By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Cong
Natural gas accounts for 43% of the UK’s primary energy consumption. Meanwhile, renewable energy provides only 4%.
Even so, our dependence on gas is much greater during the winter months:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/total-energy-section-1-energy-trends
And if you look at the data hour by hour, the peaks are still larger, as the National Grid graph below shows:
https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/
This chart is for yesterday, December 10. Demand for gas increased from about 310 mcm at night to 430 mcm in the early evening. One mcm = approximately 11 GWh.
So a rate of 430 mcm/day is equivalent to 4730 GWh, or 197 GWh per hour.
While supply has remained relatively stable, this peak demand is met by reducing what is known as a package – the amount of gas in the gas distribution network efficiently. Of course, this is something the grid cannot do.
Compared to the daily peaks and troughs of gas, the storage of electricity is very small. pump storage capacity is 2.8 GW, with the largest capacity, Dinorwig, rated at 1.7 GW with 9.1 GWh of storage. Battery storage is still much smaller.
Based on the drop in the pack, we will need about 70 mcm per day to replenish the peak demand – that is 770 GWh.
In any case, all the electricity storage we have will be needed just to balance peak electricity demand.
Yet our policymakers continue down the path of electrification, seemingly oblivious to reality.
Related
