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Today Net Zero Watch has published a new report I’ve written on the risks of blackouts in the GB power market. The report was primarily drafted late last year but sections were re-written after the near-miss on 8 January which brought home the risks of the current policy trajectory.
“Ed Miliband’s green delusions are going to be disastrous. He and his officials need to get serious about the cost and security of our energy system,”
– Nick Timothy, shadow energy minister
The 8 January event was not the only incident this winter, but it is by far the most serious. On 14 October 2024, the grid saw the first Capacity Market Notice (“CMN”) in two years (there were further such notices on 3 December 2024 and 8 January 2025). This was despite NESO determining in its Winter Outlook that the spare capacity margin for this winter would be higher than in recent years.
“The current Base Case de-rated margin is 5.2 GW (representing 8.8% of peak cold spell demand). The associated loss of load expectation (“LOLE”) is below 0.1 hours. This is higher than the 4.4 GW (7.4%) published in the Winter Outlook Report for 2023/24 and remains comparable to the Early View published in June. The higher year-on-year margin is driven by new interconnection, growth in battery storage capacity and an increase in generation connected to the distribution networks. In combination, these changes more than offset generation retirements and other temporary capacity reductions.”
– National Energy System Operator
A CMN is issued when it is deemed that the spare generation capacity available, over expected demand, falls below 500 MW. In order to resolve the market tightness on 8 October 2024, NESO was obliged to procure up to 5 GW of capacity over the interconnectors, at a cost of around £13 million. On 8 January 2025, it was even more expensive to keep the lights on, with more than £21 million being spent on balancing actions, before accounting for the cost of the Viking interconnector trade which was still not public as of the Operational Transparency Forum call last Wednesday (and apparently the price had yet to be agreed with Energinet). On the same day, there were also three Electricity Margin Notices (“EMNs”), which are issued when the market is tight, as a warning that special measures may be needed to secure the system.
NESO continues to dispute the tightness that day, insisting that it had 3.7 GW of “headroom”, but this rather begs the question why it was necessary to issue EMNs and CMNs, or pay Rye House £5,500 /MWh in the Balancing Mechanism, or enter a deal with NO PRE-AGREED PRICE to buy electricity from Denmark over the 700 MW of Viking which came back early from maintenance. Replies these questions have not been forthcoming other than vague references to “market uncertainty”.
On 8 October, 28 October and 20 November 2024 frequency events were triggered, when large interconnectors unexpectedly stopped flowing, leading to NESO’s operating frequency tolerance being breached. More worryingly, recent years have seen frequency drift outside these operational limits hundreds of times a year, even without the loss of a major source of supply like a generator or an interconnector.
In addition, there was an extended period of dunkelflaute in early November, where renewable generation was minimal and the country relied on large amounts of gas-fired generation to meet demand. It lasted for five days, far longer than the capacity of any batteries available in GB to operate. Cutting edge chemical batteries, which are not yet operational, may last for 100 hours – the average of the current fleet of GB batteries is around 1.5 – 2.0 hours. Other technologies, such as pumped hydro, have the capacity to run for longer, but GB lacks the geography to build enough of these facilities to cover a dunkelflaute. Dinorwig, Europe’s largest pumped hydro power station, located in Wales, has the ability to run for five hours.
As the energy transition progresses, and the Government pushes on to its Clean Power 2030 ambition, the risk of blackouts will rise. These become significant from the winter of 2027–28 onwards, as nuclear retirements and a push to replace conventional gas generation with intermittent wind and solar, alongside possible effects of electrification, stress the electricity grid, potentially to breaking point.
There is a small glimmer of hope in the recent announcement from EDF that it hopes potentially all of the AGRs could run for longer and possibly into the 2030s. This would require a change of approach from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (“ONR”) in relation to the graphite issue, but as I have outlined before, the current approach does not reflect a sensible approach to risk management in that ONR requires that 100% of the control rods must be capable of being deployed in the event of a 1 in 10,000 year earthquake (10 times stronger than the largest earthquake in British history) despite the fact that only 15% of the control rods are needed to stop the reaction and there are two backup shutdown methods should the control rods fail for any reason.
Hopefully ONR will adjust its approach since this is not a risk-neutral decision: winter blackouts would likely cause fatalities, and if these can be avoided by extending the lives of the AGRs then ONR would be irresponsible to force them to close: deaths from blackouts caused in part due to the premature closure or delayed opening of nuclear reactors are every bit as damaging as deaths from radiation.
There’s a way to go before any new nuclear extensions are secured, and it is important to recognise that without these extensions the power grid is going to look very shaky by Winter 2027. The cancellation of one of the new CCGTs at Eggborough also does not help, nor does the uncertainty around the futures of the Drax and Lynemouth biomass plants once their CfDs expire in 2027.
The only real way to secure the GB power grid to the end of the decade is to build more gas-fired generation. No other form of dispatchable generation can be built quickly enough. Unfortunately, there are no signs of the Government recognising the risks presented by its Clean Power 2030 Plan – indeed, the word is that Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, refuses to meet with, never mind listen to, anyone that does not share his wind and solar ideology. Allegedly. He has dismissed all suggestions that the Plan is unachievable by stating that NESO (which is now part of the civil service, and whose sole shareholder is Mr Miliband!) believes that it is. Hardly comforting.
I will also re-link my UnHerd interview on the subject of blackout risks.
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