Businesses will be offered compensation to shut down for four hours a day
National Grid had planned to introduce this measure in winter of 2015
Fires and other setbacks put some of UK’s biggest generators out of service
Two nuclear power plants are offline and unlikely to be running in time for
start of colder weather
National Grid has a budget of £800million to control supply and demand
within the power network
By Peter Campbell
Emergency measures will be introduced to prevent the lights going out this
winter.
Offices and factories will be offered compensation to undergo 1970s-style
energy rationing and shut down for up to four hours a day to prevent
households being plunged into darkness.
In addition, owners of old power stations will be asked to switch them back
on to meet the country’s demands.
National Grid had not planned to use this option until next winter. But
yesterday it revealed a series of fires and setbacks had knocked some of
the UK’s biggest generators out of service. Two nuclear power plants are
also offline, and are unlikely to be running in time for the start of the
colder weather.
Fires at coal stations in Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire and Ironbridge,
Shropshire, have put the sites out of action, while a gas station in
Barking, Essex, has been closed since the summer.
Industry regulator Ofgem welcomed the measures. It has already warned that
the gap between household demand for energy and the amount our power
stations can supply is dangerously low.
Under the powers, businesses that sign up will be ‘bribed’ to shut down
between 4pm and 8pm on any day between November and February.
They will be paid a retainer during the four months, even if they are never
called on to close early. If they do shut down, they will be paid above the
market rate for electricity they do not use.
The second measure, which has never before been used in Britain, would see
the resurrection of power stations that have been closed but not yet
dismantled. National Grid yesterday contacted the owners of recently closed
plants to see if they could be running in time for winter.
The majority of these are gas stations, though it is believed some coal or
oil plants could also be asked to take part.
The National Grid’s strategy to reuse resources
Plant owners would be paid the costs of resurrecting their stations – which
could run into tens of millions of pounds. Once running, they would be
required to be available between 6am and 8pm between November and February.
They will also be paid more than the market rate for their electricity by
National Grid, which said yesterday that both measures would be used only
as a ‘last resort’.
National Grid, which has a budget of £800million to control supply and
demand within the power network, added that the measures would add only £1
to household bills.
Energy analyst Angelos Anastasiou, of Whitman Howard bank, said the
measures were ‘unprecedented’. He added: ‘It would cost quite a bit. You
would need to get a lot of staff back on site, and would need out carry out
trials before you can get it up and running. It could run into tens of
millions, depending how many stations you needed to bring back.’
With Britain’s economy on the mend, demand for energy is set to increase as
manufacturing grows and businesses expand.
Factory output has risen steadily in the past year, and manufacturing
growth in 2014 is expected to be the fastest since 2010.
Analyst Peter Atherton at Liberum Capital said the past three winters had
seen almost all of the UK’s power stations running smoothly, which had
lulled regulators and ministers into a false sense of security.
He added: ‘The Government has been crossing its fingers and hoping that
it’s all fine. It’s blindingly obvious that if you have a tight market then
you will be more vulnerable to shocks.’
An Ofgem spokesman said: ‘We are confident that National Grid has the right
levers to keep the lights on.
‘However, no electricity system anywhere in the world can give a 100 per
cent guarantee that the lights will stay on.’
‘It would cost quite a bit.’
1970s – THE DECADE THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
Britain under Edward Heath was a very different place to the Britain of today.
On January 1, 1974, due to industrial action by coal miners and the 1973
oil crisis, Mr Heath introduced the Three-Day Week whereby commercial users
of electricity were limited to three specified consecutive days’
consumption each week.
Services deemed essential (e.g. hospitals, supermarkets and newspapers)
were exempt. Homeowners faced a three-hour on, three-hour off electricity
supply and television stations (BBC 1, BBC 2 and the various ITV regions)
went off air at 10.30pm to conserve electricity.
During the Three-Day Week, Mr Heath called a General Election running under
the slogan ‘Who Governs Britain?’. It turned out not to be him and Labour’s
Harold Wilson was returned to Number 10.
The normal working week was restored on 8 March, but other restrictions on
the use of electricity remained in force.
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