's load capacity is the issue?
I looked at the latest incarnation of the REPD database, dated January 2025, and compared it against July 2024 which we looked at previously. Over the six months we have seen:
An increase in operational generation of 1,035MW, comprising 513MW Onshore wind (primarily Viking), 139MW of batteries and 345MW of solar;
Under construction there is 7,742MW of offshore wind (primarily Dogger Bank and Sofia), 1,429MW of onshore wind, 4,846MW of batteries (which won't generate anything themselves), 2,374MW of solar, 450MW of Energy from Waste incinerators, 240MW of tidal stream and some oddments;
Awaiting construction is allegedly 15,243MW of offshore wind, 6,336MW of onshore wind, 16,404MW of solar, 32,364MW of batteries, 3,090MW of pumped storage, 1,083MW of Energy from Waste, and a further 115MW of Tidal Stream. This clearly includes some projects that are not going ahead, such as Norfolk Boreas.
Neart na Gaoithe has only just made full capacity albeit 4-5 years behind when it should have been constructed but still allowed AR1 ASP at a mere £162.82 MW/hr in 24 prices. Dogger Bank A&B (2.4GW) is behind schedule but will be on line this year with Sofia (1.2GW) not far behind will be following on line by 2026. East Anglia 3 (1.4GW) has just started offshore construction so will be late 2026 before online. Inch Cape maybe the next one in 2027/28 the rest its not clear if FID has taken place on them or not so unlikely to be realised this side of 2030. AR7 offshore wind sites will be beyond 2030 surely.
I thought it worthwhile to share a note I got from a “climate crazy” this am…
I had said…
About Germany…Its sad is what it is ……and the UK is not far behind..... Look there was a very good reason why sailing ships were replaced with steam ships and so on and why the idea of drying cloths on a line by the sun was moved inside with an electric spin and warm dryer,.. not a single real engineer in sight when they dreamt up this wet dream of renewable power….. All the politicos that made this move should be shot and pissed on.
He said..
Your perspective that Wind and Solar is not effective as a future energy source fundamentally misunderstands the drivers and benefits of the transition to renewable energy:
• Combat climate change
• Achieve energy independence
• long term cost reduction
No politico deserves to be shot and pissed on in investing into a better future.
I said…
Is this comment some kind of joke?
Its very clear that wind and solar are intermittent way beyond any viable energy solution and will increase the cost of energy and lower prosperity.
Also, contrary to some short-sighted beliefs it will force western countries to become even more dependent of offshore resources…. not less.
Its still unclear that we can make any impact on decarbonization using this technology once all the hidden sources of carbon use are calculated.
And this also assumes decarbonization is necessary any way.
Hence, we appear to not have enough bullets or piss to put down all this stupidity!!!
Working out the cost of the system and the cost of extending it probably keeps some underemployed quantitative analysts off the streets but the real need is to explain to the voters that the wind and solar experiment was never going to work and it should never have got started
Trillions of dollars have been invested worldwide to get more expensive and less reliable power with massive damage to forests and farmlands, not to mention tragic human rights abuses.
Recognition of wind droughts, wind lulls, or Dunkelflautes, could have averted this policy blunder, maybe the worst ever.
Mariners and millers would have known about them for centuries, at least at the local level. https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf
Independent Australian investigators documented the impact of wind droughts on the electricity supply over a decade ago but nobody in officialdom took any notice, at home or abroad.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/the-late-discovery-of-wind-droughts
Prudent farmers are alert to the threat of rain droughts, how come the wind farmers never checked the reliability of the wind supply to become aware of wind droughts?
https://open.substack.com/pub/rafechampion/p/we-have-to-talk-about-wind-droughts
Wind droughts become an existential threat to thousands or tens of thousands of people when the wind drought trap closes on a windless night during extreme weather conditions coinciding with outages of conventional power.
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/general/escaping-the-wind-drought-trap
The Ancient Mariner, 1797:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Just been reading Paul Homewood's blog where he calculates 25% of bills are now renewable subsidies. This is without the grid and distribution network £bns over future years which together with the costs of the idiocy described here will probably raise that percentage to 50%.
Electricity costs twice as high as they need to be to produce an unstable supply system.
Whatever the so-called motives behind this, there can be no justification for continuing such madness.
The deeper issue is this fact isn't cutting through. Even the few politicians that want to take up the mantle would rather point score in the few opportunities they get in HoC rather than ask straightforward questions that would begin to lift a lid on this because there is no mileage in doing that from a political perspective. We need a Churchillian MP that just keeps on and on about this and doesn't let go then we might start getting somewhere and at least arrest the speed of the madness.
Its not even as if you can go offgrid yourself and avoid this insanity because that % of the electricity bill is impacting everything else you rely on in the wider community and supply chains. They are economic and social terrorists
Many years ago, possibly in his 2009 book The Real Global Warming Disaster, the great Christopher Booker spelled out the sheer logistical impossibility of installing the huge quantities of wind turbines being projected by Miliband back then when the 2050 decarbonisation target was “only” 80%.
His glib talk now that he can triple this and quintuple that renewables supply between now and 2030 to decarbonise the grid by 95% is pure pie in the sky. Actually that won’t matter much as very few people want to adopt the pointless EVs and heat pumps which all the extra electricity is supposed to supply. The UK’s dependency on fossil fuels for its primary energy supply was last reported by gov.uk to be 75% in 2024 (versus 79% in 2019), barely scratching the surface on progress towards Net Zero: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67e4f5d855239fa04d412067/Energy_Trends_March_2025.pdf.
Be careful this lot will keep chucking more subsidies at EV's and heat pumps to encourage take up
So, in short, not only is the goal almost entirely impossible, the supply chain is unlikely to be able to catchup, huge subsidy is required to encourage private capex investment, and by 2060 most of it will need replacing or we will be back below our goals unless SMRs have been deployed with capital we don't have and won't be able to borrow for because our interest payments on debt will have, and sorry to swear, totally fucked our ability to find large capex projects?
Indeed with many other countries following suit supply chains are stretched but because of UKs rushed approach the only way it could be achieved is by further importing the equipment and gifting the so called green jobs to other countries. I despair of the unions here and many politicians who aren't seeing through this and pressing the government hard to increase local content at least in exchange for this madness. Of course that would need Milibrain to back off the 2030 goal to 2035 or later and he wont accede to that so on we go.
To fund..
Thank you David. It appears that a traditional milestone, generally added to project plans as the project slips, has already been incorporated in the UK electricity grand plan: "And then a miracle happens".
I hope you enjoyed giving the good news that folly is delayed.
Here's a simple confirmation of the unpredictability and unreliability of what actually happens.
The contribution of wind to generation on the GB grid for the first quarter of 2025 (17.8TWh) was less than that in the first quarter of 2020 (18.8TWh).
5 years of increasing capacity, but less useful generation.
I believe part of the problem here is the considerable number of long term outages in Scotland currently to facilitate the upgrade of grid carrying capacity leaving it at about 60% of capacity for next two years. Thus it was pointless adding any more windmills in this period hence we see the most recent additions of Viking and Moray West always being curtailed they can afford to offer a lower price to NESO than those sites with a ROC or actualised CfD).
Separately I also see Greencoat UK Wind reporting this week reduced output from their fleet from lower than forecast wind resource. Clearly 2nd guessing the weather even a few days ahead is fraught with uncertainty. For example just take a look at how NESO own wind forecasting tool ( https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/wind-generation ) ends up with massive deltas of the order 20-30% swings in under 24hrs (forecast already reduced by 2GW today early afternoon to late evening) leaving generators having scrabble around to find alternative power or let NESO try and sort it out. This is the increasing risk with even higher levels of renewable penetration ie higher uncertainty on forecasting forcing increasing levels of reserve power to be held as well ever higher levels of dynamic response. This all adds costs but worse is the ever increasing level of complexities and unknowns interactions between all these different systems that could lead to an unexpected event. I doubt we would get a national blackout as the low frequency disconnect systems would prevent that but you never know.
The key point about forecast unreliability is that it almost certainly contributes to price volatility. When wind output is low and the weather is stable, so are prices. There is a modest uplift for peak demand hours as you might expect. But unless demand is high enough to start stretching available dispatchable capacity, when prices start to reflect bidding wars across interconnectors to keep the lights on. When wind is stronger prices become very sensitive to demand levels. It's a topic worthy of some research.
20 year contracts and 65%+ load factors are simple mathematical changes to make offshore wind appear cheap. Drag out the time to repay the capital and presume more power consistently. Neither seems particularly real.
The aggressive environment or some other feature has caused various manufacturers significant early life reliability issues that have caused financial provisions to be made. That is before 20year contracts.
The 65%+ load factor seems stunning given that power has a cubic relationship to windspeed. Which means at relatively low wind speeds, power developed is much lower than most people would naturally estimate.
Wind and solar output declines as they age. Offshore wind is the worst and I think Dr Gordon Hughes puts it at 4.5% per annum.
What is worrying is the increase in solar capcity which, while easier to build, is already getting to worrying levels of output during sunny low demand days as it becomes a significant part of grid input for a few hours at midday, leaving little room to keep the grid balanced. I don't know what proportion is domestic solar over which NESO have no control.
I wonder what plans they have to control this distorting input?
NESO have very little control over any solar. Basically, only the handful of largest transmission grid connected solar farms are required to indicate prices at which they would curtail (obviously, they are probably only able to increase output at times when they are already self-curtailing because prices are negative). But so long as the day ahead price was positive there is every incentive for solar farms on CFDs (still just a handful) to maintain full output, and likewise for those on ROCs.
They have at times paid Dutch solar farms up to €500/MWh to curtail to cut imports on BritNed. The Dutch are now moving away from net metering for domestic solar and will soon be charging for grid use for any installation that exports solar. Belgium has similar problems, and Germany has long had solar surpluses that cause grid problems.
The latest data from DESNZ show total solar capacity of 18GW, of which 4.2GW is <=4kW and a further 1.2GW is 4kW< capacity <=10kW, which probably covers the domestic element plus some smaller installations on commercial premises. The generating parks are basically the 11.2GW of capacity >=50kW, with the rest being mainly larger commercial schemes for factories, offices etc. Smaller installations that are roof mounted are on average less productive through poorly oriented roofs, shading, etc. so only achieve about 10%, whereas a solar park in the South West might manage 13%. However, increasingly it is important to solar parks to optimise revenues rather than total output. Even for solar on CFDs which guarantee a fixed price normally, the fact that midday midsummer output may have a negative value (because new CFDs pay no compensation when the day ahead price is negative) means that there is interest in using batteries to shift output to more remunerative evening hours, and to maximise morning and late afternoon production.
There's tsunami of Solar with CfDs from AR4 onwards many of which are built but have ridiculous contracts with LCCC many years in the future for a backstop?
The recommendation (or so I understand) & selling point used to be that domestic solar (on houses) provided ‘free’ electricity when the panels were operating giving the house occupants ‘freedom’ to use all the power hungry appliances all at once. Trouble is humans being what they are, on a sunny day, no-one - except the truly dedicated or slightly deranged is busy doing the cleaning using, using power tools etc. The reverse at a national scale is seen on a dark windless cold December evening when everyone gets home & puts the lights & heating on.
The inherent imbalances in the system are so obvious it is difficult to understand why our esteemed Minister can’t put his logical ‘Houston we’ve got a problem’ hat on. It is almost parallel universe stuff. Extra-ordinary.
The freedom is illusory. With a typical 4kW installation you could spend 4 minutes boiling a 3kW 3 pint kettle for a large pot of tea. Your electric hob and oven are constantly switching on and off under thermostatic control, so one minute the draw to cook Sunday lunch will be almost zero, and the next the rings and oven could be drawing up to 12kW, leaving you alternately importing and exporting. It's a similar story with your other appliances - the fridge, the freezer, the washing machine and dishwasher, although the power draws will be less. The tumble drier might be a more consistent load, but you might not use it on a sunny day. A decent electric shower is 11kW meaning a big draw on the grid and anyway most don't spend an hour in the shower in the middle of the day. Charging your EV swamps the panels with a 7kW draw.
So anyone with modern metering that measures the instantaneous import and export will struggle given the low value of export electricity (in locations with lots of solar it is probably negative in reality). A battery might help but it will need to be capable of supplying a good chunk of the larger loads, and it may not really be economic overall.
Of course those on old fashioned FiTs that simply pay for all solar generation and assume a portion of it is exported at a good price don't have to worry too much about these details, although they will be metered on imported power from the grid.
There is some mitigation from the fact that intermittent stochastic demands for appliances will average out across a number of households. If you simulate 600 kettles being switched on at random times over a half hour for breakfast then in any minute the number being switched on is about 20 with a standard deviation of about 4.5, and so the demand oscillates around 80 kettles if they take 4 minutes to boil. If you halve the power of the kettles, then because they take longer to boil twice as many of them are on at any time, so there is no grid saving of power required.
The reality is that demand cannot be shoehorned around when solar is producing in much of a meaningful way, so we end up with huge surpluses particularly on sunny summer Sundays when demand is low because you are eating salads and barbecues. Already in March these have been Europe wide, driving wholesale day ahead and balancing prices into negative territory. Yet it tends to be any wind generation that gets curtailed because the mechanisms are in place for the grid, whereas very little solar is grid controlled.
Commercial solar is adapting. The large solar farm at Cleve Hill near Sittingbourne has its panels oriented in alternate rows that are canted to face East and West at a shallow angle, instead of facing South to maximise total capture. Production in the early morning and late afternoon has much better value than at midday, when it may be worthless. The arrangement probably does better to maximise the limited output on overcast days. In addition it has a large battery capable of storing 300MWh from its nominal 373MW capacity at 150MW, so less than half maximum output for a couple of hours for redelivery in the early evening.
The one at Cirencester which recently had a fire in its battery park is even more interesting. Its panels are on rotating mounts that can orient them about a North-South axis to face East or West following the sun according to the time of day, or have them flat in overcast conditions. Such extras cost money but they have obviously done their sums.
This is fascinating and will massively improve the next generation supply network (batteries are also improving all the time I've been told - so my older son tells me!)
But - and going back to the humanoids - while I will listen (and roll my eyes) to the insistence of the rush to full renewables - impossible for all the reasons we know about her - I can get an inkling of the attraction of the concept - the radicalism, the innovation, the excitement of the leap forward.
Again - but - the impact on all our everyday lives, landscapes and costs are unescapable. Here in East Yorkshire - not only do we have massive housebuilding projects everywhere and roads creaking at every available junction - endless upgrades, endless delays, endless frustrations in the here and now - but also we have vast acreages of land gone solar or 'going for solar' - and in Essex some friends of mine with some farmland have enormous pylons going up - of course they do.
It affects us all -our quality of life, our enjoyment of being alive, our outlooks on others have been quietly diminished and destroyed.
I didn't ask for it, I certainly didn't vote for it and now I can't do anything about it. It's really quite unpleasant. And for what?
I don't think it will improve the next generation supply network: it will cost a fortune. All these batteries are massive costs that we never needed before, and the consequences of higher levels of penetration of solar are going to add plenty of other costs.
If there is a high proportion of homes with solar panels then the cables that connect them to their local transformer will need to be upgraded, so the streets must be dug up. The existing ones are designed around random loads that average, just as in the kettle example where even at peak hour the average use is 80/600ths of a kettle per home, or 400W. But if they are all exporting 4kWs the cables need to be beefier. So does the transformer - another expensive upgrade - and the power lines that feed it.
There is so much solar capacity being built in the South West that they are having to build a new transmission line to deliver it to other parts of the country. Having large amounts of solar causes other problems with over-voltages that have to be controlled by either curtailment or extra devices at local substations, and also with a need for extra measures to ensure the grid is stable as output varies with passing clouds.
Even then, as we are already seeing, it is not economic to do anything other than curtail summer midday solar peaks because they only occur for a few hours per day in summer months, meaning that anything you do to try to make use of the extra output will only have relatively few hours per year of use, making it very costly. Yet these peak hours account for a large chunk of total solar output.
There was a very good reason that solar subsidies were halted in 2017: we avoided these problems by and large at the level of installed capacity back then. Every increase now makes them worse.
We still bankrolling solar through CfDs though and not forcing the bigger sites into the BM either. I can't believe NESO haven't cautioned against solar saturating the system and pushed for changes in future AR's.
Miliband lost that hat - it blew off in the wind.