An energy emergency in May 2016 – why? Dr Andrew Crossland explains…
One day in May earlier this year, not just one but seven British power stations either broke down or became unavailable. This, together with inaccurate wind forecasts and a breakdown of a subsea connector to France, led to a massive shortfall in electricity. National Grid just didn’t have as much power as it expected.
It was a difficult day for the grid – Britain unexpectedly lost around 1,800MW of supply, which is enough to boil 800,000 Tesco own-brand kettles. National Grid had to act fast to find emergency energy sources.
However, acquiring emergency energy did not come cheap: some power stations were reportedly charging 24x the normal rate – ouch.
So how can we keep the lights on without paying 24x the normal rate of electricity? Dr Andrew Crossland, Senior Design Engineer at Solarcentury, explains all to green business site: blue&green tomorrow.
