Category: Daily News

Daily News 13 Jul 2025

Too Much = Too Little

By Paul Homewood

https://gridwatch.co.uk/

As the Telegraph reported, the lack of wind and excess of solar power has been playing havoc with our grid this week, pushing up prices as gas has to come to the rescue.

At 12.50, solar peaked at 13.5GW, supplying nearly half of Britain’s power. Twelve hours later, of course, there would have been blackouts without the 10GW supplied by CCGT plants.

Tripling solar power capacity, as Mad Miliband wants, won’t solve this problem, it will make matters much worse. Three times nothing is still nothing; meanwhile the grid will have 15GW too much at midday.

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July 13, 2025 at 09:56AM

Daily News 13 Jul 2025

£80 Billion Needed For Grid Upgrades In Next Five Years

By Paul Homewood

OFGEM have just announced the first tranche of investment in Britain’s grid upgrades needed to hit 2030 renewable targets.

Ofgem has today (1 July) given the provisional green light to an initial £24bn investment programme to enhance energy security while enabling the transmission of more clean energy from renewable sources.

Over £15bn will ensure the continued safe operation of Great Britain’s gas transmission and distribution networks, making sure they deliver safe and secure supplies of gas to households and businesses across the UK.

An initial £8.9bn investment is being committed to Britain’s high-voltage electricity network, with a further £1.3bn ready to go – to power the biggest expansion of the electricity grid since the 1960s. The draft settlement is the first step in an estimated £80bn investment programme boosting electricity network capacity, protecting UK households from the volatile international gas markets that caused the massive fluctuations in energy bills in recent years.

The investment in our grid, which will rise to around four times the current spending levels, will allow for 80 transmission projects and all associated works right across the country to be completed within five years. This will significantly increase the grid’s capacity, through new power lines, substations and other technologies, to handle the flow of electricity from new renewable sources.

These projects, which are also vital for driving growth, will upgrade over 4400km of overhead lines and deliver 3500km of new circuits, including investments offshore, doubling the total build in the last 10 years. It means up to 126 GW of clean power generation will be connected to the grid by 2030 alongside additional flexible storage and technologies, enough to power millions of households with clean, stable and secure energy.

Ofgem CEO Jonathan Brearley said:

“Britain’s reliance on imported gas has left us at the mercy of volatile international gas prices which during the energy crisis would have caused bills to rise as high as £4000 for an average household without government support. Even today the price cap can move up or down by hundreds of pounds with little we can do about it.

“This record investment will deliver a homegrown energy system that is better for Britain and better for customers. It will ensure the system has greater resilience against shocks from volatile gas prices we don’t control.

“These 80 projects are a long-term insurance policy against threats to Britain’s energy security and the instability of prices. By bringing online dozens of homegrown, renewable generation sites and modernising our energy system to the one we will need in the future we can boost growth and give ourselves more control over prices too.

“Doing nothing is not an option and will cost consumers more – this is critical national infrastructure. The sooner we build the network we need, and invest to strengthen our resilience, the lower the cost for bill payers will be in the future.

This critical investment covering upgrade and expansion of the electricity grid, maintenance and also gas depreciation in its entirety is estimated to increase network charges on bills by £104 by 2031. This includes £30 for the gas networks and £74 for the electricity grid.

Around half of this investment, including £30 on gas networks, is needed for the gas and electricity grids to maintain safety, resilience, and reliability.

The remainder, around £52, will be used to expand the capacity of the electricity grid to deal with the rising demands of a more electrified energy system, as we move away from gas.

This investment (£52) alone is expected to lead to around £80 of savings for consumers by 2031 compared to not investing by reducing constraint costs (money paid to wind farms to switch off because the grid is unable to transmit their power output) and making better use of our clean renewable energy so we are not having to pay for expensive gas plants to serve demand. So bills are expected to be around £30 lower than they would have been had this investment in upgrading and expanding the electricity network not been made.

Taken all together the net cost of these investments on bills amounts to around £24 a year, or less than 40p per week, by March 2031, although this does not take into account the overall benefits of reaching clean power that can reduce bills.

The £30 increase in gas network charges on bills by 2031 would be necessary in all scenarios in order to maintain safety, resilience, and reliability in our gas networks.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/ofgem-approves-initial-ps24-billion-operate-and-maintain-critical-gas-networks-and-upgrade-britains-electricity-supergrid

OFGEM say household electricity bills will rise by £74 a year, as a result of this £80 billion upgrade. That equated to £6.6 billion a year, given that non residential consumers use about 60% of total electricity. OFGEM say they are assuming return on capital of 6%, which implies depreciation costs of 2.5% over 40 years.

£6.6 billion works out at about £22/MWh, four times NESO’s projection of just £5/MWh, which also includes constraint costs.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/12/13/milibands-300-energy-saving-is-smoke-mirrors/

But extraordinarily, the NESO Clean Power 2030 Report did not take grid upgrade costs into account. The report states:

Neither is there any costings for the upgrading of local distribution networks.

The figure it offer for “Grid expansion and constraint costs” only reflects the increase in constraint costs from £2.8 bn to £3.7 bn a year.

To the £80 billion mentioned, we can another £16 billion already spent or committed to by the National Grid between 2021 and 2026.

But the spending won’t stop in 2030. OFGEM note these current plans will cater for 126 GW of “clean” power, in line with NESO’s plans. But buildout of renewables will still need pursued rapidly.

The BBC reported a year ago that another £58bn is for work needed between 2030 and 2035.

Add the lot up and you are looking at £154 billion, which will add £13 billion to our bills each year. None of this expenditure would be needed without the expansion of renewable energy and the increased demand for electricity necessitated by Net Zero.

In true Orwellian double speak, OFGEM’s Jonathan Brearley tells us that spending £100 billion of your money will make you better off!

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July 13, 2025 at 08:16AM

Daily News 13 Jul 2025

Skillful Weather Warnings But Catastrophic Damage and Large Death Tolls. We Need to Do Better.

From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog

Cliff Mass

The same tragedy has happened time and again.

An excellent prediction of a major weather-related threat is unheeded, leading to massive destruction and loss of life.

We need to do better. We can do better.

This blog will discuss the problem and how it might be addressed.

There are numerous examples of this failure mode; let me provide just a few.

Hurricane Katrina, 2005

In 2005, the landfall of Hurricane Katrina near New Orleans resulted in 1400 deaths and $125 billion in damage. Excellent forecasts by the National Weather Service and weather models.

Local governments failed to take the forecasts seriously and did not evacuate vulnerable populations. Poorly designed levees failed.

LA Wildfires, 2025

The wildfires in LA led to 30 deaths and at least 100 billion in damage. Meteorological forecasts of strong, dry Santa Ana winds by the models were stunningly good and the National Weather Service put out an apocalyptic forecast (see below)

Power companies failed to de-energize powerlines, and local governments failed to pre-position fire-fighting capability and had emptied a critical reservoir, to name only a few of the mistakes made.

Maui Wildfire, 2023

Weather forecast models were emphatic that a major downslope windstorm would occur in the area around Lahaina. The National Weather Service had a red-flag warning for the lee sides of the islands, but did not identify the particular threat to Lahaina.

After the fire was started, the local response was very problematic, not staying with the fire when they thought it was out, blocking travel routes, and not facilitating an effective evaluation.

Hurricane Helene (2024)

Heavy precipitation and flooding from this storm resulted in 250 deaths and nearly 80 billion dollars in damage. Heavy rain reaching as much as 30 inches led to catastrophic flooding. NOAA/NWS forecast models did an excellent job in predicting the hurricane path and heavy rain (see below).

The National Weather Service put out very strong warnings (see below), but a lack of communication and critical evacuations from threatened areas led to major loss of life.

Texas Flooding (2025)

As documented in my earlier blog and many other sources, the National Weather Service provided timely warnings, but local communities lacked the warning capability to effectively remove individuals from harm’s way. In addition, vulnerable camp facilities were located on threatened floodplains.

I could easily provide many other cases of excellent forecasts, but a lack of proper response, leading to massive unnecessary deaths and economic loss.

Why are we in this failure mode? How can it be fixed?

First, it must be recognized that weather prediction has gotten immensely more skillful over the past 30 years.

The combination of much more skillful global models plus high-resolution prediction capabilities has resulted in meteorologists now being able to forecast dangerous conditions with great skill days in advance.

For example, huge improvements in hurricane track forecasts (see below)

Heavy rain skill by the NOAA/NWS Weather Prediction Center? Going up rapidly (see skill of 1-inch totals below)

Second, it needs to be recognized that our ability to observe what is happening in real-time is immensely better due to far more comprehensive observations.

Improved weather radars and massive new satellite assets provide meteorologists and others with extraordinary knowledge of what is happening….abilities we did not possess 20-30 years ago (see a sample below).

With better observations and predictions, meteorologists, hydrologists, and others in NOAA and other government agencies are in a FAR better position to provide actionable guidance for saving lives and property.

Third, with this knowledge, local and state governments, in concert with the Federal government, must take responsibility for using the improved forecast capabilities to save lives and property.

This means better communications to the public, better warning systems, better planning for adverse conditions, and more.

We can radically reduce deaths and losses due to storms and adverse weather by recognizing the extraordinary potential of improved observations and forecasts, and then applying this information to warn and protect our communities.

What should we NOT do? Blame climate change or political parties you don’t like.

Climate change has only a very small impact on the intensity of extreme weather (there is very, very strong science to support this statement). Pushing climate as the origin of these extremes leads to inaction on the real problems. Even if climate change were important, adaptation can save most lives.

Both political parties have been in power as this situation has festered. This is a fully bipartisan problem. Name-calling and blame will lead to inaction and more deaths.