Inside the National Grid’s epic challenge to keep the lights on

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
http://ift.tt/16C5B6P

By Paul Homewood

The Telegraph has an article by Jillian Ambrose, little Emily’s successor, which is ostensibly about the challenges faced by the National Grid.

The beginning summarises the situation quite well:

Before the Nineties we had a very clear-cut industry,” says Richard Smith, head of National Grid’s networks business.

Across the country, thermal power plants fired up by fossil fuels would send power via giant cables, strung up by pylons and criss-crossing the country. After spanning miles, cables meet substations which dim the power to a voltage which smaller distribution wires can carry into homes and companies.

“It’s not as simple now,” Smith says.

National Grid sits at the heart of this energy system. Now the £39bn company faces one of the country’s greatest challenges – delivering the energy system’s biggest shake-up since deregulation……

But industry veterans, including Centrica boss Iain Conn, fear that the boom in small-scale generation could tip the energy system on its head. Where once National Grid was at the centre of the UK’s energy universe, it could find itself running the safety net which backs up a thriving market for locally produced energy.

“The big challenge that National Grid is facing is that we have 38GW of large thermal plant that are going to be closed by 2025 and they were traditionally what we would use to keep the system stable,” says Tim Rotheray, boss of the UK’s Association for Decentralised Energy.

“At the same time we’re seeing a rise of variable, intermittent generation coming on to the system. The traditional tools that National Grid had are falling away so the challenge is to look at the new options which exist.”

The traditional tools that National Grid had are falling away so the challenge is to look at the new options which existTim Rotheray, boss of the UK’s Association for Decentralised Energy

Within the next decade the pipes and wires of the nation will need to accommodate a new generation of electricity generators and users. National Grid plans to harness these changes to overhaul the way it balances the system. By 2030, keeping the lights on will rely as much on bringing together the cumulative impact of small-scale power sources as it will on major power plants, it says.

However, there are a number of highly misleading statements and claims, including this fake table:

As two commenters point out, transmission losses are nowhere near 54%:

Official government figures from the BEIS show that total losses only amounted to 27 TWh last year, which is 7.7% of generation.

This includes losses tight up to the customer, most of which would occur under any circumstance.

http://ift.tt/1xmYvy6

To make matters worse, it is claimed that this “energy waste” is equivalent to 37 nuclear plants. In fact, 27 Twh is about the output of Hinkley Point.

The table comes from an outfit called the Association for Decentralised Energy. It will come as no surprise that this is yet another lobby group for the renewable scam, as their website explains:

The ADE is the voice for a cost effective, efficient, low carbon, user-led energy system; a market in which decentralised energy can flourish.With over 100 members we bring together interested parties from across the sector to develop a strong, dynamic and sustainable environment for a range of technologies including combined heat and power, district heating networks and demand side energy services, including demand response.

http://ift.tt/2rh9Pf7

Needless to say, both CHP and DRS receive large subsidies, paid for by bill payers.

Much of the Ambrose article is then given over as free propaganda space to Tim Rotheray, boss of the ADE.

The article is full of misleading statements, such as:

The UK is home to about 12GW of solar PV, the equivalent of more than three Hinkley Point C nuclear power projects or 24 gas-fired power plants.

While this may be true in terms of capacity, why is it not explained that solar power only runs at about 11% of capacity. Therefore, in terms of output, all of this solar power is only the equivalent of 2 CCGTs?

The report then assures us that all of the electric cars on the road by 2030 will come to the rescue!

A boom in chargeable cars could mean an increase in electricity demand of 13- 21 TWh. By 2030 this could mean a drain of 1GW, or two large gas-fired power plants, at peak times. But National Grid believes there is the potential for the flow of electricity to go both ways, from the grid to the battery and vice-versa.

How EVs affect demand could be shaped by a number of factors: consumers could take up so-called “time-of use-tariffs” which offer cheap deals to charge up when demand is low. This would allow National Grid to make better use of surging wind and solar power on balmy summer Sunday afternoons. Conversely, the energy stored in the vehicle could be used to avoid peak tariffs imposed at times of low demand by flipping the mobile batteries to export power on dark January evenings

So we are all apparently going to charge our cars up in summer, leave them in the garage for six months, and then send all the juice back to the grid in January!

And Jillian Ambrose writes all of this with a straight face.

As usual, it takes a Telegraph reader to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.