SUMMER’S here, warmer weather, energy costs coming down (slightly) in July and more pensioners will get a winter fuel allowance. Apart from our chancellor’s latest desperate attempt to save the country, what is there to worry about?
I’ll tell you: winter. The UK’s maximum need for electricity occurs during the months of December/January/February, nearly always between 5pm and 6pm. For the whole three months there is nothing from Miliband’s millions of solar panels between 5pm and 6pm as the sun has set.
Highest evening demand last winter happened on Thursday, January 9. Nuclear, hydro, biomass and transfers from Europe contributed 23 per cent, wind turbines 30 per cent, and gas had to fill the gap at 47 per cent. That 47 per cent gas is the first thing to worry about as the policy is to do away with all fossil fuels. There were evenings that winter when wind could manage only 5 per cent of the total, on Boxing Day for instance.
What about batteries to store solar power during the day? So far we haven’t anything like the capacity we would need. Around 8GW/h is all we have – that is, it would provide 8GW (about 17 per cent) of peak winter demand for eight hours.
Lesson one: it doesn’t matter how many turbines or solar panels there are, if the wind doesn’t blow and the sun has set they are useless.
The pensioners’ heating allowance is useful only if there is electricity available. There are two areas of concern. A government website warns: ‘Most power cuts are short-lived and occur locally, but more widespread and longer outages can happen. These could potentially last several days.’ The warning is brutally frank: ‘Gas boilers and hobs, heat pumps and your home internet won’t work without power. Your mobile phone might stop working . . . Mains water supply to your home could also be disrupted.’
The millions of us with electrically controlled gas boilers and electric hobs would be hit hard. No light, no heat, nothing hot to eat or drink, and if your old landline has been taken away and your local phone mast is affected, no way of telling anybody. Yes, we’re almost a third-world country, didn’t you realise?
Never mind, advice is available. You should prepare for a possible emergency, it says on the National Grid website, by having a torch and batteries, charging your phone, going to the fridge and freezer a little as possible, leaving one light switched on (so that you know when power comes back on), have hot water in a Thermos, plenty of blankets, and make sure the car’s petrol tank is topped up. (I would add a battery radio, surely?)
Lesson two: the government is content to give out useless advice which assumes we’d get warning well in advance of any cuts, rather than making sure we have sufficient gas-generated back-up power to cope with the UK’s worst winter weather. The North Sea is moving rapidly from reliable gas to fickle wind.
But it won’t happen here, will it? We’re a world-class economy, they tell us. Last autumn they forecastthe winter maximum demand to be 44.4gigawatts (GW). It was actually over 47GW. That, you might think, is a very small error. In fact, ‘millions of Britons came within a “whisker” of being plunged into darkness . . . during the coldest nights of the year’. If we hadn’t somehow been able to turn on more gas-generating capacity at very short notice, your Thermos of hot water would have been very useful, for an hour or two.
Isn’t global warming bringing warmer winters so we’ll be safe? No it isn’t and no we won’t. A recent peer-reviewed scientific paper reported that ‘Global warming may be behind an increase in the frequency and intensity of cold spells. Arctic warming may contribute to more frequent severe winter weather including disruptive cold spells.’ If there were a 10-14 day period at any time during the three winter months, with temperatures hovering at or below freezing and light or non-existent winds, then we would be in real trouble.
Rest assured, our government has a plan. If there should be a national energy shortage, it says, ‘emergency power cuts could be scheduled on a rotating area-by-area basis.’ Britain has been divided into areas, each assigned a letter and the website tells you when your area will be switched off. If you are old, frail or otherwise eligible, it tells you to sign up to the Priority Services Register (PSR).
That’s all right then, stop worrying, get a grip and carry on. Elderly couples in their all-electric houses will be looked after. ‘If you are on mains gas,’ says the PSR, ‘and your supply is interrupted for a prolonged period, we will aim to help you with emergency electrical heating and cooking appliances.’
Did you find that hard to believe? So did I. There are two problems. Water companies (stay with me, I know where we’re going), occasionally have difficulties with supply. Human life needs water above everything else. They will therefore deliver bottled water to deprived customers. Simple. But how do you deliver heating and cooking facilities to half a million households of freezing pensioners? The promise is nonsense.
It is also nonsense because it’s not mains gas that’s the trouble. It is, of course, Ed Miliband’s determination to make all our vital electricity from wind and sun. When there’s a power cut because the wind is not blowing hard enough, what use is emergency electrical heating?
Lesson three: We have the government’s energy policy which assumes that on winter evenings the wind will always blow and the sun will always shine. It won’t and it doesn’t. Blackouts or policy change? Which is more likely?
