How Close Were We To Blackouts Yesterday?
Hey Alastair,
Yesterday was cold with no wind and light snow over the UK.
As Paul Homewood on his site summarises a post from Watt Logic:
Yesterday saw a blackout near miss in what turned out to be the tightest day the GB electricity market has seen since 2011. Wind power was 2.5 GW through the evening peak, solar was (obviously) zero and there were significant interconnector outages leaving expected capacity at just 5.7 GW. Had just one large power station tripped this evening, demand control would have been a real prospect.
The Operator of the Grid – NESO issued an alert saying that things are getting risky,
An ELECTRICITY MARGIN NOTICE has been issued by the National Energy System Operator to encourage market actions to increase System Margins. For the period: from 16:00 hrs to 19:00 hrs on Wednesday 08/01/2025 There is a reduced system margin. System margin shortfall 1700 MW The current contingency requirement is 1000 MW. 300 MW of generation is excluded from the available system margin due to system constraints.
Octopus then rushed out a Savings in an attempt to cut demand during the critical period 5-6PM.
What actually heppened:
On 5 January, NESO published its peak demand forecast for 8 January at 43.267 GW. Generator availability was expected to be 47.425 GW, and interconnector availability 6.674 GW. The operational planning margin requirement was 3.235 GW, meaning the surplus was 0.923 GW.
At 8am on 8 January, peak demand for the evening peak forecast by Amira to be 48.6 GW – this is intended as a true GB electricity demand forecast accounting for the effects of embedded generation in the distributions networks. At the time, the NESO transmission system demand forecast was 46.777 GW (at 17:00). The Initial Transmission System Demand Outturn data from BMRS indicated that actual transmission system demand was 46.825 GW (at 17:30) ie the forecast was too low.
This is highly worrying to the country and has not been widely reported. It does look like we are heading into a Train Wreck of low production, limited capacity excess while demand is increasing as move EV’s hit the road and more Heat Pumps are added. YOu have been warned.
