National Grid scrambles to secure enough power to keep lights on amid nuclear fleet outage

Tuesday, 29 November 2022

National Grid has narrowly avoided activating its emergency blackout plan for the first time this winter as low wind speeds and nuclear outages push supply closer to the danger zone.

The company in charge of keeping the lights on said on Monday morning that it may need to pay households to switch appliances off during tea-time on Tuesday evening because of a looming power crunch.

By Monday afternoon it said the unprecedented action would not be necessary after surging power prices in the UK helped pull supply from the continent.

However, the tightness of the market at this stage in the year raises questions over market resilience. The electricity network has traditionally smoothed out peaks and troughs in demand with gas and coal but Britain’s power supplies increasingly depend on intermittent wind speeds as the West shifts away from fossil fuels and Russia chokes off gas supplies to Europe.

There have been fears about blackouts this winter due to the loss of Russian fuel, as well as outages on France’s nuclear fleet, which has traditionally supplied power to the UK in times of need.In October, National Grid warned of the prospect of rolling blackouts in the UK if gas-fired power plants cannot get enough fuel to run and the UK cannot import power from the continent.

In response, the Grid set up its so-called “demand flexibility scheme” under which it will pay households to curb demand at peak times.

Households will need to have signed up with their supplier beforehand to get payments of ￡3 per kilowatt-hour of electricity saved - potentially yielding up to ￡20 per day if they cut their typical energy usage.

Monday’s notice that the scheme may be called upon is the first time it has been seriously considered.This week’s problems are not as a result of gas shortages. Instead, National Grid was faced with forecasts of colder weather on top of low wind speeds on Tuesday evening, as well as lower output from both the French and UK nuclear fleet, which ware both owned by EDF.

Several of France’s nuclear stations are offline due to maintenance or corrosion problems, which affects the UK’s power supplies as France has less to export and also needs imports.

Cold weather in France creates a particular pull on electricity supplies as so many of their homes are heated with electric heaters, rather than gas-fired boilers.

Meanwhile, two large ageing nuclear power stations in the UK have shut down this year and two reactors are down for maintenance, one for longer than planned.

Wind speeds in the UK were particularly low on Monday and are expected to increase on Tuesday, but will still be below seasonal averages.

National Grid ultimately decided it did not need to enlist households to curb demand after Britain secured enough orders for tomorrow evening from France, which in turn is importing more power from elsewhere.

Phil Hewitt, director at market specialist EnAppSys, said: “[France] is taking power from Spain, Germany, a bit from Switzerland and some from Belgium, and they are sending it across the cables to us.

“They’re actually scheduled to import power from Italy, which is very rare. So power from Europe is going to route through France and into Britain.

”This has been managed through high prices in Britain, however. Prices in Britain for tomorrow’s peak are ￡1,066.47-￡1,205.70 per megawatt hour, compared to ￡418.89 per megawatt hour in France, Belgium and Holland.

Mr Hewitt believes it is now highly likely that, before winter is over, National Grid will need to use its new scheme under which households are paid to curb demand at peak times.

Source: The Telegraph