Energy news in general

Chrysalis

QrizB said:

Apparently yesterday was quite an exciting day on the balancing market:

https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/30/high-wind-and-forecasting-errors-cause-havoc-on-the-gb-grid/

I know there are a couple of regulars on this thread who have had differences of opinion over that blog's take on things in the past. It would be good to hear any insights you might have regarding yesterday's events?

I dont know if related, Octopus offered me a saving session today with just a mere 4 hours notice.

Also just skim read the article, seems grid constraints rears its head again, thats a real issue that needs sorting out.

Scot_39

Also just skim read the article, seems grid constraints rears its head again, thats a real issue that needs sorting out.

There are known  bottlenecks and although many regions are interconnected on the national grid - the capacity on those connections is limited - and really long distance AC transmission can also be problamtic - so HVDC can be needed / preferable over just a few 100 miles anyways.

And why grid companies are forecast to spend between £55bn and £77bn in next fivevyears to link up new wind and solarvfarms and improve capacity.

Probably the most severe problem for renewables is from Scotland south.  Why - simple geographic distribution.  Scotland - had around 48% of wind generation capacity - when UK hit it's 30GW installed milestone -  last Aug when Shetlands new (with new - SSEN given location ?? - c155m 600 MW hvdc link to mainland) expanded 443 MW Viking came on stream.  Over 14 GW - for 8% of the populations share of current c40GW peak demand - so maybe 4-5GW in winter.  There was when last read another 6GW already in pipeline. So over 20GW.

Why Ofgem have authorised likes of WGL1 2GW HVDC link now operational  in past - and EGL1 and 2 currenly now in progress - at a combined estimated cost of c£6bn - to help move another 4GW south. (And that relies on secondary connections to feed the Scottish ends at least at further costs)

And that may not even be inflation adjusted true cost today (and iirc sure read took nearly 2 years and that accumulated around £1bn in extra costs for final Ofgem approval on EGL2 last year).

And plans for EGL3 and EGL4 are in earlier stages - for another 2x2 = 4GW capacity.

At one stage the largest farm at time - Seagreen off Angus - cables landed ashore near Carnoustie - was along with others - rumoured to be regularly earning more in constraint payments than supply (taking c40% of Scotlands total GWh constraint payments at one stage for its 1.1GW capacity).

Planning madness.  That we pay for in our bills.
49% owned by SSE Group who are also transport (TNO upper grid) and distribution (dno) network operators in N Scotland. 
 

The combined total wind farm constraints reportedly increased to nearly £400m a year across all Scotlands wind farms as part of UKs'  £1bn plus total payments to renewables.  Or over £30 on ave per each c31m connections.

As to the thermal - planners are well aware of the problem and have modeled it's growth and planned to halt it and reduce eventually in place.

Before split out - the NG ESO a while back - as now NESO ? - forecast for thermal constraint alone - to peak at c£3bn pa by 2030 (over £100 per).

And specifically highlighted over £400m of the forecast price reduction after that peak - contingent on both EGL1 and 2 being onstream in 2029.  

That was iirc before EGL2 got final approval from Ofgem late 2024 iirc - as was NG ESO documentation - not NESO which split off roughly same time.

As a comparison - to ehl2 5 yr deadline - The Norway North Sea HVDC link completed c2021 - took iirc 6 years to build.

Phones4Chris

mmmmikey said:

This has the potential to be contentious

BBC News - Lower energy costs make retirement less expensive - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj42022gqzwo

So basically it seems to confirm the WFA is not really needed universally and standing charges are not the big issue with old folk that we thought.....

Certainly is contentious, since when in recent times have you known the BBC to report certain things fairly 

Ildhund said:

mmmmikey said:

...  the WFA is not really needed universally ...

I've been looking for a report about the 4000 old folk who were doomed to freeze to death last winter because their WFP was taken away. I haven't found one ...

<pedant_alert>
All the gov.uk stuff about the Winter Fuel Payment that I've come across calls it the Winter Fuel Payment, sometimes abbreviated to WFP.  I don't know where 'WFA' comes from, but it's irritatingly common. 
</pedant_alert>

The thing is the MSM is not interested in investigating individual cases that might even come to their attention because it doesn't make big headlines, apart from which winter this year may have been long, but it wasn't that cold for sustained periods!
As for the pedant alert, you are correct, I think IIRC it's because some high profile pundits started referring to it as WFA

Scot_39

mmmmikey said:

This has the potential to be contentious

BBC News - Lower energy costs make retirement less expensive - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj42022gqzwo

So basically it seems to confirm the WFA is not really needed universally and standing charges are not the big issue with old folk that we thought.....

Except overall it is actually still more expensive for 2 of the 3 quality of life bands - only the "basic" level dropped.

Moderate and comfortable are still up.

And those most likely to be the majority of those who have lost and suspect will continue to loose under the Uturn / rethink if / when it happens.

Scot_39

Ildhund said:

mmmmikey said:

...  the WFA is not really needed universally ...

I've been looking for a report about the 4000 old folk who were doomed to freeze to death last winter because their WFP was taken away. I haven't found one ...

<pedant_alert>
All the gov.uk stuff about the Winter Fuel Payment that I've come across calls it the Winter Fuel Payment, sometimes abbreviated to WFP.  I don't know where 'WFA' comes from, but it's irritatingly common. 
</pedant_alert>

The 4000 - an almost 4000 iirc - a c2017 figure produced by the Labour Party when said May/Cons rumoured to going to cut the payment.  Not one generated by the right recently in reaction to Reeves cut.  See e.g.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/05/tory-winter-fuel-allowance-cuts-puts-4000-lives-at-risk-claims-labour
  
It would IMO be brave if not foolish to link any one change like the WFA/WFP when so many other factors at play in excess or total death stats - like say Covid still - let alone over one season - in as noisy an environment as uk mortality statistics  - without significant knowledge and data to back it up.

But not beyond the depths of certain MPs or media user forum level outbursts to try to link without any proof of causation.

Say if media ran articles on this years nhs annual flu report conclusions and its estimates - but had taken out of historical context - so just year on year flu related excess mortality change - see below. Or it's line with 1400 cold related deaths in just one cold week, similar to whole of 2023 2024 season without explaining it was only week this winter and past years again for context.

People can look for causation in such numbers even when largely only coincidence exists and other factors driving all or significant components of the change.  Causation, correlation and coincidence can be tricky concepts in all but simplest of systems.

Selective statistics, quoted out of proper context, a well known political tool.

Would be easy say to turn the with context

• in England, influenza-attributable excess mortality was estimated at 7,757 deaths, which was higher than in the 2023 to 2024 season (3,555 deaths) but lower than the 2022 to 2023 season (15,867 deaths)

Just delete the 22/23 context - and the message portrayed changes dramatically.  You then get easy scope for sensationalist politicians or media headlines to feed click bait frenzy. 

By the way - of those 7757 estimated last year - 6534 were in 65+ age ranges - and no info on wfp receipt or if impacted if any turned down heating.  Just standard medical reporting as for last n years.
 

And as to WFP vs WFA many media headlines use "allowance" even still - just this week

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reeves-winter-fuel-allowance-tax-pensioners-rich-pay-back-b2764128.html

Scot_39

More - or at least less published but existing - bad news about the costs of renewables during this transition phase - with a combined balancing cost of £8bn coming our way in next 5 years by 2030.

A bit scant on details - so maybe time to hunt around the NESO sites for real breakdown (I know at one stage the former NG ESO were forecasting £3bn peak just for grid thermal capacity constraint payments)

And again Seagreen wind farm gets a dishonourable mention for its curtailment income - and frequency - 71% of time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdedjnw8e85o

Spies

An actual obscene amount of money that could be put into modernising the national grid, but as usual with everything Britain does, it's reactionary rather than proacrively and then you have the usual NIMBYs when you try to make progress 

QrizB

Spies said:

An actual obscene amount of money that could be put into modernising the national grid, but as usual with everything Britain does, it's reactionary rather than proative

A reluctance to commit CAPEX means ongoing OPEX instead. See also PFI and all those PPP deals under which the public sector gets private industry to build stuff (schools, hospitals, etc) then rents them.

MattMattMattUK

QrizB said:

Spies said:

An actual obscene amount of money that could be put into modernising the national grid, but as usual with everything Britain does, it's reactionary rather than proative

A reluctance to commit CAPEX means ongoing OPEX instead. See also PFI and all those PPP deals under which the public sector gets private industry to build stuff (schools, hospitals, etc) then rents them.

It is the same with pretty much everything in the UK at the moment, energy, water, infrastructure, healthcare, education, transport, I cannot think of anything that is or has been adequately funded for the last few decades that will not require huge expenditure just to bring the maintenance back up to an acceptable level, let alone invest to account for decades of underinvestment. 

debitcardmayhem

I see the WFP(A) is back https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5yxvdl4d0pt