By Paul Homewood
We all knew it was going to happen, but the green blob turned a blind eye:
It was the warning Ed Miliband didn’t want to hear.
Days after the Energy Secretary pledged low-carbon power for all at Labour’s annual conference, energy giant EDF discussed plans to close four of the UK’s five remaining nuclear power stations.
Two are currently scheduled to close in 2026, followed by another two in 2028.
“They can’t go on forever,” said Rachael Glaeving, commercial director at EDF’s UK business.
“Any life extension of these power stations is going to be measured in months.”
The decision, announced after thorough engineering reviews, is set to make Miliband’s dream a lot harder. He has promised to deliver a net zero power grid by 2030, although in practice this is expected to mean 95pc green energy – with the remainder coming from burning gas.
Eventually, if the Government succeeds in the scale of wind and solar farm construction envisaged, it could lead to an abundance of energy.
But in the nearer term, some fear the breakneck pace of change could stretch the grid to the limit. In September, the country’s last coal-fired power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, closed.
As Britain’s reactor fleet shrivels, the amount of nuclear capacity will fall from six gigawatts (GW) today to just 1.2 GW by 2028 or soon after. Along with rising demand from power-hungry data centres and technologies of the future, it will make it even harder to keep the lights on when wind and solar generation is low.
Against this backdrop, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the newly nationalised body overseeing the electricity grid, is turning to households and businesses to help balance the system.
Last week, it announced year-round plans to manage demand by paying consumers to cut their electricity usage at times of tight supply.
The so-called demand flexibility service has been billed as a forward-looking way to manage an increasingly complex and “smart” system, as we move from using a small number of large coal and gas-fired plants to relying on a plethora of intermittent sources of wind and solar power – backed up by batteries, energy-storing giant flywheels, interconnectors and other gadgets.
Yet some critics warn this all looks strikingly similar to rationing, especially coming at a time when electricity production continues to fall.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/13/why-age-of-energy-rationing-is-looming-for-britain/
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Author: Paul Homewood
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