This is the closest post to actually defining what the real...

This is the closest post to actually defining what the real problem is. Electricity is an essential service. It is really relatively easy to forecast maximum demand capacity required over winters or summers. With the government responsible for providing that electricity it then becomes relatively easy to determine how the government will cover that capacity. This could be from government owned and operated generation or privately contracted generation. As part of this planning, the government would factor in some residue capacity for unforeseen generators going off line or not producing.

However, with government privatising the electricity industry, it is up to the private operators to provide this capacity. However, private operators are more concerned with profit to shareholders than guaranteeing supply. It cost a lot of money to have assets built that might only be used for a few days in the year or possibly never if there are no issues that force existing generators offline.

Consequently, the issue of guaranteeing supply is really an issue of industry structure rather than renewables versus fossil fuels.

From the private sectors point of view it makes no economic sense to provide guaranteed spare capacity. Consequently, with a privatised electricity industry you are more likely to run into issues of supply been unable to meet demand during times of high demand and/or generators going offline.

Regards

SP