Labour’s manifesto promised we would have a zero carbon electricity system by 2030. It is a pledge that Ed Miliband has been making for years, not least in his party conference speech last year, and it was also one of Labour’s ‘Five Missions for a Better Britain’ policy pledge launched last year.
It would therefore be reasonable to presume that Miliband actually had a detailed plan of how he would achieve this and how much it might all cost. It came as a surprise then when, shortly after taking office, he asked the National Energy System Operator, NESO, to provide practical advice on achieving his target.
NESO has now responded with some bad news.
Many energy experts have long argued that a zero carbon grid simply is not possible at these timescales, because you cannot run a grid predominantly on intermittent renewable energy. It turns out that NESO, whose job is to make sure that Britain has the electricity it needs every second of the day, agrees.
Their report sent to Ed Miliband emphasises that we will need to retain a full fleet of gas power plants, to fire up when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine:
This really is a damning indictment not only of Labour’s energy policy, but also of the whole Net Zero agenda and its reliance on intermittent renewable energy.
Even though NESO says that gas power will only supply 5% of our electricity, there will be many days when we will still need it for half or more. And keeping a fleet of gas plants on standby creates problems of its own. They will need to be fully manned, maintained and ready to fire up as and when needed, all of which will cost a lot of money. With these plants standing idle most of the time, operators will demand billions in standby payments, all of which will end up on our energy bills.
The NESO report also confirms that the increase in wind and solar power demanded by Miliband will drastically increase bills, not lower them as we were promised.
Not only is renewable energy more expensive to produce than gas generation, there are indirect costs to consider, such as paying for standby capacity, costs of storage, curtailment payments when we have too much wind and grid upgrades.
Analysis of NESO data suggests that annual costs could be £20 billion higher by 2030 if Miliband’s plans are carried through.
NESO also says that annual investment of £48 billion will be needed between now and 2030 to achieve targets.
But all of this expenditure will merely end up duplicating what we already have.
If this was not all bad enough, over reliance on intermittent renewables will mean that we will end up having energy rationing. According to NESO, households will have to switch off appliances at times of peak demand. Currently, of course, gas generation is turned up and down to match demand.
NESO hopes the public will do it voluntarily! Good luck with that.
Unsurprisingly, Ed Miliband has already been bragging that this new report proves that his clean power plan is both achievable and will lead to cheaper electricity. Both are outright lies.
But it looks like we will learn this the hard way.
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When will this nightmare end. When will these useless pipsqueaks be gone and when will we get back politicians with stature who can be trusted to say things honestly. Please can the next five years be over with as soon as possible and then, please can we ensure every last one of these wretched individuals be prosecuted for abuse in public office, so never again will we have cabinet ministers who lie every time they open their mouths.
Damn depressing isn’t it…
“But it looks like we will learn this the hard way.”
We already are and have been and it only took three months to learn not to vote for dogmatic ant-brained idiots.
The events of the past 3+ months are a damning indictment of Starmer’s weakness and of his obliviousness to the significance of what happens around him.
He is so completely unaware that David Lammy appears to be barking mad and lacking in any vestige of political nous or statesmanship that he appointed him Foreign Secretary.
Similarly, giving a geeky bozo with a total reality by-pass, David Minibrain, the job of energy secretary is beyond comprehension.
Starmer’s behaviour over the ‘Far Right’ riots was appalling.
And as DEFRA’s figures on farming and inheritance tax indicates the budget was overkill for farming with errors all round in Treasury Starmer seems incapable of realising that as the budget will hit 75% of farms instead of 25% of the very largest all they have to do is adjust the budget plans so that they will only hit the 25% of the largest farms.
There, problem solved – a least in part because they have the problem of fixing why Treasury got it so very wrong – with multiple fallings on swords in order.
It will only end when people realise that all of this has nothing to do with the climate and is actually about rich countries dishing out money to poor countries and all organised by the UN/WEF communists using climate justice as the excuse for their politics. People are still being brainwashed on mass about a climate crisis for which no evidence exists and only when this fraud is exposed for what it is will the likes of Miliband and the whole Climate Industrial Complex be booted out.
I have some O levels and a functioning brain with a logic circuit and I could have told them this! He knew already, just doesn’t care/is happy to lie.
Gas currently doing 60% of the work as we speak, wind has not blown much and sun has not shone for several days – intermittent currently doing 10%
Past week gas has done 50, intermittents 15, nuclear, biomass and imports the rest
Yes, I think nuclear has provided a steady 4 GW throughout. That’s 13% of current demand – no pun intended.
I guess they’ll use smart meters and smart appliances to limit consumption when demand is high… glad I haven’t got either.
Yeah me neither
I keep getting emails saying my meters are out of date. At least one was replaced only a few years back.
So I have asked for the dates of last recertification of the meters with copies of the recertification certificates.
Silence has broken out. It is so silent I went for a hearing test in case I had become deaf.
Octopus keep harassing me about the same thing
They have a “target”, ££££, to meet!
As we have seen with the recent budget if people will not do these things voluntarily they will discard the carrot and go for the stick. Smart meters are already pretty much mandated if your have an EV charging point or a Heat Pump. I think we can expect some fairly draconian methods being used to force us to have smart meters I expect all appliances will start to become smart and you will than need a smart meter to operate them.
I fear you are right. I intend to move house sometime in the next year – to somewhere that we can adapt if we get frail in our old-old-age. I strongly suspect that wherever we move to will already be smart-metered – I don’t think we can afford the presence of a smart-meter to be a deal-breaker.
Our domestic appliances are all in good nick – I hope they fit!
If I understand it correctly, smart meters can only operate if you leave your broadband router and wifi on all the time. So if you turn it off at night…
You shouldn’t underestimate the stupidity of Militwat and other politicians – they are really lucky that breathing isn’t attached to IQ.
I’m sure his IQ is higher than mine. His honest circuits may be differently wired to mine, or have been corrupted by his desire for stuff that I don’t desire.
Indeed, Millibrain has Maths, Physics and Further Maths at A level, so not unintelligent. Which makes his policy leadership even more appalling, because it flies in the face of everything he learnt – so it’s a cult with overlayings of personal ambition…
Are we being softened up for power cuts? Just wondering as we had a power cut this evening with the chicken mid roast. Hopefully I haven’t poisoned anyone [check in tomorrow….] but as I said at the time “and so it begins”…..
Funny, we had a very brief power cut too. The choice is simple – keep hydrocarbons or power cuts.
The percentage of electricity being generated by renewables right now [UK] is 24%, although earlier in the windless sunless week it was around 14%….How did Millibrain cook his breakfast, I wonder, surely he didn’t use gas?
With luck Trump’s election will mean the rug will be pulled from underneath the Net Zero scam and the whole thing will come crashing down. Can’t wait.
Something tells me the Davos Deviants will pull a stunt, possibly another assassination attempt in order to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.
There are probably a sizable number of legal people in the US just now suffering with squeaky bottoms. A bit like Kneel and Lammy over here.
He needs to get a loyal team of SF or SF veterans around him 24/7, armed and ready.
It’s really simple, if the ridiculous Marxist Miliband is determined to make people hungry, cold and prematurely dead then he is a lethal threat to us all and should be treated as such by our armed forces who have the job of protecting us.
Well, we used to when I joined up. Not so sure now.
Milimind has A.S.D.IQ.. A single digit IQ.
This, I have made a note of – superb!
Good article by Paul Homewood. And while Millipede is doubling down on the Global Warming Hoax, the next Ice Age is on its way, as the Electroverse website keeps trying to tell people.
“Heavy Snowfall hits Northern China,
Saudi Arabia Deserts see their First Ever Snow,
Global Temperatures Cooled in October,
Britain Importing Record Amounts of Electricity,
Asia, in particular, is Bracing for a Harsh Winter 2024-25…”
Electroverse – Documenting Earth Changes During The Next Grand Solar Minimum
Perhaps we could have a re-shuffle and move David Lammy to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero? This would achieve three things.
1) Move David Lammy away from annoying foreigners
2) Move Ed Miliband away from annoying us
3) Hobble any ‘progress’ on Net Zero
Genius idea. Lammy can sit there and eat his crayons in peace, and actually achieve Net Zero (productive output).
I thought his productive output was already seriously negative?
Fantasy Land bu11$hit.
Physics and mathematics will do their work.
You can ignore them, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring them.
Was talking to my husband yesterday about installing a generator….and low and behold we had a power cut yesterday evening!
To coin a WW2 wartime slogan “Careless talk costs
liveslights”.And you can’t get more careless than Energy Secretary Minibrain IMHO.
Electricity is not energy. The grid carries only a small fraction of the energy used every day. Think about gas to homes and businesses, fuel in road rail and air transport. Even if all the energy conveyed by the grid came from renewables, it would make virtually no difference to the total use of fossil fuels. Within the next 25 years there is simply no alternative.
The problem is purely political, with fossil fuels, at one time or another, being controlled by regimes or groups that could or did hold us to hostage.