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The UK will experience prolonged power cuts in about five years unless urgent action is taken now, a report warns.
It said a third of generation capacity was due to be decommissioned by 2020, but was not being replaced fast enough.
The report, by nuclear supporting Fells Associates, said new reactors would not be ready in time, and questioned spending on renewable energy.
Originally posted by stumason
EDIT: Checked with my colleaguies at the Grid and total "load factor" of the UK is currently around 70% of capacity, so currently there is no need to panic.
Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by Northern Raider
Maybe 96% capacity for the Nuclear industry (those two companies you quoted), but the entire generating capacity of the UK is more than enough for demand.
Granted at times generators will be offline for maintainence etc and yes, we do have a huge interconnector between us and France, run by the Grid, which quite often has electricity flowing the other way too...
EDIT: I also doubt it's "most evening". I attended a meeting at the Grid control centre just a couple of months ago and got given the gory details. Endless charts, graphs and maps. At no point was there ever a problem with supply, it's all down to price. If it's cheaper to have it piped in from France, rather than keepping generators spinning in the UK, then that will be the way it's done.
[edit on 26/9/08 by stumason]
Originally posted by stumason
Try not to take this particular article too seriously. It's typical Daily mail spin where they took a slightly worrying report and made it seem like the world is about to end.
Originally posted by stumason
I do believe the Government has finally got it's finger out, of sorts, as is giving the green light to several projects ranging across wind, tide, new clean coal and even, although not finalised yet, new Nuclear stations.
Originally posted by stumason
It's just that in typical Government style, they wait till the last possible minute before acting. They are cutting it fine....
Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by Wotan
How does another foreign power have control?
Fear of power blackouts dismissed
The National Grid says fears of winter power blackouts are unfounded, and denied that surplus capacity is low.
The energy trader Inenco says the UK could face power blackouts "within weeks" if a sudden cold snap or unplanned power outage occurs.
But the National Grid says it will be maintaining 4000MW of spare capacity throughout winter - a safety net equating to four large power stations.
Work on coal and nuclear plants is no threat to emergency capacity, it said.
Talk of blackouts has been escalating this week, since the National Grid published its latest forecast of power supply and demand over the winter months.
The update revealed that in November, predicted surplus capacity had dropped as low as 800MW - leading to newspaper reports that it would take just one power station failure to cause a blackout.
news.bbc.co.uk...