Glad to report we have made some progress in keeping the lights on. Intervention has secured the capacity cited below to bring into use when there is insufficient wind and solar available. This amounts to around a third of necessary output on a cold busy day and to around half of other times:
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117398):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what is the maximum electricity output from all coal and biomass generating plants in the UK that would be able to operate if needed. (117398)
Tabled on: 06 January 2023
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
As of the end of September 2022, the installed capacity of coal and bioenergy plants in the UK totalled 14.1 GW of electrical power. This comprised 5.9 GW for coal-fired plants (Digest of UK Energy Statistics, DUKES 2022, Table 5.11) and 8.1 GW for bioenergy plants (Energy Trends, December 2022, Table 6.1). The latter comprises 4.7 GW for solid (animal and plant) biomass and 3.4 GW for other bioenergy.
The answer was submitted on 16 Jan 2023 at 14:57.
January 17, 2023
Nice going, Sir J!
January 17, 2023
Good morning.
And how much coal fired power stations will there be post 2023 ?
—
I learnt something about wind turbines and their supposed efficiency. It seams that, the majority of wind turbines have their energy output inflated. This is done by selecting the maximum wind speed a turbine can operate and the energy at said speed is produced. As we all know, not all turbines turn and those that do turn very slowly. So an energy wind farm may have a stated output but, said output although achievable is never reached.
What a scam.
January 17, 2023
Mark B
That is why windfarms in Scotland like the 56 turbines site at Hadyard Hill over the last 17 years its output has been between 19-22% efficient.
January 19, 2023
Can you be more specific … you are describing the reason for the generally used “capacity factor” measure that describes the actual output of a generator over time.
Are you saying the capacity factors are being mis-reported, and by who?
January 17, 2023
A very disturbing report on BBC radio 4’s Farming Today this am, from Southern Ireland’s RTE on behalf of the EU. No countermanding report from any Unionist or Brexiteer: that HMG is pushing ahead with the border infrastructure, the border between GB and NI, that is, and that DEFRA will now act on behalf of the EU in stopping goods flowing freely within the UK. Even in the face of this outrageous treachery, RTE reported sympathetically that the EU is worried! And still both BBC and RTE tried to make out the annexation is just a practical arrangement about sausages.
January 17, 2023
Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Sunak and Hunt are winding the UK under EU control. The same for our military, defence policy and intellectual property regarding weapons!
The party and govt of traitors. We voted leave.
Starmer saying he wants closer trading with EU, we have not left or diverged yet!
Reform party is the only possible hope.
January 17, 2023
This energy reprieve could not have been achieved from outside the governing party, though obviously it would be better if it did not have to be in the first place.
January 17, 2023
āGlad to report we have made some progress in keeping the lights on.ā
Letās see what happens during this milder than average Winter.
January 17, 2023
That such a question would need to be asked is an indictment of those who now viciously control our immediate and our future
Thanks Labour. Thanks Tory. Both now repugnant political animals that will sacrifice everything to maintain their respective positions
January 17, 2023
How much land is needed for this bio mess?
How will growing/gathering it fit in with rewilding ( aka letting go to pot)?
How long will it take to realise biomass will mostly have to be imported and continue to be heavily subsidised?
What of govt. pledges re food production and tree planting ( to combat climate change lol lol).
When will someone actually confront the suicidal/murderous toddlers who want to destroy our world?
January 19, 2023
You do realise that your preferred hydrocarbon fuels have needed to be imported for some years and that they are actually biomass sourced?
January 17, 2023
Who are “we” in the opening sentence above?
January 17, 2023
Yes, I wondered.
Is that Stuart or JR?
January 17, 2023
The answer doesn’t say how long this capacity will be kept available. It’s available NOW ….. what about next winter?
Has someone locked Sharma in a cupboard and lost the key so he can’t blow any more perfectly viable coal-fired power stations up?
Sadly, Chris Skidmore’s ludicrous “Green” Report is far more likely to be implemented by the Blu-Green Socialist Hybrid in Government than any commonsense policies intended to keep the lights on and energy prices affordable.
January 17, 2023
Skidmore is a net zero zealot. His is a review of how best to implement net zero, not a review of its efficacy.
January 17, 2023
I would not call it a guide to how best to do it. It is simply his narrow vision of what he would like to assume is possible, coupled with a deal of propaganda and exhortation. It does not properly consider cost at all, so it has no basis for assessing optimality. 340 pages of waffle, best submitted to a waffle iron for toasting.
January 19, 2023
Skidmore is clearly on a different planet entirely. The concern is where have the “fiscally prudent” conservatives, or anyone actually, been all this time to effectively hold the zealots to account on plans and costs.
January 17, 2023
Sharma has been knighted for services to the partial destruction of our future prosperity.
January 17, 2023
It seems so. I will not compare the disaster of net zero religion to any of the very many appalling historical catastrophes (the Great Chinese Famine or the many things in say:- The Black Book of Communism). But if it is really pursued seriously & Worldwide (as May, Boris, Skidmore, Sharma, Sunak, Hunt…. & nearly all of this half-witted government really seems to want) it will surely be of a similar disastrous scale.
Fortunately it will no be pursued for long as reality and physics will bring these mad fools back to reality – at least it will in most of the World.
January 19, 2023
How will you get around the embarrassing reality that we must import the majority of hydrocarbons for energy production and vehicles?
January 17, 2023
That’s nowhere near enough when you consider the nonesense race for net zero.
Fitting heat pumps and penalising ICE vehicles means at least 2gw rise in peak demand annually for decades.
It’s still true that windmills don’t turn when there’s no wind and solar doesn’t work at night.
January 17, 2023
Solar give most electricity around lunch times and in Summer just when it is least needed in the UK. Almost nothing in the cloudy winter months when actually needed. It cannot be stored cost effectively.
January 17, 2023
we’ll be told that high use devices are best turned on over lunchtime next!
January 19, 2023
You install a PV system, not just panels. The system is designed for a usable generation level throughout the day not just during peak hours. That energy can be stored in a number of ways, the easiest is as hot water and EV charging but you can readily add batteries to the mix.
As for cloudy winter months, I generate enough to cover all my EV mileage in a month, even in the darkest months.
January 19, 2023
I fitted a solar PV system and run an EV – my annual demand on the electricity grid has decreased significantly (around 40%) compared to the levels before.
The energy I generate during the day is stored in the EV and the hot water tank.
None of this was or is taxpayer subsidised.
January 17, 2023
And what happens to that coal-fired capacity in March? It goes, doesn’t it?
January 17, 2023
An Inconvenient Truth we’re not supposed to remember.
If you vote for the Westminster Uni-Party, you’re endorsing the lunacy.
January 17, 2023
D, they are the EU party.
Osborne, Clarke and Heseltine reported to wanting/accepting a term of Labour!
January 17, 2023
Too true and worrying SW…
Sir John, If the “we” are going to do anything useful, they should make sure that coal-fired capacity is kept available… That’s the least they could do…
January 17, 2023
Iām glad thereās some good news to report on keeping the lights on! From what Net Zero Watch and the Global Warming Policy Foundation research and report, Britain seems stubborn in wanting to be āworld leadersā in destroying our country by rushing to net zero.
Nigel Farage was talking to someone on his show – I canāt remember his name – but he said heād been in meetings with mixed party high officials and he said rather worryingly, that many in Parliament are very enthusiastic about net zeroā¦
Rather depressing to hear.
January 17, 2023
I saw that – when pushed on detail he went for emotion rather than arguing fact. Claimed to be a Scientist but came across as a High Priest. It seems you can ignore Facts when they are Inconvenient – as well as the Truth.
January 17, 2023
Exactly
January 17, 2023
May’s Net Zero lunacy was waved through (not even voted on) so many idiotic MPs supported it. At best we have 50 sensible MPs in the house on this topic. At worse perhaps 10.
January 17, 2023
You don’t get selected to represent one of the main parties unless you are a prize chump. This is how politics is controlled in this country by those who provide the cash. Whether it is the global warming hoax, mass immigration or foreign wars that do not support our interests, the money men are pulling the strings and the dimwitted puppets dance.
January 17, 2023
They are asked ‘will you support the PM come what may?’ If answer is ‘baa baa’ you are picked.
January 17, 2023
The Dukes report 2022 is actually for the year 2021 and does show the position as at the end of 2022.
Installed capacity does not necessarily mean available for immediate use/generation of electricity.
A good question would be how much electricity did we import , compared to generated in the UK in 2022.
I think we need to know total wind generation available, total solar generation and total fuel burning generation ( coal, oil, gas, bio, waste nuclear). Then peak winter demand and do the simple arithmetic if the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. What is the potential short fall and risk factor of blackout
January 18, 2023
just a correction “does not show the position as at the end of 2022.”
January 17, 2023
Wouldnāt GWh be a more useful expression?
I donāt really understand the value of talking about energy in terms of power in relation to domestic need.
I mean 1.3 million horses but for how long?
January 17, 2023
Most politician and even energy ministers and energy correspondents on national newspapers or the BBC do not seem to understand the difference between energy and power nor the units they are measured in. Often saying idiotic things like it will generate 100 GW a year or 100 GWh which is enough to power 10,000 houses (for?). Few have much science, engineering or mathematics beyond O levels or GCSEs then read English, PPE, Law, Politics, Philosophy or similar. They also seem to think batteries and hydrogen and sources of energy when really they are the equivalent of a cars Ā£100 plastic fuel tank but far less efficient. Just a very expensive way to store energy that has to be generated elsewhere.
I see that Boris’s Green Revolution N. East leveling up “Giga Battery Project” seems to have died just as I expected it too. 100% Politics but 0% realistic logic.
January 17, 2023
Yes, just reading the Dukes report, only up to 2021, which was a year of partial low economic activity, we consumed more electricity, and had to import over 7%. We need to produce a lot more RELIABLE electricity if we are to use EV’s after dark and heat pumps in the winter. Is there nobody in BEIS who understands this?
January 17, 2023
Seems not. They do not realise how ineffective heat pumps are, especially when you need most heat when it is freezing cold outside. They also do not seem to realise that EVs produce more CO2 over their lives than keeping you old ICU car. This as a new energy intensive car and short lived battery has to be manufactured.
January 19, 2023
Indeed: during the recent cold snap in the USA several major utilities and regional system operators (including Duke in the Carolinas and the neighbouring TVA) and were once again caught out with inadequate capacity to meet demand because heat pumps switched to resistive heating, effectively making them less efficient than an electric fire because the exterior pump itself has to be prevented from freezing up in addition to supplying heat to the home. They had to institute rolling blackouts to share out the available power. All less than a year after similar problems last February where similar measures were widespread across the US, most notably in Texas, where poor management of the grid led to a large portion of it being knocked out in a cascading trip of several power stations at once, followed by difficulty with maintaining gas and water supplies to power stations and homes because the automated load shedding resulted in key pumping stations being knocked out of action.
January 19, 2023
You sound like one of LLs nodding dogs … please provide references for the relative CO2 production by comparable EV and ICE vehicles.
The Argonne National Labs GREET2 comparative analysis proves you wrong and looks to be a very high bar of proof for you to counter.
January 17, 2023
Do the fifth column Marxists running our energy supplies still intend to phase out coal by October 2024?
Will we see our COP26 president explosively demolishing our remaining coal-fired assets as he did the Ferrybridge Power Station in 2021 in this official SSE video :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
What is more important to them ā security of supply or the pursuit of Mission Zero to zero our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions?
The Germans, having decided the former is more important have now urgently upped their coal-burning to currently provide 31% of their electricity, having had the foresight to mothball their coal-fired power stations instead of blowing them up.
January 17, 2023
God – or for wimps Mother Nature – has provided different habitats for mankind all over the world. In Australia, where I have family, He has given sunshine for effective rooftop solar panels. In Iceland where there are underground magma flows, He has provided natural volcanic underground heating. They grow tomatoes in December. In Scotland, He has provided water for hydro plants. He has also provided uranium for countries with decent scientific education.
In UK He has provided gas, coal and oil. And intermittent wind. So why have we got solar panels everywhere when they don’t work in winter? Why have we got no fracking/coal mines/oil exploration? Do the “experts” really think the wind blows all the time?
(I am recommending a website which will show this idiocy up for what it is: https://gridwatch.org.uk/ run by the University of Sheffield.)
January 19, 2023
He also appears to taketh away – our oil and gas resources plummeted to the extent we import a large proportion now.
PV systems do work in winter, you don’t even have to be an acolyte.
BTW have you really not looked at previous issues of this blog, really? Gridwatch makes an almost daily appearance with reports based on minimum wind generation.
January 17, 2023
Maintaining enough power is better, even if Labour complain that it reduces employment in candle making.
January 17, 2023
It’s still less than what we should have available in normal times.
Do we have any real figures on people dying from the cold this winter – Those unable to pay their energy bills?
Whatever the final affects of the disastrous energy policies, whether it is being unable to turn up the heating to keep warm, or trying to work out how an energy bill will get paid, HMG will be deservedly cursed in many different ways and by a great many.
January 17, 2023
Just shows the mess we are in when you even have to consider asking a sensible question.
But we will still have some clowns who will want to close them !
January 17, 2023
I took a look at ‘het pumps’ yesterday. It strikes me that they’re very expensive for what they are – and that makes me wonder if government subsidies are pushing up the cost of very simple engineering.
January 17, 2023
Heat pumps are not alas very simple engineering with high pressure gasses, heat sources and heat radiators. At least not if you want to get a system that lasts, that is cheap enough to maintain, is not too expensive to build. Plus is gives a decent Coefficient of Performance (heat out for each KWH of electricity in). Also a decent warming up speed so you do not need to leave it on all the time.
January 17, 2023
“Brexit freedoms in the City of London risk triggering an Equitable Life-style scandal that could leave policyholders nursing huge losses, the governor of the Bank of England has warned.”
“Andrew Bailey said the package of reforms, which are intended to boost the competitiveness of the UKās financial industry, increased the risk that pension providers could run out of capital to back up their promises.”
The UK’s Democratic Parliments advice to the Country – ???
January 17, 2023
Ian
Afraid Equitable Life’s problems were self inflicted, but the real problem was that both the Auditors, and the FCA (both supposedly safety nets for the policy holders) did not spot any problems at all !.
Then the Governments fall back protection scheme for policy holders did not click in, because Equitable Life did not actually fail and go broke, thus the policy holders paid the price for the failure of 4 different organisations/systems because they took the hit themselves !
Equitable Life sacked some of those Directors in charge, but the FSA, and Auditors, got away with no one being held accountable.
Not sure if a certain Mr Bailey was with the FSA at the time.
January 17, 2023
There is a clip on YouTube of a debate about ‘woke’ where one speaker, a Russian comedian of all things, hijacks the subject with the best anti net zero argument ever
Search for it, it’s perfect.
JF
January 17, 2023
Very good but put in Oxford Union to find it.
January 17, 2023
These people can play with figures all they like duck shoving the numbers, but the reality is that Chris Skidore who produced the recent report was the same person who signed it into law.
Talk about a loaded deck. They are playing the 8% of really concerned politicians and the electorate for idiots.
Making it seemed to be done, it spreads across the whole of government. Never to call out time to stop for a reality check.
January 17, 2023
The ability to cope short term is fine. But what we need is a government devoted to abundant, cheap energy, all of which the UK is sitting on. Get Fracking, open coal mines, and extract more oil from the North Sea, so we are self-sufficient in energy. Aim to have all nuclear power from around 2040 but until then do what is necessary. Manufacturing depends on cheap energy, households need cheap energy,
energy is the key to life today. Lift the ban on petrol/diesel powered cars so manufacturers keep making them cleaner & more efficient. Get rid of net zero now because it will never happen. Global warming or climate change is natural & normal & has been happening for thousands of years! Let’s have a government that works for us, not against us all the time.
January 17, 2023
Gosh. Someone actually answered a question.
January 17, 2023
Well installed capacity is not the same as what could actually be delivered in the real world.
January 19, 2023
Indeed so. You can see the immediate availability of plant along with preliminary forecasts of wind output over the next fortnight here:
https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-forecast
The numbers are substantially lower than those quoted by the minister. The good news is that apparently BEIS has been putting out feelers towards extending the life of a bit more of the capacity at Ratcliffe on Soar (RATS in Elexon code) until 2024, because they realise there is a big risk of Europe wide capacity shortage next winter. The big concern remains that there have been no steps towards increasing the provision of new dispatchable capacity, with the recently announced consultation on changes to the Capacity Market failing to address the real issue, while concerning itself with trying to promote green investment in untried technology.
January 17, 2023
I think a more pertinent question would be āWhat is the maximum guaranteed electricity output available to the UK on days when there is no sun or windā.
A question could also be asked about the environmental impact of wind farms on insect, bird and bat populations.
January 17, 2023
RichardP
Windfarm objectors have been trying to get bird and bat death figures for 20 years and got nowhere. A bit like trying to get risk assessment research done on the dismantling and disposal of turbine blades and components and solar panels
January 17, 2023
āMission Net Zeroā P26 :
āAround 85% of decarbonisation between 2020 and 2035 will involve low carbon technologies or fuels alone or in combination with behaviour change.ā
And on P220 :
āPrevious government interventions on behaviour change are helpful blueprints. For
example, the Governmentās response to the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated how peopleās
behaviours can be successfully influencedā
So once the Marxist fifth column running our electrical power have blown up our fossil fuel power stations and replaced them with Chinese supplied wind turbines and solar panels without providing any grid-scale non-fossil fuel backup because it is too expensive to exist we will be coerced into changing our behaviour with exhortations when the wind isnāt blowing with :
Save Energy -> Stay in Bed -> Save the Planet (from our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions)
There is no catastrophic global warming. Satellite measurements show an average global temperature increase of 0.13 degrees C/DECADE currently with a 100 month temperature pause.
āClimate actionā is only number 13 in the UNās list of āSustainable Development Goalsā.
January 17, 2023
O R
Very good post
January 18, 2023
Ridiculous post. 13th position is not an argument as the SDGs are not sorted out by order of importance. But donāt expect OR to have realised that.
January 17, 2023
The talk on utube was by Konstantinos Kisin at the Oxford Union
Worth a look and says it all about climate change
January 17, 2023
A really great article was in STT very informative. We need professors like this guy with Farage, Tice Portillo, and Oliver. They talk about the balanced argument let them deliver one
Renewables wonāt keep us warm this winter
Spiked Online
Ralph Schoellhammer
http://stopthesethings.com/2023/01/17/re-treat-europes-repeated-wind-solar-failures-force-renewable-energy-reversal/
January 17, 2023
What’s so wonderful about bioenergy and the costs of getting the fuel here?
January 19, 2023
Oil, gas and coal are bioenergy resources, they are stored energy, you just choose to ignore the processing time and cost.
January 17, 2023
Lord Hayward has been reported as saying in effect that if the usurping PM caves in to the EU and cements the annexation of N Ireland, the Blue Wall will not turn Liberal. He describes such people as educated.
January 17, 2023
and what about the supply of gas, we use for central heating and a hob?
January 17, 2023
Very good article in the Spectator by Ross Clark. Do we truly know the real cost of Net Zero? .
I think the answer is No the public does not have a clue
https://www.the answerspectator.co.uk/article/do-we-truly-know-the-cost-of-net-zero/?mc_cid=0506884dc5&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
January 19, 2023
Net zero cost benefits would logically lead to an immediate societal ban on private jets?
That’s all you need to know.
Also, lets face it why would you trust the answers and or the intentions for the future?
As to credibility, check your energy bill for a reality check.
All without public mandates.