By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Britain is poised to import a record amount of energy from France and other European countries this summer after mothballing a host of power stations.
The French state-owned operator EDF will sell much of the surplus power from its nuclear plants to the UK in the coming months after taking advantage of new undersea cables and a lack of domestic capacity, according to a new report from National Gas.
It said that the demand for gas in the UK was predicted to fall from 33.3 billion cubic metres (bcm) between April and September last year to 29bcm this year – a 10pc decline – because foreign energy is filling the gap instead of gas-fired plants in the UK.
Meanwhile, electricity imports are predicted to jump by 6.6 terawatt hours, potentially reaching a new summer record.
National Gas said: “This increase in electricity imports is being driven by increased availability of French nuclear generation along with an overall increase in capacity of interconnectors.”
Interconnectors are high voltage cables that link the electricity systems of neighbouring countries, allowing power to be traded across borders.
Britain now has three interconnectors to France, plus others to Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and Ireland.
Another, the Viking Link interconnector from the UK to Denmark, went into operation in December, sharply increasing the UK’s capacity for importing and exporting electricity.
However, the flow is mostly one way, into the UK, meaning an increasing proportion of British consumers’ power bills is flowing out of the UK to utilities overseas.
The UK spent £3.5bn on electricity from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands last year, accounting for 12pc of net supply, according to earlier research from London Stock Exchange Power Research.
This week import levels have risen to 14-15pc of UK electricity – including 8.3pc from France and nearly 4pc from Norway, according to National Grid data.
A key bonus of the shift to overseas power is a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
It takes a special kind of idiot to justify our throwing away of energy security by claiming that at least it cuts emissions!
I’ll leave it to the real experts:
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Paul Homewood
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.