Wednesday 11 November 2015

Power Cuts Ahoy?

Seven years ago around these parts we used to do an occasional series, "watching the lights go out".  Back then (was it really 7 years ago? - yup!) we noted that 2015 looked like being the crunch year, and dismissively reported EDF offering new-nuke power from Hinkley in ... 2017, hahah.  Indeed, EDF's chief frog-in-the-UK said we'd be needing his bloody new nukes by 2017 because otherwise he wouldn't be getting hot Christmas dinner. 

Well 2015 is certainly set to be crunch-year;  EDF are now offering new-nuke power by, errr, 2024 at the absolute earliest;  by 2017 the capacity margin will almost certainly be negative, as everyone knew even back in 2008; and last week we had the first NISM of the new era.  It won't be the last.

Now some silly things have been said about this, not least by the DTel who said the Grid was using its 'last resort measures'.  Not so -  the Grid has no end of tricks up its sleeve before actually shutting off power to residential customers.  And a NISM is only the lowest level of three emergency stages it can trigger before Granny is finally plunged into darkness.  

The thing is, it's a crass way to run the whelk-stall - crass, and expensive and, of course, CO2-intensive, because the further down the slippery slope the Grid goes, the more diesel gennies spring into life:  firstly the standby diesels the Grid itself has contracted for these purposes; then the privately-owned diesels that various industrial customers maintain against the day when the Grid pays them to come off the system (stages 1 & 2), and then forcibly kicks them off the system (stages 3 and blackout);  then the hospitals' diesels (stages 3 & blackout); then (on a tiny scale) private individuals' diesels (blackout).  And the CO2 output of this lot is as bad as or worse than coal, with the particulates being a lot worse, hahah.  Check out that black smoke, greenies

Amber Rudd is promising an 'energy policy reset', and it can't be quick enough.  But the mithering about missed renewables targets doesn't make one optimisitic on this score.  An entertaining sequence of winter crises lies ahead.

ND

18 comments:

dearieme said...

A lot of the blame should attach to Ed Milibonkers, but who else should the finger be pointed at? There must have been loony predecessors, and then there are the Coalitionist idiots. The present Conservative government has been awfully slow off the blocks to do anything too: even with only six months from the election they could surely have made a few moves in the right direction?

andrew said...

ND,
How long does a new gas fired power station take to build/ get on the grid.
(Ignoring planning issues)

Weekend Yachtsman said...

And to think we used to have the best-managed and most stable power grid in the world.

I visit Italy a lot, and oh how we used to snigger, in the 70's and 80's, when every little thunderstorm brought its attendant several-hour blackout. Couldn't happen in the UK, we smugly maintained, we know how to manage these things, we just never have power cuts, end of.

Well the boot's on the other foot now, isn't it.

Heads ought to roll, but we all know they won't.

Nick Drew said...

Andrew - for a full-sized one (400+ MW), the rule-of-thumb is 3 years**

the all-time record was, interestingly, achieved with the world's largest (1,875 MW) - the Teesside Power project which, needless to say, was built by *ahem* Enron who were not overly concerned to follow lazy and feeble-minded industry norms (+:

sadly, neither Teesside Power nor Enron now exist, I lamented here, with some more details on the whole thing, you might find it interesting

small gas-fired plants (< 50MW) can go up in a year or less - some of them are just glorified jet engines

(**it will be interesting to watch the final stages of the Carrington project, the only one currently building in the UK: a classic 3-year jobbie which claimed to be going into commissioning phase right about now - which would make it 3 months late - with start-up 'in the New Year', so it could be even later still. That said, it probably wouldn't be profitable to run it for much of the time these days, with elec. prices so low, so they've had no real incentive to pull the finger out)

Anonymous said...

"Amber Rudd is promising an 'energy policy reset', and it can't be quick enough."

Aye and Dave's going to drive us out of EUrope and Osborne knows what he is doing, Mark Carney is a banker, the € is good idea, we're gonna build a world class Navy and Turkey/Saudi are our allies.

Next, you'll be spotting Elephants nesting in rhubarb trees.

CityUnslicker said...

At least in Italy and Spain you could put solar panels in your garden or on the roof quite cheaply and be safe.

Won't work here in Winter. Even the company I invested in years ago to do local power was bought up, shame really. ABout 1500 quid today for a basic generator but you need to fit it and fix it up so my hunch would be around 2.5k all in for security of power.

ivan said...

Amber Rudd is promising an 'energy policy reset'

The only 'reset' that would be any good is the removal of ALL the clauses referring to energy production in the Climate Change Act and any addons.

That would include not shutting down coal fired power stations or converting them to biomass, removing subsidies from, and the requirement to purchase any, renewable energy unless it is at standard market values and availability.

Then we must add a fast track for shale gas drilling with the minister being able to give consent on the ground of national need.

It would also help to remove all the 'green' taxes from fuel and transport.


@CU, Sorry the solar thing only works if you have a rather large and expensive battery bank and inverter - the sun don't shine at night when you need power.

Nick Drew said...

to be of use in an *advanced* society, solar requires not only storage but perhaps even more importantly to be part of a network

in NW Europe we at least have networks - and solar still isn't economic yet

in Africa India etc they might have sun but in many parts they don't have any type of network

and solar ain't economic yet there, either!

"Civilisation is energy-intensive"

Electro-Kevin said...

What happens next year when three coal power stations shut earlier than expected ?

How is HS2 and other rail electrifications (coming earlier) expected to be powered ?

Nick Drew said...

like I said: by 2017 the capacity margin will almost certainly be negative

dearieme said...

HS2 is another madness. Utterly effing lunatic.

Elby the Beserk said...

We're still (just) behind Germany in the energy idiot stakes, it seems...

http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/11/bleeding-to-death-germanys-largest-power-company-e-on-loses-whopping-7-8-billion-collapse-accelerates/

Elby the Beserk said...

Blogger Nick Drew said...
to be of use in an *advanced* society, solar requires not only storage but perhaps even more importantly to be part of a network

in NW Europe we at least have networks - and solar still isn't economic yet

in Africa India etc they might have sun but in many parts they don't have any type of network

and solar ain't economic yet there, either!
===============================================
Nor does it work at night (for some odd reason), when it is needed most...

Anonymous said...

Solar is "economic" if you give it lashings of subsidies.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/07/solar-panel-installer-goes-into-administration-costing-1000-jobs

.... and so is nuclear.

Osbourne - tax and spend

Dodgy Geezer said...

...The thing is, it's a crass way to run the whelk-stall - crass, and expensive and, of course, CO2-intensive,...


CO2-intensive doesn't matter in the slightest.

It is obvious now, given the 20-year pause in temperatures in spite of all the data fiddling, that CO2 concentration does NOT drive world temperature. The idea that it does was a green religion, and it has corrupted science so much that the entire establishment is complicit in the fraud.

Nick Drew said...

Dodgy - irrespective, there is nothing more telling (and amusing) than to show that 'green' policy-making fails by its own lights

the power of the 'reductio' ... [all]Q: (P & ¬P) -> Q

rwendland said...

Must say I take a different view on this. As I understand it the SBR/DSBR "dirty diesels" are only contracted to be available a few hours around 4pm to 6pm on winter evenings, and will only be called into use occasionally. This approach strikes me as more cost-efficient, and probably greener, than building any (more efficient) extra plant for occasional use.

Also I suspect, if the owners of the mothballed older CCGT/OCGT plant (eg Centrica's King's Lynn 325 MW plant) realise National Grid has a viable alternative to over-paying them to bring them back online for winter evenings, maybe they will do it for a more reasonable price. (Though I've not followed the mothballed gas plant story, so I could be wrong about this.)

Nick Drew said...

to be fair, Mr W, i don't categorically know what the optimum is (on whatever objective function: cost, CO2, or cost-of-abatement), when the basecase is today's status quo, = 'unacceptably low cap margin'. I could imagine that if the situation was stable @ 1.2% margin (= Grid's going-in position for this winter) then diesel works as a cost-effective, CO2-effective mitigant (if that's a word)

but as the situation is in fact declining (margin prob negative 2016 and deffo negative 2017) then my strong intuition is, diesel is crazy, we need (at least) some proper peaking plant (OCGT) pending restoration of the margin with outright new capacity

I (and many others) also reckon there is more DSR potential and - provided it is not actually just fuel-switching (to diesel !) - it could be an important component

I am agnostic on voltage reduction, but could imagine there is an optimum to be struck there, too: processes that require really stable voltage should maybe be incentivised to modulate using their own kit rather than have the entire Grid operate at a *needlessly* high standard at *great cost*

but that can be taken too far, like saying mains water needn't be potable & people should buy evian: OK, but then we are just Africa