Energy sector urged to prepare for extreme weather impacts

Energy systems in the UK should prepare for how prolonged periods of reduced daylight and low wind affect renewable resources, a new report has warned.

The quarterly Electric Insight Report from Imperial College London said once-in-a-decade weather events could jeopardise the UK’s power security and resilience should be considered as part of the country’s decarbonisation plans.

Commissioned by Drax Electric, the report showed the country had its longest period of low wind output for the past 10 years in March when the country’s 24.4GW fleet of wind turbines fell to 0.6GW. From 26 February to 8 March the nation’s wind fleet did not exceed 20 per cent of its generating capacity.

Power prices at this time were typical, suggesting the system was not particularly stressed despite the fall in wind generation. However gas-fired generation was required to meet the surplus demand, with every GW of lost wind output being replaced by 0.84 GW of gas.

This reliance, the report noted, was at odds with net-zero ambitions. It recommended more flexible and longer-term storage solutions to ensure power on demand without relying on gas generation. Periods of low wind could be expected once every 20 years and should be accounted for when designing Britain’s energy security system, the report said, to avoid fossil fuels making up the short fall.

Co-author of the report, Malte Jansen, research associate at Imperial College London, said the UK must invest in energy storage to cover the shortfall.

“With wind and solar power set to supply half our electricity needs in the next five years, these extreme events will become much more impactful. To bridge the gap and deliver a net-zero energy system, the UK needs to invest in much more clean and flexible technologies, such as long duration energy storage.”

The quarterly report showed a 15 per cent rise in electricity demand in February when UK temperatures fell causing demand to exceed 48GW for the first time since 2019. This coincided with nuclear outages and an offline Dutch interconnector, which left the grid short of capacity.

Resilience of energy systems to extreme weather events should be designed into the transition to net zero, the report said. It recommended dual fuel options such as hydrogen and electric heat pumps as security against this risk.

Following the lulls in wind in early March, wind farms produced more than 18GW in a single day at the end of the month, which pushed fossil fuels to their lowest share of electricity generation.