Yeah, this whole "let's sell off state-owned infrastructure on the Free Market" hasn't worked out so well: not only in the UK, but also elsewhere in Europe, the handsome profits of those moves have pretty much evaporated, investments in upgrades have been severely lacking, and now everyone is pointing fingers due to the inevitable capacity meltdowns.

(Note that I'm not opposed to privatization in general, and it has worked out very well in other sectors, noticeably Telecoms, but I'm not aware of it bringing long-term happiness anywhere when it comes to Energy)

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years.

So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..”

> Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and the interaction of the outage plans, increased capacity across the boundary will be limited and intermittent till 2029

So basically no transmission, onshore or offshore is going to be improved until 2029, but we’re still green lighting wind farms in Scotland. I’m amazed someone has the foresight to increase generation but not transmission until now, how were these green lit in the past knowing full well this bottleneck existed.

Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted, otherwise curtailment is going to be even higher in the next few years.

There are two things we can do with energy, move it across space or move it across time. Moving it across space requires transmission infrastructure (which is state owned or rapacious corp owned -- very slow to build or upgrade; rent seeking, regulatory capture). The other option is to move across time, which is using batteries. Cars are rarely driven more than ~20 mins/day which make them the ideal energy storage devices. We could even say their primary purpose is energy storage. Just like today's 'phones' are no longer for making calls but for content consumption. When all cars are EVs and can do V2X (vehicle to grid, to load, to home, to anything), it becomes a gigantic, resilient, distributed energy reservoir.

For providing this service, all car (EV) owners must be paid to give the utilities permission to dump excess production and to supply energy back to the grid when needed. Right now, most of the electricity costs are from peak costs (mostly peaker electricity costs). There is no reason that this infrastructure can't be provided by the EV car owners.

Generally fair take, though most of the comments here don't seem to reflect the article's take that it is high gas prices and ongoing work to upgrade transmission that accounts for much of the cost.

They don't mention the previous government effectively banning onshore wind in England which seems relevant. The current version of that party is abandoning net zero to win back gullible voters they themselves misinformed about renewables.

If we want to point fingers for mismanagement I'd start there and probably also allege corruption.

It seems to me that a bigger issue is lack of storage. With battery storage acting as buffers we would normalize/smooth out required transmission rates.

it is insane to me that they rejected moving to zonal pricing. zonal pricing would give incentive to move power demand closer to production, create costs to nimby-ism, and give the benefits of lower costs to those who live closer. but it might make energy cost more down here in the south east and (in particular) London while benefiting the North and Scotland so we can't have that

Here is a really good write up of this topic from 2023: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st...

The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing points is Torness, which already has a scenic nuclear reactor and associated transmission infrastructure.

I do understand the argument that the Borders is "unspoilt", but also .. hardly anybody lives there because it's an odd economic dead zone. Run another line of pylons within sight of the existing ones and call it a day.

I also wonder to what extent building more storage on either end would help. That's got to be brought into the equation. Don't say pumped storage because all the suitable geology for that and one of the biggest existing installations is also in Scotland, we need some in the Midlands.

And should probably be asking why new high usage AI datacenters are still happening in London.

Generation curtailment is expected though in a 100% VRE power grid because it's necessary to overbuild, and this strategy is found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1][2] Generation curtailment could be minimised though with demand-side flexibility (eg. turn on aluminium smelters when it's windy), not necessarily just with pumped storage hydro and/or lengthy transmission line builds to other regions where solar generation can be used to supplement wind generation.

Relevant quotes:

"this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1]

"VRE overbuilding and operational curtailment (i.e., implicit storage) are key to achieving economically acceptable firm 24x365 solutions. Because firm power generation could be achieved locally/regionally in many cases with a small premium, optimum implicit storage solution could alleviate the need for major power grid enhancement requirements."[2]

[1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/

[2] https://iea-pvps.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Report-IEA-P...

> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity.

This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.

Opening a new wind or solar farm is much more photogenic than opening a new transmission line.

> This usually means turning wind farm output down in Scotland, because we can’t safely export it south, and replacing that energy in the South, typically with gas generation.

Thats super fucked!

How do other countries cope

I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".

The real problem isn't curtailment but misaligned incentives that subsidize curtailment. In short, wind providers are being payed royally (many billions) to NOT produce wind energy. There's no incentive for them to be more efficient. Worse, because of the incentives, energy companies are just installing wind wherever they can without regard for the local infrastructure and demand. They get guaranteed pricing regardless of whether their energy is used. Not their problem if they have to throw double digit percentages of their energy away. They get paid anyway.

> just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years.

That's plain wrong.

Transmission system have massively evolved compared to what they were 30 years ago. Typically, at the TSO I know, the way people work looks nothing like it was 30 years ago.

Nowadays, every 5 minutes, we simulate the whole network for each of the consumption forecasts we have (one per 15 minutes) in the next two hours, plus the effect of every network loss, plus we simulate whether the planned workarounds fix the situation.

There are also newer generations of automated protective mechanisms on the lines, new automata, a new SCADA, etc. The network has also been expanded significantly with several new interconnections, more interactions with our neighbours, etc.

On the "market" side, we have plenty of new tools that allow us to do what's explained in the article's introduction, since the system didn't work like that before Europe's electricity market reforms.

And that's just a very small part of what changed.

> Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted

It doesn't work like that. Transmission evolves over time according to needs. It makes no sense to "freeze" for a time to let TSOs adapt. What needs to be done, however, is maybe give the market a little bit less deciding power, and give the TSO a little better feedback loop to force market operator to provide workable solutions.

Also maybe the political forces pushing renewables with LCOE analysis need to understand that generation build cost is only a fraction of what's paid for an electric system.

The german economic ministry has recently proposed exactly that. Slow the addition of more generation while the grid catches up. As expected this proposal did not go over super well.

The trivial solution is to divide the grid into two zones along the bottleneck.

Then no redispatch is needed and building more capacity in the south is worth it.

Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars).

For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.

You get a lot of this benefit even with one way charging.

The UK was ahead of the game with this, mandating chargers that could react to grid demands.

Now they have things were you plug your car in and the grid decides when to charge up for massive discounts.

The new T-Pylons[1] they've installed in the south-west aren't even as much of an eye-sore as the old fashioned ones either

[1] https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-i...

I recall at the Torness tour that the guide, who's a local, remembered at public the planning meetings that they were told the building wouldn't really be visible from the A1!

At least they painted it grey to match the sky...

> And should probably be asking why new high usage AI datacenters are still happening in London.

Companies won’t be incentivised to move to Scotland unless there is regional power pricing in place, and both Conservative and Labour governments would rather shoot their own kneecaps off than offer tax incentives for companies to move to Scotland.

That said, there are two AI datacentres opening in North-East England. That’s still a long way for the power to travel, but I feel part of the reason is to soak up surplus wind power even if it’s not actually cheaper.

I don't understand why borders have to be considered unspoilt if most of it is the shore soaked with untreated sewage, so with limited allure to the tourists (considering that taking a swim can land you in the hospital).