In the end, the risk receded. Neso bought its way out of the crisis by paying generators to switch on extra power stations. It meant paying some of the highest prices for power ever seen, and cost consumers at least £17m extra on their bills – but it kept the lights on.
A day in the life of blackout Britain: how net zero electricity rationing would play out
Blackout – if ever a single word could strike fear into ministers it is this. The prospect of Britain’s lights, computers, offices and so much more all shutting down, and the huge political backlash that would follow – are the stuff of ministerial nightmares.
For the last five decades, that’s what blackouts have been – just a nightmare. But a few days ago, the UK came closer to losing power than it has done for years.
The first warning came on Tuesday when the National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued an alert predicting a major shortfall in power for next day.
Plummeting wind speeds, outages on three interconnectors and at some gas-fired power stations meant generating capacity was down. At the same time, forecasts of freezing temperatures meant demand was set to peak.
Demand for power was set to exceed supply, and if that happened, Neso’s grid operators would be forced to blackout chunks of the country.
Birmingham would have been a likely target, say some analysts. Cutting off its power temporarily would have created enough reserve to keep the lights on in London and elsewhere. But it could have been anywhere.
Looking back, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, rejected any suggestion of a crisis. He told a Commons select committee convened to quiz him on the issue last week: “There’s been quite a lot of nonsense talked about this … Neso has said that at no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand.”
Others are not so sure, pointing to the warnings emerging from grid operators on the day, including warnings of a “29pc risk of ‘loss of load’” – a euphemism for shortages – that was higher than any could recall.
Kathryn Porter, an energy analyst and expert on grid dynamics, believes Miliband and Neso are playing down the risks.
“Jan 8 was the tightest day for electricity supplies in over 15 years. Market data indicate we came within the loss of one power station of demand control or even blackouts,” she says.
“Unfortunately, Neso continues to refuse to be transparent about which generating assets or batteries were available to run that day to provide spare margin and reserves.
“This is disappointing and undermines confidence in their assertions, which are not supported by underlying market data.”
The net zero risk
Whoever is right about Jan 8, it’s clear that large-scale blackouts remain unlikely. But so are hurricanes, terrorist attacks and acts of war – and Britain has faced all three over the last few decades
And, as even Neso admits, the transition to net zero is raising the risk. Paul Wakeley, Neso network boss, wrote in its last 10-year plan: “Our analysis this year continues to show growing system needs driven primarily by [growing] low carbon and renewable generation.”
“Growing system needs” is a reference to the shutdown of old-style large power stations and their replacement by wind and solar, which are more intermittent sources of electricity.
Last year, for example, the UK shut down its last remaining coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar to get rid of the 8m to 10m tonnes of CO2 it emitted annually at its peak.
If the 2 gigawatts of capacity it once provided had been available on Jan 8, there would have been no problem.
In the next few years, the UK is also likely to lose at least two of the nuclear power stations whose steady output is what now stabilises the entire grid.
That will leave the nation even more reliant on weather-dependent sources such as wind and solar, backed up by a fleet of ageing and increasingly unreliable gas-fired power stations.
The peak threat for power shortages will come around 2027-29, say analysts. So what would happen if we were one day hit by blackouts? How would Britain cope? And how would it recover?
Neso, along with the operators of the UK’s high voltage transmission systems are extremely reluctant to discuss plans for major outages – fearing perhaps that even acknowledging the risk would raise the hackles of politicians. “We don’t talk about hypotheticals,” a Neso spokesperson said.
However, it has published a one-page description of what it terms “demand control” – effectively meaning cutting off parts of the country to reduce the demand for power.
It states: “If a sudden or short-duration electricity shortfall affected a specific region, or the whole country, we would implement the Demand Control process as set out in the Grid Code … allowing us to instruct distribution network operators to reduce up to 20pc of demand at short-notice (five minutes) with an additional 20pc made available at one days’ notice.”
In practice, this would mean power companies would decide on which areas to shut off.
Blackouts in practice
If the shortfalls were prolonged, however, the Government would have to invoke the emergency powers in the Energy Act 1976.
Miliband would have to seek an “Order in Council” to activate Electricity Supply Emergency Code, which would allow him to impose a rota of power disconnections across the whole country. Such orders must be approved by the monarch in person – meaning Miliband or his successor would have to make a rather awkward trip to Buckingham Palace.
The disconnection rota set out in the code doesn’t mean just cutting off a few factories. The way the grid is built would mean rolling blackouts for whole cities or regions.
Official documents show “disconnections” from the grid would be managed in three-hour chunks, rolling across geographies to spread the impact. For prolonged periods of strained supply, regions would see their blackouts clustered over several days to minimise disruption.
Certain businesses would be shielded – operations of national importance, facilities needed for public health and sites that would pose a safety risk or incur “catastrophic damage” if their power was summarily cut off.
Businesses and public services that fall within these designations can apply to be “protected sites”. Examples include gas terminals, major airports and their control towers, water and sewage plants, hospitals without access to backup generators, army facilities and essential financial infrastructure.
As for geography, where might be affected? Here the official guidance is less clear but analysts point to Birmingham as an example of a likely target. Its power usage is large enough that imposing blackouts could make a significant difference to stabilising the grid.
However, it could just as easily be chunks of Wales or Manchester.
London is seen as the least likely to be switched off, given the political implications of cutting off the capital and the fact that it is the country’s seat of power.
Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is confident that such plans will never be needed.
A spokesman said: “It is categorically untrue that our electricity or gas supplies have been at risk this winter. We have no concerns and are confident we will have a sufficient gas supply and electricity capacity to meet demand.”
Richard Tice, Reform’s energy spokesman, disagrees, warning that the UK’s energy system is becoming increasingly precarious both in terms of price and security of supply.
He says: “We are not being told the truth. Our energy is becoming more expensive and less secure. The drive to net zero is dramatically increasing prices due to the need to have back up gas and nuclear supply for when renewables are not generating enough electricity.
“It also increases the risk of rationing or even blackouts at times of low wind, as we saw last week.”
Memories run deep
Rolling blackouts have hit Britain before. Five decades ago, a mining strike left power stations without coal and forced the government to declare a state of emergency in February 1972.
That meant power cuts, with a disconnection rota that left swathes of the country without power sometimes for nine hours a day. About 1.5m people were immediately laid off from work.
In 1974, a second strike forced Ted Heath, then-prime minister, to impose a three-day working week. He also called a general election but lost, opening the way to a Labour government.
Memories of those events run deep among British political parties. Ministers are acutely aware that, in an era when electricity powers not just our lights and TVs, as in 1974, but our computers, cars phones and medical equipment, the political impacts could be even greater.
A small taste of the threat came in August 2019 when lightning struck a transmission line in Cambridgeshire – causing blackouts across England, Wales and even parts of Scotland
The 2019 power blackout occurred in summer and in daylight so there were no accidents on unlit homes or streets and no-one froze.
However, the National Risk Register, which is drawn up by the Cabinet Office and lists 89 threats that could destabilise the country, states that future blackouts are most likely in winter, when demand is heaviest. Restoring power could take up to seven days with cities facing the longest wait because urban grid networks are so complex.
Crisis plans in place
How might Britain re-energise? There are plans for this too. The process was once known as a “black start” and depended on getting the big gas and coal power stations fired up first to create a stable baseload.
Those are now gone so Neso is experimenting with a new process called “distributed restart” – using low carbon and even intermittent sources of electricity to kick start the grid after a collapse. It works experimentally, but whether it can work in reality is yet to be tested.
Some industry experts believe Britain’s best bulwark against blackouts caused by low winds and plummeting temperatures is to reinforce its sources of renewable electricity.
Greg Jackson, head of Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest energy supplier, says he is backing the Xlinks project to construct huge solar and wind farms in Morocco’s Sahara desert. Subsea cables will then bring power to the UK, covering for times of low wind and little sun in gloomy Britain.
“That would help answer the Dunkelflaute problem by providing 7pc of our electricity,” he says.
Other solutions are available, including banks of batteries or even “inertia” systems – giant flywheels spinning so fast they can repower the grid at the flick of a switch. Again, these have yet to be tested.
Ministers and energy officials alike will hope that they never have to be. Such plans are drawn up for a crisis but the best case scenario is they sit idle in a draw forever.
Our net zero future holds many uncertainties – but never more so than for ministers for whom every cold windless winter day could herald the end of a political career.
See more here Telegraph.com
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