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Britain Faces Months-Long Blackouts Because of Net Zero

by Richard Eldred
11 May 2025 1:00 PM

Britain’s rush to Net Zero could leave it vulnerable to months-long blackouts, as reliance on intermittent renewables strains the grid, escalating costs and jeopardising energy security. The Telegraph has more.

The grid operator has raised concerns that the switch from dependable gas to intermittent wind and solar power would “reduce network stability” and said the cost to taxpayers of funding measures to prevent the system crashing was set to “increase significantly” to £1 billion a year.

Meanwhile, the global energy watchdog has sounded the alarm over the “premature retirement” of gas power plants “without adequate replacements”.

It can also be revealed that Government officials have admitted it would take Britain “several months” to fully recover from a nationwide electricity outage.

Spain and Portugal were hit by huge power cuts last month, which experts have said were likely to have been caused by their reliance on renewable energy. Ministers have played down the prospect of such a blackout happening in the UK, insisting Britain has a “highly resilient energy network”.

It comes after a power cut at Heathrow in March, which shut the airport for 24 hours, raised questions about the reliability of the electricity network.

The National System Energy Operator (Neso), which runs the grid, published a report in that same month, which warned of an increased risk of “outages”. It set out that the reduction in “synchronous” power generation, such as from gas and nuclear, in favour of renewables “reduces network stability”. …

In response, Britain is having to invest large amounts of cash in “stability network services”, such as mass battery storage, to back up the system. Neso said the cost of these would “increase significantly by 2030, up to an estimated £1 billion a year”, citing modelling by Imperial College London. …

A report compiled by the Cabinet Office earlier this year found that the risk of a nationwide blackout was “low”, but that the effects would be devastating.

Under such a scenario “all consumers without backup generators would lose their mains electricity supply instantaneously and without warning”. This would “cause significant and widespread disruption to public services provisions, businesses and households, as well as loss of life”.

The Government’s National Risk Register found that it would take “a few days” to get a “skeletal network” of power back up and running.

It added: “Full restoration could take up to seven days, however, depending on the cause of failure and damage, restoration of critical services may take several months.”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: BlackoutsEd MilibandEnergy crisisEnergy IndustryNet Zero

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21 Comments
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JXB
JXB
2 months ago

On a wing and a prayer.

Inertia relies on heavy machinery rotating at a constant and quickly adjustable frequency, such as is found in the gas and steam turbines in fossil fuel power stations (which in some cases have large flywheels too) and nuclear power stations.

All the storage batteries and other boondoggles cannot do this.

”Ministers have played down the prospect of such a blackout happening in the UK, insisting Britain has a “highly resilient energy network”.

Ministers? It’s only “highly resilient” until tested. The Spanish grid was “highly resilient” – just ask Spanish Ministers.

In fact in 2019 (I think) UK grid failed the test when the grid had 50% wind input, a gas power station dropped out causing a frequency anomaly which caused a wind installation to drop out introducing greater frequency instability and a number of grid sectors shut down taking about two days to restore.

Ministers! Ha! Safe & effective, I suppose.

Last edited 2 months ago by JXB
19
0
Simon
Simon
2 months ago

The people who own mobile diesel generators are rubbing their hands with glee!

10
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
2 months ago
Reply to  Simon

Indeed, until the diesel runs out and the pumps at the petrol station won’t run.

15
0
JXB
JXB
2 months ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

It’s odd how many people don’t understand that simple point, or how will they get back and forth to get diesel if their car has no fuel? And will their diesel generator grow food and deliver it?

Last edited 2 months ago by JXB
7
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
2 months ago
Reply to  JXB

People are thinking in terms of tiding themselves over for a few hours or a day by using the gas barbecue instead of the electric cooker, using battery power for lights and fridge/freezer and powering the gas boiler. Diesel generators get you up to a few days. Proper independence from the grid is far more difficult and expensive.

If you’ve prepared for a proper collapse of supply chains you’d better have included a cache of weapons to defend your stockpiled food and fuel.

7
0
Art Simtotic
Art Simtotic
2 months ago

Lemmings masquerading as government ministers getting ever nearer to the cliff edge of sacrificing grid stability on the altar of green fallacy, fiction and folly.

As spelt out in the Sceptic by the Anonymous Engineer on the evening after the Iberian fiasco, “Grid stability isn’t merely a technical detail; it’s the foundation of our civilization.”

You can’t teach new lemmings old tricks.

Last edited 2 months ago by Art Simtotic
14
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
2 months ago
Reply to  Art Simtotic

Government ministers masquerading as Engineers!

6
0
JXB
JXB
2 months ago
Reply to  Art Simtotic

I see them rather as predators driving their prey – us – over the cliff.

6
0
MajorMajor
MajorMajor
2 months ago

Maybe a blackout would have the useful effect of demonstrating the real life implications of net zero.
After a day or so, I guess roughly around the time when the freezers would start defrosting, the food in the fridge already have gone off, people might get slightly miffed…

11
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
2 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Transportation would gradually grind to a halt, especially the refrigerated lorries, and EVs in general, hospitals’ electrical equipment would cease to function, like CAT scans, X-Rays, EMIs, heating, lighting, communications, pumps and lifts.

Farmers would need to milk their cows by hand to save their cows’ lives.

Traffic lights and other traffic controls, telephones, landline and mobiles, the Internet, Radio and TV would degrade, and microwaves would stop cooking!

And lifts would stop, creating havoc in high rise apartments and care homes, and most importantly, sewage pumps will stop working. Manufacturing would cease and most office workers would not be able to communicate with other offices, anywhere.

6
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
2 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

A large percentage of people no longer use cash and rely on electronic payments. Without electricity this wouldn’t be possible, I doubt supermarkets and banks have back up generators. The cash machines would stop working and even if people had a reasonable amount of cash at home how would supermarkets sell food if their barcode scanners aren’t working? Would checkout assistants have to guess how much each item costs and add them up on their phone (how long will they last without being recharged)? If lots of people start to run out of food and can’t buy more this could well lead to widespread looting.

7
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
2 months ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

Our local supermarket closes when there’s a power cut. Apart from not seeing what’s on the shelves 🙂 , bar codes not being read, ‘cash’ registers, freezers and fridges not working and probably the stock control system unavailable, I expect the CCTV won’t work.

3
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Panic buying will start within hours; mass looting and riots shortly afterwards.

2
0
Hardliner
Hardliner
2 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

And then it gets interesting….

2
0
EUbrainwashing
EUbrainwashing
2 months ago

All the Green Happy Clappers will soon enough be begging for sustainable green nuclear power generation and swear we have always been at war with Eastasia

5
0
beejammer
beejammer
2 months ago

Neso said the cost of these would “increase significantly by 2030, up to an estimated £1 billion a year”, citing modelling by Imperial College London. …

Because we Imperial College London has a great track record at modelling things…..

7
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
2 months ago
Reply to  beejammer

£1B won’t touch the sides for that problem

1
0
coviture2020
coviture2020
2 months ago

Messianic dash to oblivion.
As yet I haven’t seen a cogent answer to what is the problem with global warming. I have seen lots of solutions purporting to prevent global warming but it seems to me that the solutions are, as if not ,more devastating than global warming itself.

1
0
CGW
CGW
2 months ago

The last two paragraphs of this article are devastating:

The Government’s National Risk Register found that it would take “a few days” to get a “skeletal network” of power back up and running.

It added: “Full restoration could take up to seven days, however, depending on the cause of failure and damage, restoration of critical services may take several months.”

Several months to restore critical services?!  What services and why months? Clearly, shameful incompetence.

Last edited 2 months ago by CGW
1
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
2 months ago
Reply to  CGW

I’d guess this would be linked to the amount of blown up equipment on the network that would need replacing – no doubt we have very limited stocks of replacement equipment, and very few manufacturers left who make it here…

1
0
Heretic
Heretic
2 months ago

There is also a terrorist element to these power blackouts, as discovered by independent journalist Andy Ngo. I wonder if George Soros-types are secretly funding these Antifa terrorist attacks?

Antifa Circulating Guide To Destroy Domestic Infrastructure

0
0

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