UK Back-up Power Would Cost $1.2bn/yr: Grid

The UK power cut of August 9 might have been avoided if National Grid had exceeded its regulatory requirement and held 2 GW of instant back-up generating capacity available, CEO John Pettigrew told The Times. But that would have come at a cost.

In an interview published September 2, he said National Grid had done nothing wrong, and the system had operated as he had expected. However, he called for a public debate over how much households were willing to pay to avoid such power cuts and said that trains, hospitals and other critical infrastructure should be upgraded to withstand abnormalities in electricity supplies, or be able to operate within a wider frequency band.

Pettigrew said that holding 2 GW in instant reserve would have cost an extra £1 ($1.1)bn/yr, or about £12/yr to the typical household bill, a figure that would drop in the coming years as technology enabled cheaper solutions. 

The power cut did not last long, and would not have caused such havoc had not a number of trains not automatically shut down when the frequency fell below the statutory level, trapping hundreds of passengers for hours. A hospital and an airport were also affected as well as 1.1mn customers, who lost power for under an hour.

UK energy economist Dieter Helm said, in the wake of the cut, that the cost of too much security of supply would be trivial, compared with the economic damage that too little could cause. He said the UK needs "a higher level of security of supply than ever before, and as we complete the transition to a digital economy (and net zero) we will need ever more security. What was good enough a couple of years ago is not now. What we need in the next decade is a lot more security…. More renewables mandated, by the net zero legal requirement, mean more equivalent firm power." 

National Grid is due to submit a final report September 6. It has to satisfy Ofgem that it met its licence conditions but the event is also being investigated by the government, which will have to decide how much to pay for how much extra security of supply.