Can power grid deal with piecemeal supply of energy?
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Delivering a much-needed supply of clean electric power requires certainty for producers and resilience from National Grid plc.
In both cases, recent decisions and glitches in the system have underlined how ramshackle our political priorities are and how unprepared the grid – built for centralised production – is for the much more diverse range of energy sources we will need in future. Each strand is subject to the vagaries of private profits from the means of production and delivery.
Following a decade of constructing some of the biggest wind energy units, on and offshore, we now know the price of building them does not require huge subsidies as earlier phases did. So, what is the problem with a UK-wide policy structure?
The Moray West offshore wind farm was vetoed at September's Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction despite the fact it could have matched the recently completed Beatrice farm with another 80-plus turbines. Indeed, these projects could have generated many more local jobs if they had been agreed together.
And it seems to me that the selling point of successful deep-water turbine installation would be good for export business in Europe and across the globe.
Frustration also continues in the Western Isles with the Lewis wind farm being rejected at CfD, which in turn stymies the construction of a suitable interconnector to the mainland that could accommodate many smaller producers to create work and resilience in the Outer Hebrides, an archipelago in need of jobs to retain people.
Also, the Viking project on the Shetland mainland has been passed over again. Each of these island groups looks to the Faroes to see go-ahead schemes and feels left out by remote and far-from transparent decisions.
Some good news comes with the Seagreen scheme off the Angus coast and a North Sea Dogger Bank scheme, another SSE project winning CfD approval.
We need to ask, what is the point of setting a competitive price for producers if there is no social and geographical weight in the decisions? We suffer from a privatised system that pits groups of companies that straddle various nations dictating how our precious resources are developed.
It is no different than the oil and gas industry. Too much of the supply chain centres on companies that gain hidden subsidies in other countries while in Britain it is devil take the hindmost.
The steady hand of state-backed enterprise Equinor ensures Norwegians don’t lose out. Both jobs and widespread communities and the general population enjoy a much fairer energy deal.
Meanwhile, in south-west England it is reported that the Hinkley Point new nuclear plant – once budgeted at £12 billion – is likely to come into production at twice that price at today’s estimates.
A recent map showing the much higher cost of electricity paid by consumers in the north of Scotland compared to the UK average contrasts starkly with our ability to build, run and profit from locally-sited clean power here.
Yet, UK energy policy refuses to acknowledge calls for fairness from the likes of Inverness MP Drew Hendry, whose shadow portfolio is business and energy. Broken-backed British energy policy is a bane for Scotland’s ability to deliver cheap green power to the wider UK and European markets.
How come we have a system where private profit goes up despite major faults and blackouts to essential services?
Turning to electricity transmission to markets, the reinforcement of the Scottish grid from Dounreay to Denny has been achieved by major investment which consumers will ultimately pay for. They feed efficiently into interconnectors into the vast and complex English and Welsh grid.
Recently Britain’s worst power blackout in 10 years was accounted for when National Grid explained why large parts of England and Wales lost power, not in mid-winter, but in mid-August!
As a result of the blackout, hospitals, trains, airports, traffic lights, homes and businesses were disrupted on a busy Friday evening. The BBC reported National Grid explaining: "Even though these events are outside of our control, we have plans in place to respond and the system operated as planned by disconnecting an isolated portion of electricity demand."
National Grid added its action to "protect itself and limit the fall in frequency" allowed for "power to be quickly restored". The regulator Ofgem demanded a full and early explanation that was delivered in mid-September but did not give satisfaction.
How come we have a system where private profit goes up despite major faults and blackouts to essential services? Deep in the complex jargon of the report is the sense that National Grid plc should have had a much clearer control over the transmission system it operates. No one lightning strike, no single power plant outage should cripple much of the English and Welsh grid.
What seems obvious is twofold: can private firms hold the country to ransom over an inadequate power grid, initially built to distribute from huge coal, nuclear and gas power stations? How developed is the grid to accommodate a multiplicity of scattered producers, on and offshore? Can we continue to tolerate a privatised system to keep a country’s lights on? Is it time for a rethink about private profit from public misery?
At this time of Brexit anxiety, the last thing that Andrea Leadsom, UK cabinet secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is thinking about is a way to deliver a resilient energy delivery system. She’ll take comfort from the cross-Channel interconnectors that add extra megawatts to south-east England’s voracious power needs in a system designed to ensure these needs have top priority.
For us in northern Scotland, we see the lack of concern in Cabinet for developing the potential of our own transmission system from the isles and remote mainland and our infinite resources of clean power. Distance does not encourage enchantment.
robgibson273@btinternet.com
- Rob Gibson is a former SNP MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross
