not many people know
Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Experts have warned that the UK remains “extremely vulnerable” to future energy crises.
The UK's high reliance on natural gas for heating and electricity makes us more vulnerable to market price fluctuations than other European countries, a committee set up by the Department for Energy, the Citizens' Advice Council and the Confederation of British Industry said.
The report comes hours after backup systems designed to prevent power outages were activated for the first time in two years as UK power grid struggles with low winds and nuclear blackouts.
Just after midday on Monday, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a surprise capacity market notice, warning UK generators.
It tells generators to be ready to provide online backup systems for power 4:30 p.m. Peak demand There are concerns that backup power capacity has become unacceptably small compared to demand.
However, the notice was later withdrawn after 2pm.
A report by the Energy Crisis Commission on Tuesday found that the UK is “ill-prepared” for an energy crisis in 2021 and 2022, when the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and Russia's invasion of Ukraine push up gas prices.
A typical household's annual bills are likely to rise from around £2,000 a year to £3,500 a year before the government promises massive £150bn of intervention.
Ultimately, fees are capped at £2,500 per year. But even this has had “catastrophic” consequences for poor households, with nine in 10 reducing their energy use and 7.5 million households falling into fuel poverty, the commission found.
Meanwhile, one in ten businesses has been forced to temporarily cease operations to avoid being hit by eye-watering energy costs.
The committee found that the impact of rising prices could be cushioned if more homes were properly insulated and the UK had more gas storage capacity.
They also say the government has spent more than it needed due to poorly designed support programs and years of lack of investment in infrastructure such as gas storage.
“Lowering everyone's bills in the coming years and decades means reducing our reliance on natural gas and its fluctuating prices; increasing the production and distribution of clean, indigenous electricity; and enabling us to More homes and businesses become more energy efficient.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/14/blackout-prevention-plan-activated-britain
I just can't understand why the Citizens' Advisory Committee co-wrote this report.
None of them seemed aware of the contradiction in calling for more renewable energy, as the intermittency of wind power prompted blackout warnings earlier this week.
They recommend more insulation but don't bother doing a cost/benefit analysis to see if it's really worth it. They also didn't say who should pay for it.
By far the biggest factor in our high reliance on natural gas is the forced shutdown of all of our coal power capacity. It’s not too late to build a fleet of new ultra-clean coal-fired power plants, as Germany has been doing. It is worth noting that in Germany, coal accounts for 16% of primary energy consumption, while in Germany this proportion is only 3%. On the contrary, natural gas accounts for 33% of our total energy, compared with 24% in Germany.
They are calling for more gas storage, which seems illogical since net zero would shut down gas anyway. Regardless, the value of rough storage facilities has always been overstated; with a capacity of 100 bcf, it can only meet demand for about 16 days. This will have no impact on gas prices in 2021/22.
Finally it should be noted that even with gas prices surging in 2022, we are still paying CFD subsidies to renewable energy. In other words, renewable energy is still more expensive than natural gas generation.
In any case, you don't plan your energy policy around the possibility that there might be a war somewhere in the world at some point in the future.
https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd- Generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions
Natural gas prices may fluctuate, but renewable energy will give us permanently higher prices.
Footnote
At least Jim Watson admits that if we invest in more renewable energy, electricity bills will rise:
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Relevant
