By David Watson
CAN the UK help meet the Paris Agreement objectives?
Electricity security in our country is currently in a parlous state, fast
approaching the edge and the “Houston we have a problem” moment is here.
Ofgem and the National Grid Company predict no more than 1.2 per cent to
two per cent margin of capacity over demand and only eight per cent if our
interlinks to France and Netherlands are importing at maximum capacity this
winter. The French are not guaranteeing this level of availability.
In the United States spare capacity is required by law to be 15 per cent
daily.
In November, the World Energy Council (WEC) which is UN accredited to
assess countries’ Energy Trilemma comprising environmental sustainability,
energy equity and energy security, has reduced the UK electricity supply
rating from AAA to AAB as a first step, commenting: “The UK faces
significant challenges in securing energy supply”. WEC, having reduced our
energy security score to one-third of its assessed level in 2013 expects it
to fall further and concludes by advising that “tightening capacity has put
UK on its ‘watch list'”.
The International Energy Agency in its November report advises that
“incidents that led the National Grid Company to using the ‘last resort’ of
paying energy users to cut their demand would happen increasingly unless
investments in the infrastructure increased”
The 2001 EC Large Combustion Plant Directive was already determining
closure of around three-fifths of the UK coal-fired electricity output by
2025 – much in use to back up wind, before Westminster Energy Secretary
Amber Rudd last month declared that the Government would “close coal by
2025 and restrict its use by 2023 if we can shift to new gas by then”.
Her speech also confirmed the UK has a “higher percentage of our energy
from coal in 2014 than in 1999”, effectively confirming that wind
technology is not working, and reaffirmed closure of onshore wind subsidies.
Concurrent with closing coal all but one of our eight nuclear stations are
scheduled for retirement by 2023 and it is almost impossible that any new
nuclear can be brought on stream before then. This closure combination
means we need to replace more than 40 per cent of our present UK power
generation before 2023.
Gas power plants, with half of the carbon pollution of coal, can just about
be built within this time frame whereas any renewables more practical than
wind will not have matured enough for any nationally significant level of
deployment.
The National Grid Company (NGC) in its Future of Energy System Operability
Framework published lat month expresses great concern regarding the
progressive loss of crucial UK “system inertia” and reactive power
capability which follows with the closure of large generating stations,
limiting its ability to keep the frequency and voltage stable as wind
output varies and collapses.
Neither remaining wind, nor solar, nor planned future high voltage DC links
with England, will provide adequate reactive “wattless” power (called
MegaVARs) essential for prevention of network voltage collapse.
National Grid confirms it is also facing new severe “challenges” from the
rapid increase in Embedded Generation. This is another unanticipated
“whoops, wrong result” that followed the UK Government’s 2011 Capacity
Mechanism initiative to provide wind backup. Mostly units are diesel, which
is second only to coal in carbon pollution and their generation into the
low voltage parts of the network is already giving National Grid serious
“challenges” around stability, voltage recovery and demand prediction; plus
increasing “challenges in seeing and locating problems… particularly
frequency variations”. NGC identifies an urgent need for “more
comprehensive system modelling”.
The UK Institution of Engineering and Technolog,y the UK home of chartered
electrical engineers, in October identified strong concerns as to the
“significant modelling challenge” to deal “with the threats posed by
developments emerging in the GB power system”.
Among many recommendations, they urge appointing a “system architect” for
the UK electrical supply to quickly instigate “risk-focused modelling” to
“target the management of risks”.
The Herald recently exclusively carried, an assessment by the Institution
of Engineers and Shipbuilders (which has long advocated a full system
analysis and a legally empowered electricity system planning body) that
without the retention of at least two of the four generators at Longannet,
Scotland could need 36 hours to “blackstart” its grid following a major
collapse. Some in the profession talk of four or five days depending upon
cause
It’s sobering that, unlike the banking crisis, born of similar light
regulation, in our profession we cannot print electricity.
David Watson is a retired chartered electrical engineer with 35 years’
experience in international energy engineering projects.
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