Solar panels are overheating amid soaring temperatures, leading to gas power stations across the UK being ordered to fire up production to make up the shortfall. The Telegraph has the story.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a rare summer power supply warning overnight as the country braces for temperatures near 40°C on Wednesday and Thursday.
Gas plants have been urged to ramp up output to deal with high levels of demand expected on Wednesday night as homes and offices turn up the air conditioning to endure the heatwave.
The notice comes as soaring temperatures make Britain’s solar farms less efficient, putting further strain on the power grid. Solar panel efficiency typically drops by 0.3% to 0.5% for every degree that a panel’s temperature rises above 25°C.
Noemie Baud, from energy consultancy Montel, said: “Higher demand for air conditioning and cooling systems is contributing to the increase [in power demand], while lower outputs from solar and gas generation means more conventional generation is required to meet demand, pushing up prices.”
Data from the UK’s grid network showed gas generation jumped from around eight gigawatts at 12pm on Tuesday, to more than 17 gigawatts overnight.
More than half of Britain’s power needs were being supplied by gas on Wednesday morning, with wind generating around 12% and solar less than 10%.
“Our forecasts are showing tight margins on the electricity system for tomorrow evening,” Neso said on Tuesday night. “This is due to the impact of extremely high temperatures affecting Great Britain and the Continent and low wind.”
Britain was facing a 1.9 gigawatt shortfall in its “margin” for Wednesday night – the buffer between available power generation and total consumer demand – according to an alert at 9pm on Tuesday from Elexon, the company that manages the electricity trades that keep Britain’s lights on.
The alert signals to Britain’s gas power plants and other suppliers to start generating more energy to meet the expected demand and is not a sign that blackouts are imminent.
Worth reading in full.
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This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBYbodmCBUQ&t=628s from FOUR years ago shows a house in Canada being fitted with solar panels that also have channels in them to heat water which is then passed through a heat exchanger to start to heat up the water in the house’ boiler.
Why aren’t this type of panel in use all over the country by now? The panels are made in China like all the rest, Or is it because the system is too expensive / sensible (well as sensible as panels in a temperate country are anyway) to allow a decent return (profit for shareholders) to be viable?
“Data from the UK’s grid network showed gas generation jumped from around eight gigawatts at 12pm on Tuesday, to more than 17 gigawatts overnight”…
No suprise as PV panels perform badly at night – night idea why but I expect an expert could explain! At 9.45am they are currently running at 6.5 gw so this will have to be replaced by 8pm with batteries and fairy dust ..and of course our faithful gas turbines.
If global boiling gets worse then solar as a solution will be ineffective. Whod have thunk it Ed?
Interesting… Are these panels substantially different from those in locations where temperatures, such as we are experiencing at the moment, are the norm?
If I had solar panels on the roof of my house I would be extremely concerned at the prospect of them possibly and suddenly bursting into flames.
Don’t worry, they’ll be nice and cool overnight and ready to keep supplying electricity from all those dark photons.
Oh, wait…!
“….and is not a sign that blackouts are imminent.”
Defo not.
This is great 😂
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/24/heatwave-great-britain-grid-operator-extra-electricity-power-plants
Strange that there’s no mention of solar panels problems when the sun shines too much it would seem.
Have you seen where today’s record breaking temperature was recorded? It’s not Heathrow for once, instead it’s the highly rural village of Charlwood in Surrey. Which is right next to Gatwick.
I thought that they’d select Kew Gardens again, next to the hot houses which I guess are dumping out a lot of hot air.
Yes, it’s the wrong kind of sunshine, obviously.
Caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming, obviously.
Because carbon.
Ode to Schadenfreude! Oh, the glorious irony of it. No longer is Dunkelflaute the only bogeyman, there’s a new summer hobgoblin in the block: Hitzeflaute.
Hate them. Birds dive at them thinking that they are water. Hope they all melt.
So… the more solar energy incident on solar panels, the less electrical energy is output? And they can’t cope with the heat.
Excellent.
Like wind turbines, the more energy incident on the turbine blades, a point is reached where the electrical output drops to zero, in fact goes negative as electric power is drawn from the grid to brake and feather the blades to avoid damage.
When we hear about covering the Sahara – where it is typically twice as hit as here, with virtually uninterrupted fierce sunlight – with solar arrays and loads of “free” electricity being transmitted by interconnectors, what are we to think?
And thus the ruination of our energy security.
Ruinables – not “renewables”.
Can’t they just power the wind turbines to move the air and act as giant fans?
kev… I thought exactly that. Maybe sprinkle some wind turbines amongst the solar farms//
If the shadows of the turbines pass over the solar cells they will produce even less useful output.
You’ve invented the perpetual motion machine. Have a KitKat
So, solar panels don’t work well in the height of summer, and don’t work well in the depths of winter in the UK. And of course they don’t work at night. Seems to be some fundamental issues here.
It odd that coal fired power stations (which work well all the year round) aren’t being encouraged more. China, India and Germany all love them as they are building new ones.
Add in battery issues, replacement costs, chemical leeching, eco-destruction, massive subsidies, the fraud and corruption….and what is not to love if you are Millipede and your average insane globalist?
One can only hope that Ed Milliband and the rest of the Labour Cabinet are slowly marinading uncomfortably in their own net zero induced sweat.
But I suspect they are all in air conditioned splendour.
However isn’t it an Oxymoron Ed that Solar Panels cannot work because there is too much sun, I wonder how much turning on the old Gas fired power stations is costing us Gammons so that you can play at being God.
Ha bloody ha. You just couldn’t make it up.
That’s hit the nail right on the thumb.
All solar panels become less efficient as the temperature rises. The ones on my roof are around 25% down compared with their rated peak output on account of the heat today, so no doubt the “solar farm” ones are just the same.
I understand that the current crop of cheaply designed panels also feature cell by cell conductors that are barely adequate for design temperatures of 25degC and the raised panel temperatures through only around 70% conversion of incident light to electricity are exacerbated by resistive losses which create higher temperatures etc.
Fascinating article about the shortcomings of renewables again, Will. As any fan of motor sport knows, air temperature is a fraction of track temperature as the black asphalt soaks up the sun’s rays and just gets hotter and hotter. You refer to the drop in efficiency as the surface temperature of a panel goes above 25°. Presumably with an air temperature in the shade of 35-40°, the surface temperature of a panel cold be two or three times that, which would indicate a power drop of over 25%. How do solar farms in areas of permanent heat cope or is this just a peculiarity of the UK, like buckling railways in the summer and frost cracking roads in the winter?
Heat is also generated within the panels since conversion of solar into electric energy is not perfect and energy is lost as heat.
In hot Countries the problem is addressed in a number of ways: much larger arrays but with lower conversion factors, increased ventilation by building the arrays higher from the ground for better air-flow, and in some cases use of cooling apparatus.
It’s all a very silly and expensive way to produce grid scale electricity, when coal and gas are much more efficient and give continuous output.
But… save the planet.
Easy to fix, put them in the shade
Instal air conditioning in the fields.
Maybe some very large umbrellas to shield them from the sun?
You beat me to it damn you 😆