Hydro Balancing Wind in the UK
So why is the UK not using indigenous hydro to balance wind choosing instead to make curtailment payments to wind producers when the wind blows too much? I don't know the answer. I suspect that turning...
View ArticleNorth Sea Oil and Scottish Independence: where does the truth lie?
How wealthy will oil make Scotland? In 2013, the direct tax take from oil and gas production for the whole of the UK was £4.67 billion and falling. This compares with annual spending of the Scottish...
View ArticleBlowout week 38
This edition of blowout comes from the still United Kingdom. 22 stories in all, about half of those from Roger. Continue reading →
View ArticleUK Wind Power in The Doldrums
The lack of wind in the UK this year has already been in the news resulting in poor performance of UK wind farms. UK wind now has 11.2 GW [1] of installed capacity amounting to 13.5% of total...
View ArticleKeeping the Lights On
I was invited to attend the annual “Global Warming Policy Foundation’s” annual lecture delivered by The Rt Honorable Owen Paterson MP on the evening of Wednesday 15th October and decided to blow last...
View ArticleA Beginners Guide to Blackouts
Blackouts were a time of excitement where whole towns went black, citizens reached for their candles and crooks reached for their crow bars. Continue reading →
View ArticleEuropean and UK Gas Security
Will the Lights be on at Christmas? Almost certainly yes. The biggest blackout risk will come later in the New Year at around tea time on a weekday in February or early March. The weather poses one of...
View ArticleUK Electricity Interconnectors – a Double-Edged Sword
The UK’s energy plan assumes that more interconnectors will contribute to future energy security by allowing power surpluses on the Continent to be delivered to UK when power is in short supply. And...
View ArticleGridwatch UK December 2014
This is the first in what I hope will become a monthly series chronicling the UK generation statistics from BM reports and Gridwatch that will be archived on the main menu bar above. As the database...
View ArticleUK hits minus 13˚C and wind hits “zero” output
At 14:05 on 19th January the output from the UK's 11.99 GW fleet of wind turbines dropped to 0.191 GW. This is effectively zero and it's hard to believe it could get so low given that 4 GW are off...
View ArticleElectricity Supply – Driven by Politics at the Customers’ Expense?
As a spokesman and lobbyist for the electricity sector for many years, I used to describe electricity supply as ‘vital’. But, that under-valued it and as Bill Shankly might have said, ‘Listen, it's...
View ArticleThe Changing Face of UK Power Supply
There are four main points to me made from this post: 1) Dispatchable capacity in the UK has declined 2.1GW since 2004 which is not a material difference since electricity demand has also fallen in...
View ArticleUK Wind Farm Constraint Payments
Constraint payments for UK windfarms occasionally hit the headlines. At times when there is more wind electricity being generated than the UK grid can handle, wind producers are paid to disconnect from...
View ArticleUK Solar PV Vital Statistics
The UK National Grid publishes model data for solar production in the UK so we can get an idea how much electricity all those roof mounted panels produce. The model data are published with 30 minute...
View ArticleWind Blowing Nowhere – Again
The central question lies in the wisdom of distributed power generation. Generating your own wind power down on the farm or solar power on your two bedroom semi's roof may sound like a great back to...
View ArticleA Big Gale
With the UK Met Office starting to name storms it is refreshing to see that there is at least one person who works there that has a sense of humour. Wind blowing nowhere is now giving way to the winter...
View ArticleUK Blackout Risk – Amber Warning
In recent months, three companies have announced closure of 4 large coal-fired power stations in the UK representing a total loss of 6.671 GW base load capacity*. Combined with closure of 1 nuclear...
View ArticleAn Energy Plan for France and the UK
Environmental activist group Bellona report that President Hollande wishes to reduce France's dependency on nuclear power. It suddenly struck me that France will have nuclear power stations that it no...
View ArticleDecarbonising UK Power Generation – The Nuclear Option
How to decarbonise UK Power generation is a topic of heated debate, with renewables enthusiasts often keen to argue that there are a range of obstacles to the use of nuclear generation to meet more...
View ArticleCan the UK meet the fifth carbon budget?
The UK’s fifth carbon budget calls for a 57% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to 1990 levels by 2028-2032. This post evaluates whether this goal is achievable and concludes that at...
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