Millions of households in Britain may have to run their washing machines at night or their dishwashers during a mid-morning lull to avoid rolling blackouts this winter.
On 6 October, National Grid ESO, which operates the electricity grid in England, Scotland and Wales, issued a stark warning that electricity supplies to households could be cut for 3 hours at a time this winter if the European energy crisis deepens.
“I’m not aware of there ever having been planned rolling blackouts since the 1970s,” says Simon Cran-McGreehin at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a UK non-profit organisation. “This is, in terms of our modern energy system, unprecedented.”
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To avoid such a fate, which analysts agree is a worst case scenario for electricity supplies, British grid operators are relying on an easing of geopolitical tensions, a spell of blustery weather and the support of the public.
National Grid ESO said it is “cautiously confident” that it can keep the lights on across the three countries this winter, assuming that European interconnectors are available to send power to Britain as usual, and that gas supplies continue uninterrupted.
But things could spiral downwards swiftly if conditions on the continent change, the operator warned.
Supply gap
Interconnector cables from mainland Europe currently supply about 8 per cent of Britain’s electricity. But if Europe starts to run out of gas, power generation on the continent could slump, leaving little spare electricity to send to Britain.
If supplies from Belgium, France and the Netherlands were stopped this winter, Britain’s generation capacity would drop by almost 4 gigawatts, National Grid expects, wiping out the safety margin for electricity supply over the winter.
If this happens, National Grid has a plan to fire up Britain’s ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations, providing an extra 2 GW of capacity to help fill the supply gap. Operators will also be keeping their fingers crossed for blustery days to generate plenty of home-grown wind power.
But that will only solve part of the problem. More power capacity would still be needed to fill the supply gap.
That is where British households and businesses will need to step in. Since February, National Grid has been trialling a new “demand flexibility service” that asks households and businesses to tweak their energy use to ease pressure on the network at key times. Customers that agreed to take part were rewarded with free power during the two-hour windows, if they did their bit.
A trial with Octopus Energy earlier this year involving tens of thousands of customers saw households cut their consumption by an average of 18 per cent during specified periods, saving an average of 23p each time. Two-thirds of households cut their usage by at least 30 per cent in at least one event. Another provider, Ovo, launched its own trial – Power Move – on 6 October, with customers offered cash bonuses for using less power between 4pm and 7pm each day.
Cutting demand
Once rolled out across Britain, National Grid estimates this response could cut demand by up to 2 GW. That would be a “significant chunk” shaved off the total demand on the grid, says Cran-McGreehin.
But such a large-scale programme of demand reduction is relatively untested, with trials only starting in earnest this year. For it to have a meaningful impact on Britain’s power demand, millions of homes and businesses would need to be involved and primed to take action at the right time.
That will require an unprecedented communications effort on the part of National Grid, energy suppliers, the UK government and devolved governments. It isn’t clear that this level of responsiveness is built into the system. During the Octopus trial, customers were alerted to new turn-down periods via email. A population-wide text alert system, like the scheme used to avert blackouts in California earlier this year, may get out the message to act more swiftly.
If the incentives aren’t right, asking the public to reduce their consumption may also be out of step with the national mood, points out from energy consultancy Cornwall Insight. People who have already cut their energy use to the bone to avoid high bills may have little patience with the energy market by the depths of winter, he says. “If I’m sitting in the cold already, maybe I don’t want to turn my light off or put off my cooking,” he says.
Even if people voluntarily cut demand at key times, blackouts could still be on the horizon. If there is a shortfall of gas supplies being shipped to Britain, there may not be enough fuel to keep gas-fired power turbines going. In that circumstance, controlled blackouts might be inevitable, National Grid warned, regardless of when people run their dishwashers.
