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Out of energy again?

The media is carrying warnings that we could run short of electricity on Friday morning.

This is because a cold spell is sweeping across the country which will result in sub-zero temperatures throughout the land with virtually no wind.

Apparently this will push our generation capacity to near its limit, what with those wind generators sitting idle and reliance being placed solely on hydro, geothermal and thermal capacity.

It would only take for a few hunred MW of generation to fall off the grid and all sorts of bad things could happen.

Have we really become a third-world country in respect to our electricity situation?

Is this simply one of the prices we have to pay for having an increasing reliance on fickle renewables such as wind?

Or is this the symptom of a much more insideous problem?

I'm talking about successive governments treating our power system as a cash-cow and demanding huge dividends from power generators, rather than reinvesting that money back into ensure adequate generation capacity at all times?

I fear it is the latter.

Although the growth in demand for electricity has been tempered somewhat by more efficient appliances, lighting etc., the reality is that this demand will continue to grow for the foreseeable future and unless we act now, future generations will definitely find themselves living with regular threats to power continuity.

The arrival of the EV will, at least initially, place an added burden on our already faltering generation capacity. Imagine a few hundred thousand EVs, each sucking down an additional 2KW whilst charging at 7am on a winter's morning while the family turns on all the heaters, ovens, toasters, and electric kettles. We're just not ready to handle that extra load and something will have to give.

As we've seen, EV adoption is growing at a blistering pace, far faster than anyone (aside from myself and a few others) predicted. In fact, the only thing holding back that growth right now is the limited supply of EVs.

Once the chip-shortage becomes history and we get a few more battery manufacturing plants up to full-speed, EVs will rapidly become the norm rather than the exception. This could be just a few short years away.

How long does it take (from conception to commissioning) to build a new hydro scheme or some other generation system that can be relied on 24/7. Sure, we could add more wind or solar -- but that's going to do us no good at 6:30am on a calm frosty winter's morning when demand soars and our existing capacity is exceeded.

If we're going the renewable way then we need more hydro or geothermal -- wind and solar do not deliver on calm frosty winter mornings. The ony alternatives are coal/gas or nuclear and I don't think those are environmentally acceptable these days.

Sadly, I believe our power problems are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.

It won't be until we actually start using our EV batteries as a temporary energy store that can be tapped into by our houses at 6:30am on a frosty morning that we'll gain some respite from the risk of blackouts. Once again however, I doubt this is going to change within the next few years.

So stock up on candles, gas cookers and wooly jumpers... you might just need them because governments seem hell bent on partying with the money that should be going back into the energy generation sector in order for it to keep pace with demand.

Carpe Diem folks!

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