Britain came “within a whisker of blackouts” on Wednesday after plunging temperatures and low wind power generation left electricity grid operators struggling to keep the lights on. The Telegraph has the story.
At 5.30pm on Wednesday, the spare electricity capacity on the national grid had fallen to just 580 megawatts (MW), according to data platform Amira.
That level was so low that even an outage at a “relatively small” power station “would have caused an actual shortage and triggered blackouts”, one expert warned.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso), which manages the grid, repeatedly denied on Wednesday that there was ever a risk of blackouts and insisted it had been able to meet demand using “routine tools”.
Neso previously predicted that the amount of spare power available during the coldest weeks of winter would be the highest it had been in five years.
But Kathryn Porter, an independent energy consultant, said: “On January 8th, the GB power market came within a whisker of blackouts. Neso used almost every last megawatt available.
“This should be a real wake-up call about the dangers of relying on weather-based generation.”
Paul Homewood comments:
This particular near miss appears to have caught the Neso by surprise, because demand turned out to be 3 GW higher than anticipated three days before. And as Kathryn points out, alarm bells are already ringing for Friday evening, when winds are forecast to be even lighter than last night.
Why did we get into this awful mess?
It does not take a genius to work out why. We shut down more than 20 GW of reliable coal capacity, and thought we could replace it with medieval technology that only works when the wind blows!
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Flood, drought, pestilence and plague – been goin’ on since time immemorial, but far worse in the bad old days…
…Published in 1871, by George Fleming (1833 – 1901), a Victorian military veterinarian and scholar: Animal Plagues – From B.C. 1490 to A.D. 1800.
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/sjfhgnc6/items?canvas=134
Page 94: “A.D. 1325. A great drought in England. Here, in this and the following summer, there was so great a drought…
…In consequence of the drought, the great rivers of England were dried up, the springs failed, and in may places water had entirely disappeared. In consequence of this misfortune, great multitudes of animals, wild as well as domestic, perished of thirst.”
Source: Thomas Walsingham (“English Chronicler”, 1340-1422), Historia Anglicana.
No modern dams, no reservoirs, no electricity, no pumped water – just humanity and animals pitted against merciless nature for two summers in a row. Shades of 1975-76.
Just Stop Oil’s neophytes and hacks like Watts of the Guardian don’t know they’ve been born.
Should I assume the chart labelled with ‘censored data’ does not mean ‘censored’ as I understand the word in English? If not, then the chart is meaningless.
Does ‘censored’ in that context mean measured or verified in some way?
Sound reasoning there. I had the same question. I thought it might just be a touch of irony.
Jim Dale will never be forgiven for any of his spittle-flecked invective masquerading as science.
Every day seems to be April Fools’Day, which is bringing back memories of Hilaire Belloc and his poem “Matilda” – “For every time she shouted “Fire!”
They only answered Little Liar!”
And therefore when her aunt returned
Matilda, and the house, were Burned”.
Do insert whichever ghastly political/public figure winds you up and remind youself of the consequences of telling LIES everytime they gaslight us, ie all the time.
25 states in the USA are writing bills to stop weather manipulation. I would suggest the eu and Uk join the party.