So a headline today is that one of the major power suppliers has forecast that we will run out of electricity this winter:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...SSE-warns.html
Some biased background... I'm pretty cross about this.
Over 20 years ago when the UK electricity market was publicly owned, one of the key objectives was to ensure that where possible the lights stayed on. As a result the UK had a lot (20%+) excess electricity generating capacity and a good mix between baseload (nuclear and large coal-fired) and reactive (gas turbine) generating capacity. This excess capacity meant that if several large generating sets were unavailable due to maintenance or outage, there was sufficient spare capacity. The generating stations (and excess capacity) were also geographically spread so as to ensure that no sector of the grid is overloaded.
Following privatisation we have had a number of factors which have meant that capacity is being squeezed:
The upshot is that back in the centrally planned days we had security of supply but now we have 5% excess capacity which in turn means that we can be held hostage by generators to fund their investment.
It is unlikely that the lights will go out this weekend and SSE are crying wolf but there is IMO a serious problem in the UK electricity industry which is a direct result of the way in which it was privatised and we was consumers are paying the price in terms of the current and future costs of electricity and in terms of the lack of security of supply.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...SSE-warns.html
Some biased background... I'm pretty cross about this.
Over 20 years ago when the UK electricity market was publicly owned, one of the key objectives was to ensure that where possible the lights stayed on. As a result the UK had a lot (20%+) excess electricity generating capacity and a good mix between baseload (nuclear and large coal-fired) and reactive (gas turbine) generating capacity. This excess capacity meant that if several large generating sets were unavailable due to maintenance or outage, there was sufficient spare capacity. The generating stations (and excess capacity) were also geographically spread so as to ensure that no sector of the grid is overloaded.
Following privatisation we have had a number of factors which have meant that capacity is being squeezed:
- Generators are finacially penalised by the pricing model for having any excess generating capacity
- The pricing model (which ensures that the marginal price is paid to all generators) mitigates against cheap baseload generating
- Coal and nuclear baseload plants are not being replaced, gas-fired stations are being built instead (which brings its own problems in terms of security of supply of fuel)
The upshot is that back in the centrally planned days we had security of supply but now we have 5% excess capacity which in turn means that we can be held hostage by generators to fund their investment.
It is unlikely that the lights will go out this weekend and SSE are crying wolf but there is IMO a serious problem in the UK electricity industry which is a direct result of the way in which it was privatised and we was consumers are paying the price in terms of the current and future costs of electricity and in terms of the lack of security of supply.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=268097&goto=newpost
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