Net Zero Watch warns of growing GB grid instability

With more than 50 million EU electricity consumers suffering blackouts yesterday, campaign group Net Zero Watch has reiterated its warning that the UK power grid is also becoming increasingly unstable.

Grid analysts have suggested a high likelihood that the extent of yesterday’s blackout in Iberia was a result of the Spanish grid operating almost entirely on renewables at the time. The stability of power grids depends on so-called ‘inertia’, a resistance to rapid change that is an inherent feature of large spinning turbines, such as gas-fired power stations, but not of wind and solar farms. Too much renewables capacity on a grid can therefore mean inadequate inertia. As a result, in grids dominated by wind and solar, faults can propagate almost instantaneously across grids, leading to blackouts.

In a recent Net Zero Watch paper, entitled Blackout Risk in the GB Grid, energy system analyst Kathyn Porter pointed out that our own electricity system is also becoming increasingly unstable. Large fluctuations in grid frequency – the first sign of problems – are becoming much more common.

In the past four years, the upper operational [frequency] limit was breached around 500 times in each winter season…the number of such breaches has also been growing steadily, which is consistent with falling grid inertia…and a perception that the grid is becoming less reliable.

In addition, Ms Porter points out that the GB grid experienced a ‘near miss’ at the start of the year.

Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:

For 20 years, every aspect of the grid has been subordinated to the concerns of the eco-warriors. It’s no surprise that our electricity system is now both unaffordable and dangerously unstable. We can no longer afford to have energy policy determined by fantastists.

Notes for editors 

Kathryn Porter’s paper can be downloaded from the Net Zero Watch website.