British power grid system creaks at risk of blackouts

Bloomberg

The UK power market is showing signs of strain. For the fourth time this winter National Grid Plc warned that the buffer needed to ensure security of supply and keep the lights on was too small.
While the UK has made swift progress on switching from fossil fuels to renewables, this is the downside to cleaning up its energy system. And when the wind doesn’t blow, cold weather boosts demand and several nuclear plants are offline the grid operator is left scrambling to avoid blackouts.
Each time a so-called electricity market notice is published, the issue has been resolved within hours by power plants ramping up supply or by a planned reduction in demand from industry. Until this winter, there hadn’t been a market warning for four years.
There are continued tight margins on the electricity system owing to colder temps, renewable output levels & generator availability over periods with higher demand.
The reality is that the network operator needs to get better at balancing the system when turbines aren’t spinning as policymakers plan to quadruple the nation’s offshore wind capacity within 9 years.
“As the UK continues to rely on intermittent renewables, you need to have more and more backup capacities in place,” said Weijie Mak, project leader Aurora Energy Research Ltd.
“You get into this issue where it’s harder and harder to manage the system.”
For National Grid, the difficulty is setting up the system so that the costs and benefits align, Mak said. It doesn’t make economic sense to pay for long-term backup capacity just to cover instances of unusually low wind.