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.”
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