britain's growing blackout risk

CFU should be all over this in their Sales & Marketing, encouraging business/schools/social housing organisations to "secure your energy future".

Fuel Cells should not be a hard sell at this point!! Would you be concerned about not having electricity during a British winter? I've lived through a couple and I would be!

Ministers face attack over growing blackout risk

Energy policy questioned as National Grid warns threat of cuts is highest for five years

National Grid said the demand for electricity could reach 95pc of available supply if the country was hit by a cold snap
By Steve Hawkes, 9:13PM BST 07 Oct 2013

Business groups have attacked the Government’s energy strategy after National Grid revealed that the risk of winter blackouts was the highest for more than five years.

The Grid said the demand for electricity could reach 95pc of available supply if the country was hit by a cold snap. The safety cushion or “margin” of just 5pc is the lowest predicted by the Grid since 2007.

They may be forced to issue demands – or NISMs – for emergency power to come on stream on certain days over the winter to cope. Experts blamed the wafer-thin margin on a near-20pc fall in coal-fired generating capacity over the past year.

Business leaders said the energy crunch meant spot prices for electricity were likely to go even higher, placing severe pressure on “intensive” users, such as steel producers and paper manufacturers.

John Longworth, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that unless ministers took some “long term” decisions British manufacturers might be forced to relocate overseas.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “We have short-term planning at a micro level coming out of our ears. We have an absence of long-term planning on infrastructure and that includes energy. There is a real risk this could start hitting the economy and growth over the next 10 years.”

Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, said British companies were already at risk of losing business on the international stage because of spiralling energy costs. He said: “The problems are only going to get worse over the next two years.

In its “Winter Outlook”, National Grid insisted there would be enough gas to cope with demand this winter, but Chris Train, market operations director, said that in the event of a 1 in 20 winter, there would be a mere three gigawatts (GW) of spare electricity capacity.

He explained that coal-fired generating capacity has fallen by one fifth in the past year – nearly 6GW – just as coal prices plunge on world markets and admitted coal prices would have to almost double for gas to become more attractive as a fuel.
The electricity margin of 5pc in a cold spell was “tighter than we have seen historically,” said Mr Train, but he was confident there would not be a blackout. He declined to say whether manufacturers with interruptible contracts would be told to down tools to help the Grid during times of peak demand.

Mr Train told a packed industry conference in London: “There is no room for complacency. It’s a plea for the market to be vigilant as we go into this winter.”

Last June, Ofgem revealed that the risks of blackouts in the middle of the decade had tripled because the UK had failed to build enough wind farms and nuclear power stations to replace old fossil fuel plants taken out of commission. Some experts believe the electricity margin will fall to just 2pc in 2015-16.

Mr Nicholson said: “This is entirely as a result of political decisions. If you go back to the last Labour government, they were dithering over nuclear energy for years. And we’re still waiting.”

He added: “The target is for 30pc of our power to come from renewables by 2020, but no one believes we could do that, even if we can afford it.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10362359/Ministers-face-attack-over-growing-blackout-risk.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter