Apparantly green suppliers such as wind and solar are regularly being paid large sums to not produce electricity in the UK.

BBC News

The huge sums energy firms get to not provide power

Could the government's radical plan to change the way the UK distributes electricity really bring down bills - or just lead to a postcode lottery?

The tile of this thread says it all.

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

Apparantly green suppliers such as wind and solar are regularly being paid large sums to not produce electricity in the UK.

BBC News

The huge sums energy firms get to not provide power

Could the government's radical plan to change the way the UK distributes electricity really bring down bills - or just lead to a postcode lottery?

The tile of this thread says it all.

Except I don’t think it is madhouse politics, at least not on the part of the UK government. The issue of rewiring the grid for distributed power generation, as opposed to the legacy system of a small number of large central generating stations, is hardly a new one: it has been flagged for years now. The madhouse stuff is coming from those right wing parties who cynically see an opportunity to turn combatting climate change into a party political issue, which is depressing beyond belief. For all his (many) faults, Bozo at least did not do that.

It seems to me that regional pricing might be a good, market-driven solution, provided it is set up in a way that does not cut the legs from under existing investments or unduly penalise populations currently without good access to renewable generation.

Edited June 9Jun 9 by exchemist

Just now, exchemist said:

Except I don’t think it is madhouse politics, at least not on the part of the UK government. The issue of rewiring the grid for distributed power generation, as opposed to the legacy system of a small number of large central generating stations, is hardly a new one: it has been flagged for years now. The madhouse stuff is coming from those right wing parties who cynically see an opportunity to turn combatting climate change into a party political issue, which is depressing beyond belief. For all his (many) faults, Bozo at least did not do that.

It seems to me that regional pricing might be a good, market-driven solution, provided it is set up in a way that does not cut the legs from under existing investments or unduly penalise populations currently without good access to renewable generation.

Thank you for your reply.
I'm afraid we will have to disagree on both your 'solution' and your analysus of the problem.

If we cannot accomodate existing North Sea wind capacity, why are we encouraging more to be built at this time ?

There are serious logical flaws in the whole setup.

Mrs Thatcher's so called 'market' has been ruining our economy since the 1970s.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you for your reply.
I'm afraid we will have to disagree on both your 'solution' and your analysus of the problem.

If we cannot accomodate existing North Sea wind capacity, why are we encouraging more to be built at this time ?

There are serious logical flaws in the whole setup.

Mrs Thatcher's so called 'market' has been ruining our economy since the 1970s.

I think @exchemist is essentially right, Thatcher started a cascade of self interest; so politically, to arrest that momentum, it has to start with self interest, i.e. eyesore verses very cheap energy...

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you for your reply.
I'm afraid we will have to disagree on both your 'solution' and your analysus of the problem.

If we cannot accomodate existing North Sea wind capacity, why are we encouraging more to be built at this time ?

There are serious logical flaws in the whole setup.

Mrs Thatcher's so called 'market' has been ruining our economy since the 1970s.

Surely part of the problem is that the way investors in renewable generation have been remunerated has not taken into account the distribution infrastructure issue. A remuneration system that incentivised them to either build where there is distribution capacity or get involved in the financing of an increase n capacity would be helpful, it seems to me.

And yet electricity use in the UK has been declining for at least 20 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/323381/total-demand-for-electricity-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

It is difficult to get historic electricity use figures. The government statistics office in particular wraps it obtuse ways and considers 'energy by sector'.

Energy use overall has fallen significantly since 1970

So why do we need this new distribution network ?

All I see is that two nuclear power stations near me have been happily supplying power since 1966.

All of a sudden a third one is nearly finished (within 5 years nearly !) and the wise and wonderful have decided that the old transmission equipment is no longer 'good enough' so new pylons are being built.

Tjose same wise and wonderful folks have spent the last decade ripping up the south east and south midlands to great distress locally to build that crazy train costing billions and bilions.

If they ahd really though about it they could have provided a new spine for the grid, just where it is allegedly needed, within the 'land- take'.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

And yet electricity use in the UK has been declining for at least 20 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/323381/total-demand-for-electricity-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

It is difficult to get historic electricity use figures. The government statistics office in particular wraps it obtuse ways and considers 'energy by sector'.

Energy use overall has fallen significantly since 1970

So why do we need this new distribution network ?

All I see is that two nuclear power stations near me have been happily supplying power since 1966.

All of a sudden a third one is nearly finished (within 5 years nearly !) and the wise and wonderful have decided that the old transmission equipment is no longer 'good enough' so new pylons are being built.

Tjose same wise and wonderful folks have spent the last decade ripping up the south east and south midlands to great distress locally to build that crazy train costing billions and bilions.

If they ahd really though about it they could have provided a new spine for the grid, just where it is allegedly needed, within the 'land- take'.

Surely electricity demand will increase, won’t it, as we switch to EVs and heat pumps? Unless piped hydrogen takes off, which would require a revolutionary improvement in efficiency of electrolysis.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Surely electricity demand will increase, won’t it, as we switch to EVs and heat pumps? Unless piped hydrogen takes off, which would require a revolutionary improvement in efficiency of electrolysis.

And then again, maybe not.

The government's policy, announced yesterday is for all newbuild to have solar panels, so why would the new owners need extra grid supply ?

Further the scheme for selling back surplus solar generation has now ended.

We are also told that the building regs will be altered to make newbuild gas boilers illegal.

Yet more tinkering around the edges instead of a proper set of regs, properly enforced, so that folks buying will not be subject to the gremlins of today.

But in any event the official statistics say that electricity demand is currently declining.

17 hours ago, studiot said:

And then again, maybe not.

The government's policy, announced yesterday is for all newbuild to have solar panels, so why would the new owners need extra grid supply ?

Further the scheme for selling back surplus solar generation has now ended.

We are also told that the building regs will be altered to make newbuild gas boilers illegal.

Yet more tinkering around the edges instead of a proper set of regs, properly enforced, so that folks buying will not be subject to the gremlins of today.

But in any event the official statistics say that electricity demand is currently declining.

Bc it's expensive, even the middle classes have learnt to switch it off when it's not being used, or as my dad would say "FFS, this isn't Crystal Palace..."

Or as Tesco's would say "every little helps".

Even the most philanthropic Government has to complete a maze, before every step forward...

23 hours ago, studiot said:

And yet electricity use in the UK has been declining for at least 20 years.

Not really up on UK strategies, over here in the disunited states...do you think there is some notion that a move to heat pumps, EV, etc will bring use back up?

Also, could some overbuilt sites try "water batteries"? Store the excess, then release during heat waves or other spikes? Seems like I read about a couple spots in UK where they were pumping water up to a high lake during excess wind, then it was handy later released through hydro turbines.

(posted before saw ex chemist comment on future need)

Edited June 10Jun 10 by TheVat

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

Not really up on UK strategies, over here in the disunited states...do you think there is some notion that a move to heat pumps, EV, etc will bring use back up?

Also, could some overbuilt sites try "water batteries"? Store the excess, then release during heat waves or other spikes? Seems like I read about a couple spots in UK where they were pumping water up to a high lake during excess wind, then it was handy later released through hydro turbines.

(posted before saw ex chemist comment on future need)

Yes we have some “pumped storage”. Dinorwig in Wales is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station Not sure what others exist but I have read about a proposal to build one in Scotland, using Loch Ness at lower level and a small loch, or lochan, high up the mountain as the upper level.

On 6/9/2025 at 10:29 AM, exchemist said:

The madhouse stuff is coming from those right wing parties who cynically see an opportunity to turn combatting climate change into a party political issue, which is depressing beyond belief. For all his (many) faults, Bozo at least did not do that.

Interesting that the BBC article has a paragraph uncritically praising the anti-nett zero stance of Reform Party's Richard Tice.

A little research shows that the author, Justin Rowlett has a significant oil company share holding in his portfolio.

It is not a balanced piece of journalism.

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Interesting that the BBC article has a paragraph uncritically praising the anti-nett zero stance of Reform Party's Richard Tice.

A little research shows that the author, Justin Rowlett has a significant oil company share holding in his portfolio.

It is not a balanced piece of journalism.

I must say I don’t see any praising of an anti net zero stance in that article. All I see is the reporting of Reform’s decision to focus on the subject as, in effect, one of their “wedge” issues. Which bit are you thinking of?

(By the way plenty of people have fossil fuel company shares without trying to downplay the climate change issue. I only sold mine 2 months ago🙂.)

I don't know how things work in the UK. Here in Australia what actually gets done is less an overarching long term 'green' plan than it is short term political compromises, with the doubt, deny, delay crowd 'helping' exacerbate the planning, coordination and management problems that emerge from rapid change and new technologies, that they then go on to highlight and criticise as flawed and inadequate, as if what we get is what the proponents had wanted all along.

The rate of uptake of RE has grown rapidly, far more rapidly than even optimistic 'planners' anticipated and is now driven primarily by electricity generation companies seeking to add capacity at least cost, yet at the politician level the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists promoting alarmist economic fear of RE and insisting that if not coal then gas must expand remains strong. There is a lot of coordinated, political party supported local astro-turf opposition and obstructing of the elements a high solar and wind grid need to advance, like transmission lines, like solar and wind farms, especially off-shore that have high capacity factors, like large battery install. Every power outage becomes an opportunity for criticism of RE, even when RE was a lesser factor in them -

Outages vs media mention of RE

(FYI - graph shows Australia National Electricity Market power outages as minutes per year per customer, ups and downs but clearly declining, but the most recent major outages incited an abundance of media blaming of RE - even when triggered by storms taking out transmission or when coal and gas plant failures were the initial and primary cause.

Note - I don't know why I can't insert this image as an image rather than as a link - it wants to put it into 'downloads' folder and takes multiple steps to get to view. Part of recent changes to site? Is there another way?)

I think we are getting massive growth in battery storage to add to solar and wind not only because it has come down in cost so much, so fast but because, in part it is a consequence of expectations that solar and wind would cost a lot more and grow much more slowly; batteries have become the quick fix to add system strength in the face of the failure to anticipate, whilst longer term actions like major transmission upgrades or pumped hydro need longer lead times; the investments in them were never going to happen until it was clear that there would be enough solar and wind to need it.

A few years could see better use of 'idle' wind farm assets.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by Ken Fabian

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

I must say I don’t see any praising of an anti net zero stance in that article. All I see is the reporting of Reform’s decision to focus on the subject as, in effect, one of their “wedge” issues. Which bit are you thinking of?

The bit where anti-nett zero is presented as a respectable policy with no mention of its negative global impact; the bit where the BBC yet again utterly ignore the viewpoints of the Liberal Democrats and Greens; the bit that's just a list of right-wing dog whistles (ie all of it)...

Moray East and West between them have an installed capacity of just shy of 2 GW. At current tariffs that yields a full load potential income of around £500,000 per hour.

If perchance, the Grid needs some rapid start generation capacity to sit on hot stand-by in case one of its larger units trips out unexpectedly, what better than one or two of these wind farms? They wouldn't want to use coal or nuclear plant because they're both saddled with a maximum ramp rate of 5% of full load per minute. Too slow. CCGT plant is faster but more expensive, and Dinorwig is pre-booked for peak lopping duty.

If the grid manages to buy 2 GW of hot standby capacity for 15% of potential lost revenue, that sounds like a very good deal, doesn't it?

And of course, there'd have to be a fair breeze blowing at the time otherwise the capacity wouldn't be there, would it? Pointless otherwise.

And as for making up a generation shortfall 500 odd miles away to the South - has anyone mentioned the distribution losses over such a distance?

No, not the BBC. Better to make up some guff about the wires being too thin and keep the dishonourable Toad of Clacton happy with his grovelling pet toadies.

Sorry for the rant. It's 30 years since I did a Christmas weekend night shift at a control desk in Drax. But I've still some memories of how the system should operate.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by sethoflagos
Correction

10 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

Note - I don't know why I can't insert this image as an image rather than as a link - it wants to put it into 'downloads' folder and takes multiple steps to get to view. Part of recent changes to site? Is there another way?)

It took me a while to figure out that all one needs to do is paste the URL of the image directly into the post. It defaults to embedding the image but provides the option to display the link instead. One can then manipulate the size of the image. There is also a "Media Options" button at the top-right of the image.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by KJW

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

The bit where anti-nett zero is presented as a respectable policy with no mention of its negative global impact; the bit where the BBC yet again utterly ignore the viewpoints of the Liberal Democrats and Greens; the bit that's just a list of right-wing dog whistles (ie all of it)...

A Short poem.

The liberals and the greens
Are nowhere to be seen

Reform is interesting because half their policies are to the left of our left wing parties and half is to the right if our right wing parties.
They have no middle.

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Sorry for the rant. It's 30 years since I did a Christmas weekend night shift at a control desk in Drax. But I've still some memories of how the system should operate.

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

And as for making up a generation shortfall 500 odd miles away to the South - has anyone mentioned the distribution losses over such a distance?

Since you worked the control room at Drax, you I am sure you are well aware that the whole point of a grid is that it is not a linear structure and it is not necessary to transmit the electricity 500 miles over a grid.

I am also sure that you are in a far better position than I to estimate the losses (= pumping costs) of oil and or gas over thousands of miles as compared to electricity losses over suitable cables.

The UK buys geen (nuclear) energy from France and southern Europe now buys solar exported from north Africa.

15 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes we have some “pumped storage”. Dinorwig in Wales is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station Not sure what others exist but I have read about a proposal to build one in Scotland, using Loch Ness at lower level and a small loch, or lochan, high up the mountain as the upper level.

There are now several pumped storage facilities in Scotland, the nearest match to Dinorwig is Cruachan.

Interestingly Drax limited bought Cruachan in 2018.

On 6/11/2025 at 2:31 PM, studiot said:

Since you worked the control room at Drax, you I am sure you are well aware that the whole point of a grid is that it is not a linear structure and it is not necessary to transmit the electricity 500 miles over a grid.

Every region between generator and consumer has to carry that additional GVA loading over and above their own local demand. Are you seriously claiming that there's no cost to this?

30 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Every region between generator and consumer has to carry that additional GVA loading over and above their own local demand. Are you seriously claiming that there's no cost to this?

Two comments about this.

First we are supposed to have a national grid.

Of course 'every region' brings with it the price of Thatcher's fragmentation.

Second did I say network ?

Networks can be fed from an extremity or from the middle or indeed from any or many points.

For example power could have been diverted from Didcot B or Little Barford to Canterbury, distance just over 100 miles or even other closer stations.

Then power from say Ratcliffe on Soar to these, again around 100 miles, but there are many more alternatives.

Again only some of the alternatives would have been at full capacity.

Of course I did not say there is not cost.

In fact I enjoined you to compare costs.

And none of this answered my question.

On 6/9/2025 at 10:48 AM, studiot said:

If we cannot accomodate existing North Sea wind capacity, why are we encouraging more to be built at this time ?

Edited June 12Jun 12 by studiot

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

Networks can be fed from an extremity or from the middle or indeed from any or many points

I refer you to this quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Britain)

Power flow

[edit]

In 2009–10 there was an average power flow of about 11 GW from the north of the UK, particularly from Scotland and northern England, to the south of the UK across the grid. This flow was anticipated to grow to about 12 GW by 2014.^[48] Completion of the Western HVDC Link in 2018 added capacity for a flow of 2.2 GW between Western Scotland and North Wales.^[49]

Because of the power loss associated with this north to south flow, the effectiveness and efficiency of new generation capacity is significantly affected by its location. For example, new generating capacity on the south coast has about 12% greater effectiveness due to reduced transmission system power losses compared to new generating capacity in north England, and about 20% greater effectiveness than in northern Scotland.^[50]

Just now, sethoflagos said:

I refer you to this quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Britain)

Thanks.

Indeed it also says

The National Grid is the high-voltage electric power transmission network supporting the UK's electricity market, connecting power stations and major substations, and ensuring that electricity generated anywhere on the grid can be used to satisfy demand elsewhere.

37 minutes ago, studiot said:

And none of this answered my question.

  Quote

  On 6/9/2025 at 10:48 AM, studiot said:

If we cannot accomodate existing North Sea wind capacity, why are we encouraging more to be built at this time ?

So we can replace current natural gas powered generation and go carbon free by sometime between 2030 and 2050. Plus the power for bulk transfer to electric vehicles will have to come from somewhere. Your premise is false. It can be accommodated - on average the grid is only running at 50% maximum capacity - but hot standy capacity has to be available for when demand rises to 80% capacity which it sometimes does. The economic and operational considerations for which generating units are on base load, peak-lopping and hot standby can vary by the hour, and are not simple. The National Grid was, and I understand still is, extremely good at managing this.

Just now, sethoflagos said:

So we can replace current natural gas powered generation and go carbon free by sometime between 2030 and 2050. Plus the power for bulk transfer to electric vehicles will have to come from somewhere. Your premise is false. It can be accommodated - on average the grid is only running at 50% maximum capacity - but hot standy capacity has to be available for when demand rises to 80% capacity which it sometimes does. The economic and operational considerations for which generating units are on base load, peak-lopping and hot standby can vary by the hour, and are not simple. The National Grid was, and I understand still is, extremely good at managing this.

Heathrow excepted ?

1 minute ago, studiot said:

electricity generated anywhere on the grid can be used to satisfy demand elsewhere.

This was never in dispute. I presume you read the bit about London being powered from South Wales during the blitz? Necessary at the time no doubt, but it is generally most economic to keep short distances between generation and demand centres.

Just now, sethoflagos said:

Your premise is false.

I used that little word if.

It is not my premise at all it was the government's excuse for the action described in the BBC article.

I take your word for the 20% - 50 % spare capacity, as i said you are in a position to have better figures than I.