NESO Winter Outlook

By Paul Homewood

https://www.neso.energy/document/362976/download

NESO has published its preliminary power grid Winter Outlook for this year.

The Telegraph reports:

Britain will rely on electricity from France to guard against the risk of blackouts this coming winter, officials have said.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso), which oversees Britain’s electricity grid, said it would import power from France and other nearby European neighbours this winter to help backstop the network.

It plans to use the interconnectors linking the UK with France, Holland, Belgium, Norway and Denmark to back up the UK’s own power stations on “tight days” when supplies are stretched.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/18/britain-to-rely-on-france-to-avoid-blackouts-this-winter/

In fact the reality is much worse than that.

As NESO’s Outlook shows, that interconnector capacity is no longer a luxury, it will make the difference between blackouts and no blackouts.

And that is despite the 40 GW+ of nuclear and thermal capacity available.

NESO don’t publish the actual numbers – this will wait till their full Outlook later in the year. But they are projecting around 15 GW of renewables, which looks grossly optimistic. There will be no solar power generated when demand peaks in early evening, and we have regularly seen wind power drop to less than 2 GW. (Biomass, it appears, is included under thermal).

To make matters worse, they have unaccountably based their modelling on “Average Cold Spell peak demand”, rather than “Worst Case” which surely any responsible grid operator would do:

So we have to keep our fingers crossed that we do have another 1963 winter, that we don’t have a 3-week dunkelflaute and that Europe has ample power to send us.

So much for energy security, Mr Miliband!