More target mania. The way things are going, or not going, the climate-obsessed UK government won’t be able to hurt the national economy with expensive and unreliable electricity as fast as planned.
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With some offshore wind projects waiting years in the pipeline, a report commissioned by the government has called for an urgent upgrade to the UK’s National Grid in order to reach the 2030 target of installing 50GW of wind power, says Sky News.
The UK will miss a key target to install 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind power by the end of the decade unless major changes are made to the grid, according to a government-commissioned report.
The 50GW target is at the heart of the government’s plans to phase out more polluting types of electricity generation by 2035, while also boosting energy security.
Tim Pick, who was appointed last year as an “offshore wind champion” to independently advise government and industry on the development of the UK’s offshore wind sector, said installing 40GW of wind power by 2030 “may be achievable” – but this falls short of the target.
Sky News has previously reported that wind generators already make more electricity than the grid can handle because of a lack of cables to transmit electricity from the north to the south of the UK.
This has resulted in British consumers paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind power off, and gas generators on, closer to the source of demand.
The independent report warns this is one of the major limiting factors to industry progress.
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Well look ye here now! I am getting really fed up ANGRY even with all these stupid reports: I am in the middle of sorting out a Diesel generator, suffering slightlyy form lack of REGULAR use, But having to put up with the vagaries of Bio-Fuel content causing MAJOR issues. Rubber Hoses perishing / degrading, Filters clogging, stickiness in the Fuel Pump, etc. …and then this at tea-break time – at Easter too. Nothing bet ter to do ( ie the repairs) and now readinig all this guff!
I don’t have facilities to post Images, but @ Gridwatch, “show Meters” and then re-arrange to have the Wind & Solar at the BEGINNING after the non-movable 1st three meters. THEN look at the graphical representation: See how ALL the rest has to climb over the occasiona intrusion to the sytem of the wind and solar. IT IS BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that wind and solar is only a plaything in the scheme of things. EDDz BallZ, Solar is Greater than WInd today for a wee whilie ONLY and then w have to crck open the reliables again ( RE_L I A B L E S !!) Not renewablez ! Savvy? and the germans haven’t got it yet either. Even my Regular Herons no longer come by to the fish pond …
Happy Easter a’body.
Nutters…
This has resulted in British consumers paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind power off
But the producers aren’t obliged to turn it off if they can find an off-grid use for it e.g. charging batteries somewhere, or anything else that makes them some money. They still get their constraint payment.
For the last few days wind has produced almost no electricity so it would be better if they just shut the unreliable supply down completely. It would make more sense to build CCGT and nuclear power plants which are reliable and supply power 24/7/365.
Doing that would save the consumers paying out the millions of pounds for nothing.
In you missed it when I posted it previously Ivan, this shows a more convincing reason to scrap bird mincers and stick to nice cheap reliable CCGT, see in particular page 16.
Click to access blackrock-energy-and-resources-income-trust-plc-interim-report.pdf
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.
“Tim was appointed in May 2022 by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to serve as the UK’s first Offshore Wind Champion, co-chairing the Offshore Wind Acceleration Taskforce (OWAT) established by the British Energy Security Strategy.”
So hardly “independent”. And what is the point of paying an expensive lawyer to say “do more, go faster”? As for energy security, that’s just another flimsy excuse to have intermittent power.
Energy security will be heavily dependent on Russia’s new buddy China supplying lots of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries – so not as secure as claimed.
We have plenty of our own gas and coal but are unwilling to extract most of it. All this Chinese kit we’re importing is produced using large amounts of… gas and coal. Who are our politicians kidding?
If the problem is not enough grid access then why shouldn’t those who would benefit from this extra access be made to contribute towards that cost?
One of the big selling points for “Green” energy from sun and wind was that it removed our energy dependence on “rogue” states such as Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries.
So now we are dependent on an even bigger rogue state – China – for the equipment to extract his “Green” energy from the Sun and wind…
And yet we are sitting on decades – perhaps centuries – of supply of oil, gas and coal directly under our feet.
I see…
catweazle666 interesting about Black Rock. I have downloaded it. One frame re comparison of 100MW gas turbine vs wind generation I will use in a presentation I have for U3A (University of third age)
…. yes and TODAY is Easter Monday – a holiday for a lot, over 2 million ( EVs (?) ) on the road, and being the holiday , power demand is down @ under 25GW Yes you read that correct TWENTY-FIVE, Frequency (Hz) is down under 50Hz …. tell me you know we have abundant power on tap, Wind as at a MASSIVE 11GW ( ha ha ha ) but they claim 44% OF SUPPLY, what’s wrong ? as at my first comment here, ‘@ Gridwatch,’ “show Meters” why doesn’t wind produce more ?
EV’s ? where WOULD they get all their re-fills from on demand ?
Graeme No.3 says:
If the problem is not enough grid access then why shouldn’t those who would benefit from this extra access be made to contribute towards that cost?
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They get paid more for not generating under the constraint system.
[…] report calls for major National Grid changes to prevent UK missing key wind power targets” (link) – and that’s just for transmitting wind […]