Engineering news
The supply and demand for both gas and electricity this winter is expected to be manageable this winter, despite tight margins for electricity supply, according to National Grid's Winter Outlook 2015/16 report.
While electricity margins will be tight, the Cordi O' Hara, director of UK Market Operations, said that the National Grid have the 'right tools' in place to manage the system. O' Hara added: “On the gas side, supplies are expected to be comfortable this year, thanks to good availability of liquefied natural gas on the global market and stable flows from the North Sea and Norway.”
The peak transmission system demand forecast, used for calculating the winter margin for the coming winter is 54.2 Gigawatts, a slight increase from last year. There has been no change in the position for generation since the Winter Review was published in July. The de-rated margin figure for winter 2015/16 is 5.1% which equates to a loss of load expectation of 1.1 hours - well within the Reliability Standard set by the government.
Additional balancing services of 2.4 GW have been contracted for the winter period to be available to manage periods of peak demand. This includes 133MW coming from businesses who have signed up for reducing demand at peak periods if called on, in return for payment.
Gas demand for the winter period is expected to be broadly in line with last year, showing a slight increase to 48.6 billion cubic meters. Peak daily demand is forecast to be 465 million cubic metre (mcm).
The maximum potential delivery of gas supplies, including from storage is 613 mcm, which is significantly higher than the peak demand forecast.
Lawrence Slade, chief executive of Energy UK said that the electricity capacity margins are tighter than last year mostly due to coal-fired power stations closing as result of government policy and regulation. Slade added: “Until replacement capacity is available, any further steps that would reduce electricity generation should be carefully considered.”
Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr said that every winter the same warnings of struggling capacity and the need for 'government handouts' are issued about the UK energy infrastructure. Parr added: “The only way to awake from this Groundhog Day is to recognise that as we transition to clean energy the best way to keep the lights on is a major expansion of local and decentralised energy in our towns and cities.
“The government needs to back this, alongside the kind of smart, flexible energy infrastructure that is getting cheaper. George Osborne needs to stop throwing money at an outdated energy system based on large plants swallowing up increasing amount of subsidies, like Hinkley Point, and empower cities and local communities to provide the energy resilience we need."
Download the full report here.
To hear more on this subject, join us at UK Electricity: Resilience and Security on 1st December.