Fintan's Lie And Mad Ed's Wet Zero Dream

Mad Ed has taken to X to extol the virtues of his Wet Zero ‘clean energy’ dream which he claims can be made a reality according to a recent report published by Fintan Slye’s National Energy system Operator (Neso).

The thing is, he is putting an absurdly positive spin on a report which essentially demonstrates that Net Zero Grid 2030 is a practical impossibility. The Telegraph makes this apparent, in gory detail:

The headline (‘demand side reduction) is just one part of the story as to why Ed’s mad ‘clean energy’ target is not only unachievable, but, even if it were achievable, would result in vastly more expensive energy, and a huge reduction in energy security. As if that wasn’t bad enough - clean energy isn’t ‘clean’; in fact it’s a filthy dirty scam in that it lines the pockets of the few with the hard earned cash of the many, kills birds, bats, whales, dolphins and porpoises, and destroys industry, the economy, democratic freedoms, wilderness areas, countryside and priceless farmland.

First, demand side reduction, or flexibility as it’s euphemistically called. Says the Telegraph:

Advice published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said a quadrupling of so-called flexibility is needed in order to ensure the grid can operate without the use of fossil fuels.

In practice, this means convincing larger numbers of households and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity consumption during low-wind periods or times when the grid is otherwise constrained – either through higher prices or by paying them incentives.

Some 2.6m households and businesses took part in schemes that paid rewards for cutting power use last winter, according to Neso.

To reach Mr Miliband’s target, the amount of flexibility must rise from 2.5 gigawatts today to at least 10.4 gigawatts – implying that millions more will need to sign up.

In fact, ‘in practice’, this means immediately expanding the smart meter rollout to encompass millions more households because smart metering is the only way that households might be ‘persuaded’ (via flexible half hourly tariffs), or more likely, forced (via powering down of appliances, or even switching off of supply) to use less energy when the wind isn’t blowing and/or the sun isn’t shining. The smart meter rollout is not going well. Customers are resisting the switch. They sense the scam and are aware of the technical glitches which can mean they will be charged extortionate amounts for energy not used or their meters will go ‘dumb’.

Suppliers are expected to install the devices in 80pc of the homes they supply by the end of  2025, according to targets set out in a 2023 National Audit Office report. However, the latest official data shows just 61pc of households are currently using one.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero estimates there are currently 4.31 million faulty smart meters installed across Britain. So-called “dumb” devices leave customers at risk of being hit with unfairly high bills.

‘Smart’ (Surveillance, monitoring and recording technology) meters were never about allowing customers to closely monitor their energy usage and ‘save money on bills’, they were always about enabling the government to monitor and control our energy usage and power down appliances or switch off supply altogether when necessary in order to restrict demand when weather dependent ‘renewables’ were not generating sufficient electricity to meet anticipated demand. With only 30 odd million households currently using smart meters and 4 million of those installed not working properly, it seems unlikely that grid scale ‘demand side reduction’ will be a practical possibility by 2030 unless the rollout is accelerated right now (by making smart meters compulsory) and by quickly resolving the numerous technical issues.

That’s not all. Most 'smart’ meter customers have not switched to flexible half hourly tariffs, which will be needed if flexible, grid scale, demand side controllability is to cope with a generation network dependent almost entirely on intermittent, variable ‘renewables’. Only about 10,000 customers have signed up to truly flexible half hourly variable tariffs in the UK, which is a tiny, but vocal minority, who have been boasting about ‘free electricity’ on social media for the last year or so. They’re not boasting now! With the current Europe-wide Dunkelflaute and leaden grey skies beneath a huge, continental scale area of persistent high pressure, Agile Octopus peak demand rates have shot up to an unaffordable 80-90p per kWh! Oh dear, what a shame. But the point is, in order to quadruple demand side flexibility in the next 5 years, not only is the smart meter rollout going to have to be accelerated right now, but millions of households and businesses are going to have to be ‘coerced’ into switching permanently to ‘time of use’ tariffs. That’s a big ‘nudge’, even for a Weird Stalin led, fascist/Marxist Labour government.

The Telegraph goes on to say:

In its report, Neso also warned that Britain’s existing power markets were “not fit for purpose” and called for the Government to consider a controversial regional pricing system instead.

“Failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall,” the report says.

Elsewhere, Neso laid bare the sheer scale of the challenge facing ministers if they are to reach their clean power target by 2030.

The report sets out two possible “realistic” scenarios for reaching the goal, including one where more renewables are built and households are more flexible, and another where more “dispatchable” power sources such as nuclear, hydrogen and gas with carbon capture are used.

However, both scenarios still involve a trebling of solar power and offshore wind capacity, a doubling of onshore wind capacity, a four-fold increase in battery capacity and a lifetime extension for at least one of the country’s ageing nuclear power plants – all in the next five years.

At least one reactor at Hinkley Point C, the delayed and over-budget nuclear power station being built in Somerset, would also need to switch on by 2030 – a prospect seen by many industry insiders as currently unlikely.

Gas-fired power plants would still provide up to 5pc of the country’s electricity to ensure security of supply.

Meanwhile, wind farm developers said the Government would need to urgently support a string of new factories to build cables, blades, foundations and towers needed for legions of new turbines.

It’s pretty obvious that barring a miracle none of this is going to happen and that neither of Neso’s two ‘realistic’ scenarios for decarbonising the grid by 2030 are going to be achievable within five years. Not forgetting of course the 1000km of mega pylons and 4500km of undersea cables required to transport ‘clean’ electricity from source to homes and businesses.

But let it not be said that this has in any way dampened Fintan’s Slye’s wild optimism and enthusiasm for the project:

Fintan Slye, chief executive of Neso, said: “There’s no doubt the challenges ahead on the journey to delivering clean power are great.

“However, if the scale of those challenges is matched with the bold, sustained actions that are outlined in this report, the benefits delivered could be even greater.

“A clean power system for Great Britain will deliver a backbone of home-grown energy that breaks the link between volatile international gas prices; that is secure and affordably powers our homes and buildings; that decarbonises the transport that we take to school and work; that drives the businesses of today and catalyses the innovations of the future.”

Fintan’s Lie is what it is. That “backbone of home-grown energy” has, for the past 5 days, been delivering no more than 7% of our electricity, often only 3-4%. Virtually all of that has come from the little wind there is, none from solar - because it’s November at high northern latitude and it’s cloudy. So even if, by some miracle, we did manage to quadruple renewables capacity by 2030, wind right now would be supplying only 12-16% of our current electricity demand (remember, demand is expected to increase rapidly because of EVs and heat pumps) and solar would still be supplying nowt, despite having gobbled up thousands of acres of farmland and countryside. And ‘home-grown clean energy’ will be neither affordable or secure. To suggest otherwise is to lie barefaced to the public.

Ed’s Wet Zero dream is a dead parrot and we will definitely need to buy fork handles to use during blackouts as he tries to convince us otherwise.