not many people know
Paul Homewood
We all knew this was going to happen, but the green blob turned a blind eye:
It’s a warning Ed Miliband doesn’t want to hear.
Energy giant EDF has discussed plans to close four of the UK's five remaining nuclear power stations just days after the energy secretary pledged at Labour's annual conference to deliver low-carbon electricity for all.
Currently, two of them are scheduled to close in 2026 and the other two in 2028.
“They can't go on forever,” said Rachael Glaeving, commercial director of EDF's UK operations.
“Extension of the life of these power stations will take several months.”
The decision, announced after a thorough engineering review, will make Miliband's dream even more difficult. He has promised a net-zero grid by 2030, although in reality this is expected to mean 95% green energy, with the remainder coming from burning natural gas.
Ultimately, if the government succeeds Estimated construction scale of wind and solar farmsit can bring abundant energy.
But in the short term, some worry that the breakneck pace of change could push the grid to its limits. September, The country's last coal-fired power station closes at Saltcliffe in Nottinghamshire.
As the UK's reactor fleet shrinks, nuclear power capacity will fall from the current 6 gigawatts (GW) to just 1.2 GW by 2028 or shortly thereafter. As the demand for power-hungry data centers and future technologies continues to grow, it becomes more difficult to keep the power supplied when wind and solar generation is low.
Against this backdrop, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the new nationalized grid regulator, is turning to households and businesses to help balance the system.
Last week, it announced full-year plans to manage demand through Pay consumers to reduce electricity use In times of tight supply.
So-called demand elasticity services are seen as a forward-looking way to manage increasingly complex and “smart” systems as we move from using a small number of large coal and gas-fired power plants to relying on a plethora of intermittent power plants. —Battery-backed, Giant energy storage flywheelinterconnectors and other gadgets.
Yet some critics warn it all looks eerily similar to rationing, especially as electricity production continues to decline.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/13/why-age-of-energy-rationing-is-looming-for-britain
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