UK Gas and Electricity Crisis Looming

Joules · Post by **Joules** » 18 Feb 2006, 11:30

From John Hemming's The UK Gas Crisis 2005-2007 (http://gasissues.blogspot.com/)

In the case of the UK market for gas, however, there are particular problems that drive gas prices up beyond that on continental Europe

Can you elaborate on this for us John?

SherryMayo · Post by **SherryMayo** » 18 Feb 2006, 23:20

While the UK may have escaped unscathed so far, according to www.theoildrum.com Denver in the US is having rolling electricity blackouts due to unseasonally low temps and resulting gas shortages.

Post by **mikepepler** » 26 Feb 2006, 20:42

Here comes the snow....

http://www.metoffice.com/weather/europe ... nings.html

EARLY WARNING of Heavy Snow Issued by the Met Office at 12:00 on Sunday, 26 February

OVERALL RISK ASSESSMENT: The probability of disruption due to severe weather conditions in part of the United Kingdom within the next 84 hours is 90 percent.
This is the first warning of disruption due to Heavy Snow.
The Met Office is forecasting a very cold northerly flow to become established across the UK during Tuesday. This is expected to bring snow showers to many places. Areas most at risk are coastal and upland regions exposed to the northerly flow - in particular northern and northeastern Scotland along with some eastern counties of England. In these areas frequent heavy snow showers could bring accumulations of 5-10cm at times, with 30 percent risk of locally over 20 cm. In addition, some locally significant falls of snow could occur over parts of N Ireland and west Wales, especially on high ground. Strong winds are likely to cause drifting at times with blizzard conditions possible over high ground. Disruption to transport is possible and some roads may become impassable.
The cold, wintry spell is expected to continue for the following few days, with the possibility of persistent snow across southern counties. The early warning may be extended in subsequent issues as the risk becomes clearer.
This warning will be updated by 1200 tomorrow, Monday 27th February 2006.

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/HOME/

We haven't experienced it all winter and now that Spring is just around the corner, Winter has decided to make an appearance and oh boy will we know about it!. The coming week will deliver some very wintry weather indeed to many parts of the country as the UK becomes locked into a cold pattern that will not only bring snow to many places but also very cold temperatures, especially by night.

After a lot of build up to what will be the most significant wintry spell of weather this winter, the scene is set for winter to certainly have a sting in it's tail as we head into March. The first significant feature of the coming week will be a developing low pressure system that will push down from the North during the course of Monday and into Tuesday. This bringing a mixture of rain, sleet and snow depending on altitude and also location, it is then behind this feature from Tuesday onwards the really cold air arrives.

The rest of the week will see a mixture of sunshine and wintry showers, most of these will fall as snow even down to low levels, but more especially over higher ground. There still remains some uncertainty over just how much snow will fall and specifically where, but at the moment parts of Scotland, Eastern England, Wales and Ireland could be at greatest risk. It wouldn't be out of the question for in excess of 15cm of snow by the end of the week and locally up to 20cm to 30cm, especially where drifting in strong Northerly or North-easterly winds takes place.

The snow won't be the only problem, daytime temperatures will struggle to reach and pass the freezing mark, especially over snow cover. Temperatures by night will also plummet again especially over snow cover and as extremes temperatures may well reach -10C to -15C. The cold weather is currently set to last into next weekend when a breakdown is currently expected as milder weather edges in from the Atlantic. This is still a long way away, but this change to milder conditions next week could also signal the threat of some significant snow for a time before it turns milder.

All in all get ready for a very wintry week and keep those winter woollies, shovels and de-icer close by!

I wonder how well we will cope...?

Post by **clv101** » 27 Feb 2006, 07:09

I've been suggesting for some time that we can't maintain gas supplies when the daily average temperature is below zero. Well it seems we may get three days of sub zero averages this week:

Code: Select all

27/02/06	28/02/06	01/03/06	02/03/06	03/03/06	04/03/06	05/03/06	06/03/06
3.46	      1.3	    -0.6	    -1.91	    -0.86	    0.78	    1.45	   0.18
07/03/06	08/03/06	09/03/06	10/03/06	11/03/06	12/03/06	13/03/06	14/03/06
5.85	     8.87	    8.09	    7.42	     9.26	     8.25	    8.75	    5.09

http://www.net-weather.co.uk/index.cgi?action=tmp

johnhemming · Post by **johnhemming** » 27 Feb 2006, 07:41

I have asked for a substantive response to this prediction (actually a slightly colder one made about 24 hours previously) from the appropriate people.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 27 Feb 2006, 10:54

Long range UK forecasts currently suggest it will stay cold until about the 7th March.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/ ... look.shtml

Post by **mikepepler** » 01 Mar 2006, 21:37

Did anyone else notice the sudden change today in the "safety monitor" curve for short and medium range storage on http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Data/dsr/

I guess this is an adjustment to take account or Rough being offline, and hte current cold weather.

Post by **clv101** » 01 Mar 2006, 22:56

You mean from these:

To these:

grinu · Post by **grinu** » 02 Mar 2006, 14:00

Can anyone explain the significance of these? I doubt they can be showing what I think they are showing, surely.

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 02 Mar 2006, 14:11

What do you think they are showing?

Post by **mikepepler** » 02 Mar 2006, 16:27

grinu wrote:Can anyone explain the significance of these? I doubt they can be showing what I think they are showing, surely.

OK, here goes, though my understanding is not complete, so feel free to correct me.

The pink line is historical, the green line shows where storage levels would go if we withdrew at maximum rate.

The blue line shows the level at which storage must be to guarantee no interruptions at all (though interruptions could still happen due to limits in the network capacity). The red line shows the level at which interruptions might need to be enforced on businesses that didn't sign up for them, in order to preserve the integrity of the supply to domestic users. Remember you have to keep the pipes pressurised or you could get air into them....bang!

So, the recent adjustment takes into account the missing output from Rough, which means that we are more dependant on the short/medium storage. What this means in terms of supply is that we are not out of the woods yet, though I think it would have to stay cold for longer than is likely for there to be a problem now.

Just imagine what would have happened if Rough had gone offline a couple of months earlier... it would have been disastrous! It shows how vulnerable our energy infrastructure is to single random accidents like this, and like Buncefield.

A related issue - does the closure of Rough mean that we'll go into winter with good levels of storage as we've not been importing a lot instead of using it up? Or will we drain it out and flog it off at a cut price to the EU over the summer?

Post by **mikepepler** » 02 Mar 2006, 16:42

Today's withdrawls from storage:

Code: Select all

Storage    Yesterday's level     Today's level      withdrawl
Short        1708GWh               1577GWh          131GWh  &#40;~11.8mcm&#41;
Medium       4229GWh               4008GWh          221GWh  &#40;~19.9mcm&#41;

This is the first big withdrawl from short range storage this winter.
Get the full info here: http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Data/dsr/

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Mar 2006, 08:40

There is a "Gas Balance Alert" declared for today: http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Data/dsr/

Does anybody know what this actually means for gas users? Is it industrial users being cut off?

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Mar 2006, 12:38

And according to this story on Bloomberg:

U.K. power prices for tomorrow had their biggest gain in more than two years after natural-gas prices rose to a record, making it more expensive to produce power for some generators.

Electricity for tomorrow jumped to as much as 120 pounds ($207.10) a megawatt-hour from 50 pounds in the previous trading session on March 10, according to the broker GFI's prices on Bloomberg. It traded at 100 pounds a megawatt-hour at 11:10 a.m. in London, the highest price in more than three months.

About 40 percent of U.K. power comes from burning gas, making its price is the main influence on U.K. electricity. The last time day-ahead power gained more in one day was in February 2004.

Natural gas for delivery tomorrow at the National Balancing Point more than doubled to 155 pence from 59.85 pence on March 10, said broker Spectron Group Plc. April gas rose 14.55 pence to 63 pence.

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 13 Mar 2006, 12:57

So, what's going on? It's cold, but not that cold (at least not in Milton Keynes),

Peter.