Almost £10m has been paid to wind farms in Scotland after a subsea cable carrying green energy across Britain suffered a technical hitch. The £1bn Western Link, which went live in June after a series of setbacks, experienced a “power trip” in August and was shut down for several hours. It triggered a surge in compensation, known as constraint payments, to energy firms who were unable to deliver power to the National Grid. On August 30, when the fault occurred, 20 wind farms shared in a £1.6m payout. The day after, almost £4m was paid to more than 50 wind farms, including – for the first time – Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, the 588-megawatt (MW) Beatrice site, which was paid £268,000 to reduce output. In total, £9.9m in compensation has been awarded since the incident. Energy campaigners have criticised the National Grid’s failure to publicise the incident, particularly since consumers cover the costs through their energy bills. “It’s a very expensive problem for the energy consumer yet no announcement was made by the National Grid,” said John Constable from the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that publishes data and analysis on renewables. “The consistency of both high-cost, large volumes and the high number of wind farms constrained since the 30th strongly suggests that the difficulties with exporting wind power over the Western Link are probably continuing to this day.”
Times 8th Sept 2019 read more »
The energy industry has been criticised for moving too slowly on upgrades to the power grid that could help it cope with an increase in solar panels and wind turbines. Ofgem, National Grid and smaller network operators have been overhauling the frequency settings of power generators to make them less likely to “trip” and fall off the system in the event of sudden dips in generation supply. Such drops are becoming more difficult to manage as additional renewable sources come online. The industry has just agreed to make £100m of changes to smaller generators, but critics say this has come too late. Smaller generators shut down following the loss of two larger generators during last month’s power cut – though National Grid claims that the blackouts would still have occurred even had the smaller generators stayed online. Paul Massara, former boss of Npower, said: “Given all the changes in the system, would it not have been better to do it faster? This is a resilience question for the next 10-15 years.”
Times 8th Sept 2019 read more »
Entrepreneur Edi Truell has threatened to scrap plans to build a £200m cable factory in northeast England and site it in Germany instead if he fails to win state support. The tycoon wants to build the factory on Teesside, creating 800 jobs, as part of his plan to lay a power cable between Iceland and the UK. Atlantic Superconnection would transmit electricity generated from hydroelectric and geothermal sources in Iceland, but the plan relies on securing a guarantee from the British government. Truell wants ministers to provide a contract for difference, which would guarantee a minimum price for the connector’s electricity for about 35 years. Truell, an ardent Brexiteer, is understood to have written to Greg Clark, the then business secretary, in December to warn that he would take the factory to Germany. That followed junior minister Claire Perry’s rejection of the plan.
Times 8th Sept 2019 read more »