By Paul Homewood
Just a couple of thoughts about the blackouts we missed by the skin of the teeth yesterday:
- As I noted, wind power dropped to 2.6 GW at 5.30pm. Even if wind capacity is tripled, as Miliband plans, that would still only yield about 8 GW. That extra 5 GW will probably be needed to meet increased demand. And as I have often analysed in the past, wind power can drop well below 1 GW for days on end.
- Kathryn Porter makes the important point about Interconnectors:
Interconnector owners do not control the flows under normal operations – they make capacity available and traders in the market will buy it, flowing power one way or another. This is why, as I have noted in the past, the inclusion of interconnectors in the Capacity Market is inappropriate and provides a false sense of security. Under Capacity Market rules, interconnectors must be available in a system stress event, but being available means electricity can flow, it does not mean electricity will flow to GB – the interconnector will meet the availability criteria if it is exporting.
There are 38 registered trading parties on the interconnectors. Any one of them could enter a late trade when the market is tight – they may do this for portfolio reasons, or they may do it maliciously, or to make a point about the market operation. NESO has no control over this.