Thursday
Sep042014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Blackouts inch closer
Sep 4, 2014 Energy: grid Energy: nuclear The Telegraph is reporting that the nuclear plants in Lancashire that EDF closed a few weeks ago will not now reopen until December at the earliest.
On Thursday [EDF] announced that the reactors, which produce enough power to meet more than 4pc of winter demand, would only be returned to service gradually between the end of October and late December.
“Dates for returning the stations to service depend on the findings and completion of the inspections,” EDF Energy said.
The delay leaves Britain facing the first months of winter with significantly less power capacity than had been expected to help keep the lights on.
Reader Comments (26)
In the good old days, when the electricity supply was run by engineers, we had a 20+% winter despatchable capacity margin that could cope with multiple plant failures or unavailability. Now that idiot politicians run things, we have no despatchable plant margin, just a load of wind farms and solar farms which are as much use as chocolate fireguards. Who will suffer - the politicians and the green parasites or the man in the street?
Miliband, Huhne, Davey and about 12 previous Labour energy ministers have a lot to answer for. Closing old power stations without building replacement ones is treasonous.
Ed Davey and the Green Taliban will not care.
They are saving the planet so the inconvenience of people freezing in a cold winter is not importamt.
"And the impending closure of an unprofitable gas plant" - somehow I think that their profitability will be "adjusted" for the coming winter.
Panic is starting because there is an election coming. I wonder if Ed Davey realises that it will take around 5 years to get out of this disaster.
Ever seen one of those documentaries where they walk you through a disaster? The solid voice of the commentator describes the points where key events set the final act. Ministers (possibly played by actors) admit they didn't understand the signficance of the briefs they received about the loss of capacity. Assure us that changes have been made. An energy press officer explains that Norway and Germany had successfully kept a lid on negotiations for a dominant share of the gas, leaving the UK generation and domestic sector with a shortfall. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away a war/epidemic/economic crash/mega storm was developing which couldn't have been pedicted and acts as the final catalyst...
CharmingQuark: "They are saving the planet..."
They are not 'saving the planet' in the 'green' sense. It is more the 'Pol Pot' sense (everyone back to the fields).
AGW is merely a means to an end for them. They laugh at us arguing the toss over CO2 and other 'scientific' points while they continue with their political goals. We sceptics are a distraction - to their benefit.
This 'debate' - fwiw - has to move onto a higher plane. We are dealing with very sophisticated minds who don't give a sh*t for humanity, only their own power and future control of the populace - and the improvement of their wealth (viz: Al Gore - who would not have prosecuted the AGW argument if it he thought it would leave him a poor man.)
By all means, prove the fallacy of the hypothesis (time will do it for us anyway), but understand the end game is not the improvement of the human condition when faced with warmageddon - it is the improvement of the megalomaniac elite. As ever was. [sigh]
They are possibly beginning to realise that the 'green energy' vice they have put their hand in has a lot more to tighten yet. The traditional power generators will drive a hard bargain.
Graeme No 3
5 years is also my estimate but only if there is a task force, fast track approach taken.
The relevant government agencies should be pulling together the necessary heads of the generation and distribution companies yesterday to develop a strategic and tactical plan.
One way to put the windmills to use would be to dismantle the ugly SOB's and re-task the generators and switchgear with diesel motive power as a stop gap measure.
Thank goodness Global Warming will help reduce winter heat demand.
If there are blackouts, guess who will be blamed?
Yep, the power companies. And the answer from the left will be: Nationalisation.
Jan 1974, everybody on 3 days except GS, we had one of the only capabilities to manufacture "stoker links", needed to bring on line the old moth balled coal fired units. The units had mega stocks of coal but somebody forgot the consumables.
So throughout the 3 months or so of 1974 nonsense we worked 7 days a week. Never seen the boss man so happy, more than made his life!
If you think we are better prepared now, enjoy your sleep! Might be dark when you awake!
Unless there is an Arctic winter there will be no blackouts this years thanks to STOR and other contingencies. However the spin machine will convince the public that in the event of any possible blackouts the blame can be firmly put at the technical problems associated with the out of action power plants. That's the way it works. Expect lies compounded by yet more lies.
Mike Singleton:
With the track record of "relevant government agencies" I would revise my estimate out to 27 years.
Agree that diesel is the only quick solution, but the next stage would have to be gas. Unfortunately combined heat and power units will probably be overlooked. Refurbishing those shut down coal fired stations shouldn't take 5 years, but I'm sure the greens will try to make sure that it does.
It may be simpler to just cut the wind farms off and mine them for minerals etc.
@ Paul
> ... the blame can be firmly put at the technical problems associated with the out of action power plants
Yes indeed. Coal/nuclear will be at fault
In the previous (ghastly) Aus Govt, when very sudden, large power bills turned up in people's post boxes as a result of CO2 taxes and green renewabubble subsidies, the MSM spin was suddenly about retail power companies "goldplating" the poles and wires to prevent power losses from the "rich" luxuriating in expensive domestic air conditioning
Power cuts on the lead up to the 2015 General Election then Cameron, Milli and Davey will care.
Nothing like a lost deposit to focus the mind of a politician.
They will have to take the old coal fired power stations out of mothballs.Recarbonize for Winter.
Relight My Fire by Take That from the BBC music library will obviously play along to the news reports.
STOR increases fossil fuel use for the windmill tranche of electricity generation compared with modern coal fired power stations and no windmills.
The reason is that diesel generators are less than half the thermodynamic efficiency and as the windmills save at best 3% fossil fuel use up to 10% grid 'penetration', zero above that, the system ends up with lower overall thermodynamic efficiency; fuel to electricity.
The people who run DECC are now criminally responsible for the extra winter deaths from energy starvation of the old and vulnerable. Prosecutions are needed to stop this crime from continuing.
Stuck Record
Exactly what I thought. Labour tries to Nationalise the energy companies.
I think it is worth our host posting something about this. Or even get a journalist to put this into the greater public mindset. Otherwise the rug will be pulled out before anyone notices.
And then we are properly f------
turnedoutnice:
The claim that wind turbines reduce emissions really only applies to coal fired station, and older ones at that.
The shortfall in output from wind has to be taken up by fast acting fuel burners e.g. OCGT, diesel (and on a small household scale by wood or coal fires). [ Hydro not an option in the UK, although it didn't do much good for Denmark ]
Given the emissions from a diesel are similar to a lignite coal station around 1000-1200 kg. per MWh, and modern CCGT run around 400, a wind turbine has to run at a capacity factor of 33% at best (and 50% for the upper diesel figure) just to match the gas plant. Let me know if you can find one in the UK that manages that year in and year out.
If the greens get rid of all the coal stations as they want, then the combination of wind and fast acting backup would be the highest emission choice.
Thank you Graeme for your contribution: Davey was reportedly told in 2012 by MacKay, his Chief Scientist, that Diesel STOR would not save CO2 emissions and the only fast acting back up plant which would save CO2 emissions for the UK was pump storage. Davey over-rode his advisor. The windmills are a political fashion statement, diesel doing most power production. Perhaps we should consider charging Davey with Malfeasance in Public Office.
Harry Passfield
Couldn't have put it better myself. Essentially I've been saying pretty much the same thing for years.
"It's not about the science; it's about the politics. And always was"
Jamspid wrote:
"They will have to take the old coal fired power stations out of mothballs.Recarbonize for Winter."
I think it might be too late. For example I think Cockenzie is being/has been dismantled.
From the National Grid website:-
"National Grid need to access to sources of extra power in the form of either generation or demand reduction, to be able to deal with unforeseen demand increase and/or generation unavailability. These additional power sources available to National Grid are referred to as Reserve and comprise synchronised and non-synchronised sources. Different sources require different timescales in order to be ready to deliver the services. In this section Reserve Services are listed on an increasing timescale of getting in the state of readiness as illustrated below".
The site describes in detail the criteria and procedures for qualification, activation and payment for Short Term Operating Reserve - STOR- ( suppliers who can put synchronised power into the grid at four hours notice ) and Fast Reserve Suppliers ( suppliers who can put power into the grid at two minutes notice) but I could not find anything on the website that shows the Demand side Management criteria, procedures and/or payments .
The National Grid is confident that there will be a requirement back up generating capacity over and above the existing fleets of large scale power generators ( coal, gas, nuclear and wind,) It is hard to see how anything other than pumped storage and diesel gen-sets could meet the criteria for a two minute response. I wonder if they will disclose how much power generated by diesel they buy.
They also expect to be able to cut off certain users to reduce demand. Have these users already volunteered or will they be selected by National Grid for involuntary cut off? Will these users be compensated for their demand being curtailed. Will National Grid disclose how much power is saved by Demand Management?
Most green economics is based on the expectation that the fairies will leave big bags of money at the bottom of the garden. it seems likely that they think any shortfall in supply from wind turbines will be covered from the same source.
JAMSTEC predicts a warmer than average winter for the UK but a much below normal spring 2015.
I'm still wondering why we aren't using solid oxide fuel cells for backup or even for local primary sources. They are 60 to 80% efficient and silent. Well ok they are a little bit pricey now for individual homeowners (around 20k for 4 houses worth of electricity) but certainly not outrageous and anyone who can purchase in bulk could surely hammer out a good deal.
When a generation system is pushed to the limit with low spinning reserve the probability of a cascading outage increases significantly. If the reserve is truly down to 5% and I was in charge of the system my piles would be itching, I would be very worried.
Re-firing mothballed plants can be a nightmare of a job, no matter how well the plant was mothballed. Reliability will likely be lower than normal expectation for at least the first 6 months.
Germany might well be short of power this winter -- too much reliance on renewables, Russian gas etc. Same with Belgium. We get about 2.5GW fairly continuously from France and Holland. Any bets how that will work out when the chips are down?
Maybe we can actually rely on 2.5GW less than we think. So the margin is... what, zero?
JF