Miliband’s Net Zero Grid Upgrades Will Nearly Double Household Charges

Miliband’s Net Zero Grid Upgrade Means Household Charges Will Almost Double

Consumers to pay for massive power network upgrade ahead of net zero deadline

MATT OLIVER

Household charges for the upkeep of Britain’s power transmission grid are on course to double this decade as part of a £35bn upgrade to prepare for net zero.

The National Grid on Wednesday published detailed plans to upgrade, rewire or expand more than 2,000 miles of its network across England and Wales.

This will cost up to £35bn from 2026 to 2031, almost triple the investment made in the previous five-year period, should regulators grant approval.

Consumers would pay for the work via network charges on their bills. National Grid said transmission network costs would rise from £23 per year to £44 during the upgrade.

The overhaul is a key plank of plans laid out by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, to eradicate fossil fuels from the country’s power system by 2030.

Under those proposals, the Government wants to double onshore wind capacity and triple solar and offshore wind capacity.

This requires a massive upgrade of existing network capacity as many windfarms are built in Scotland or off the coast. Extra capacity is needed to make sure power can be transported from these locations to where electricity demand is highest, in the South of England.

At the moment, many wind farms are paid millions of pounds to switch off on days when the grid is too congested to accept the power they are generating.

The National Grid said its plan for 2026 to 2031 will ease these problems, saving £12bn in so-called “curtailment” costs and reducing household bills by an estimated £40 per year compared to a scenario where no upgrades are carried out.

The company laid out the proposals as part of a draft business plan, for which it will need to secure approval from energy regulator Ofgem.

Under Mr Miliband’s mission to reach clean power by 2030, unveiled last Friday, ministers have also set out separate plans to overhaul planning laws to ensure big projects can be waved through by local authorities quickly.

The proposals come as the Energy Secretary races to meet his decarbonisation deadline, which his own advisors have said is highly ambitious.

Mr Miliband and his supporters argue that moving at such speed is necessary to address the pressing problem of climate change and bring down bills by cutting reliance on gas, though this claim is contested.

However, the speed of change and the massive building works involved have already proved controversial. Protest groups have sprung up around the country opposing new infrastructure such as substations and pylons.

On Wednesday, the Grid detailed plans for the upgrades it hopes to carry out in each region, including £11bn of “baseline” schemes that will be agreed in advance and another £24bn worth of “pipeline” schemes that will be considered by Ofgem individually over the five-year period.

They include a plethora of projects, including the replacement of ageing cables with new ones, the installation of higher-voltage cables in some places and the construction of new power lines in others.

In many areas, the Grid is also installing modern technologies, such as power flow control devices, which will allow for more finely-tuned control of the system overall, a spokesman said.

In the North West, for example, the company plans to upgrade five substations and re-string some 200 miles of overhead cables – a process known as “reconductoring” in industry lingo.

In the Midlands, it is planning to build a state-of-the-art control centre and five new “supergrid transformers” – facilities where high-voltage electricity is changed to low-voltage power that can be distributed to households.

Major work is also planned in other regions, with London and the South East to get new substations and large numbers of supergrid transformers, as well as new battery storage facilities and major subsea power cables.

John Pettigrew, the National Grid’s chief executive, said: “This plan represents the most significant step forward in the electricity network that we’ve seen in a generation.

“Through it we will nearly double the amount of energy that can be transported around the country, support the electrification of the industries of today and tomorrow, create new jobs and support inward investment for the UK.

“It is an ambitious plan, set to future-proof the network.”

Alice Delahunty, the president of National Grid Electricity Transmission, said: “The decisions we make in the next five years will shape the energy system and our society for generations to come.”

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RELATED

The “False Assumptions” Within the Marxist UK Labour Government’s Renewable Energy Plans Unravel – Rising Electricity Prices and Tax Hikes on the Way To Fund the Forced Build Out of the Grid

PETER HALLIGAN

From here:

Britons to pay almost double for electricity in Labour’s race to decarbonise for net zero

The increase is slated to be felt, not in the price per unit of electricity, but in the daily standing charge – a daily rate for the privilege of being hooked up to the grid.

Next month, standard variable rates are to be increased several per cent:

Those prices are after the previous ten per cent rise a few months ago.

There are “deals” which consumers ca take that save a little money – 7 pounds a month – that fix prices for a one or two year term, but there is no way for consumers to take advantage of hydrocarbon prices that are one fifth those of wind and solar electricity or that avoid the standing charge. Consumers are given no choice and the energy regulator, OFGEM, only sets a maximum price including expensive renewable energy.

I have shown that it costs more to charge an EV in the UiK than it does to run an internal combustion engine car, once you remove the penalties and regulations from “fossil fuels” (hydrocarbon fuels) – and – the subsidies and.regulatory relief given to renewable energy.

(100) The Marxist UK Labour Government plans a “de facto” reversal of Brexit – overthrow imminent? – issues = “green” energy, 40% inheritance tax on everyone, 750,000 new homes to house illegal immigrant

It turns out that the “budget” to roll out thousands of miles of infrastructure were not reflected in the plans. The costs will be taken out by increasing that standing charge- which is supposed to cover maintenance of the existing grid, will have to be increased to cover the costs of a new grid to carry renewable electricity supply.

Or it will have to be taken from increases in taxes.

From the MSN article:

“National Grid has unveiled a £35bn plan to upgrade Britain’s power transmission network – marking the most extensive overhaul of the system in a generation.”

National Grid is the company that sold all its transmission infrastructure to a newly created QANGO (quasi autonomous non-government organisation) called NESO.

A shell company funded by, drum roll, taxation and debt.

Labour’s 2030 grid decarbonisation plans at the ‘limit of what is feasible’ | Engineering and Technology Magazine

“Labour’s aim to decarbonise the UK’s electricity grid by 2030 is a “huge challenge” but achievable with the right policy incentives, the newly formed National Energy System Operator (NESO) has said.”

What else would a QANGO owned and operated by a lunatic government miser say? ESO is as independent as the British Army is of its defence minister.

So, here’s the plan – back to the MSN article.

“The ambitious project, announced on Wednesday, will see household charges for grid maintenance nearly double from £23 to £44 per year.”

You can see the poor research behind the article – the current annual standing charge is NOT £23 a year. The current standing charge of 41.589 pence per day is £151.80 a year – and a doubling would take the standing charge to £303.60, not £44 a year.

There is a commentary on the price increases and the unbudgeted costs for infrastructure in the embedded video in the MSN article (you have to scoot to the bottom right of the video screen, locate the fat dot and drag it upwards to get the volume turned up).

“The investment, which requires regulatory approval, represents almost triple the spending of the previous five-year period.

The massive infrastructure upgrade is designed to prepare Britain’s power network for the transition to net zero, with plans to expand and modernise more than 2,000 miles of network across England and Wales between 2026 and 2031.”

The 35 billion pounds will more than double from cost overruns over the next five years,

It will also lay waste to thousands of square miles of pristine countryside – above and beyond the ugly monstrosities of massive wind turbines striding across rural areas – throwing as many food growing farmers out of the way as possible and destroying entire ecosystems – birds, bees, badgers you name it these animals will be impacted to death,

“The plan includes £11bn of “baseline” schemes to be agreed in advance, alongside £24bn worth of “pipeline” projects that energy regulator Ofgem will consider individually.”

OFGEM has zero expertise in the environmental and economic costs of “pipeline” projects.

The plans were and are utter folly and the epitome of insanity – doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

In the meanwhile, this winter and increasingly in future winters, pensioners, the poor and the sick will turn off more appliances – from hot water cupboards, for washing and cleaning, to ironing, to boiling the kettle – as they struggle to stay alive with any kind of dignity.

Remember similar projects with an initial budget of around 45 billion pounds?

HS2 chair: seven reasons the mega-project is overbudget | Construction News

“The Gordon Brown-led government initially estimated HS2 would cost £37.5bn in 2009 prices, with one line stretching between London Euston and Manchester and a branch travelling between a Birmingham Interchange station to Leeds, via an East Midlands Hub.

However, HS2 Ltd now estimates the cost of the line between London Euston and Birmingham Curzon Street to be up to £67bn in 2023/24 prices – while the eastern leg to Leeds was scrapped in 2021 and the northern leg to Manchester was scrapped in October last year.”

Just one out of three lines still being built and the costs for that single line estimate of £67 billion compared to the initial budget of £37.5 billion for all three lines.

At that rate of inept budgeting, the £35 billion estimate by British Gas will be well over 200 billion by the time of completion with timetable overruns of decades.

Back to the MSN article:

“The upgrades are crucial as many windfarms are built in Scotland or off the coast, requiring additional capacity to transport power to areas of highest demand in southern England.

Currently, wind farms must often switch off when the grid becomes too congested, costing millions in compensation.”

Leading o comparisons like this one:

(100) UK “net zero” policies result in payments to TURN OFF wind turbines TURN ON Natural Gas – cost 1.3 billion pounds a year – removing winter fuel allowances for the elderly – cost 1.4 billion pounds

You cannot fix stupid – this is a narcissistic, childish, nihilistic anti-human Cult.

The egos of those involved in these sorts of projects is only exceeded by their hubris.

As a reminder, here is no climate crisis that warrants such a mad rush to use renewables.

We are just bouncing off a multi-millennial low in global temperature that occurred when accurate temperature readings began in 1875,

(100) Updated compilation of articles that debunk the “climate crisis” mantra -showing the utter folly of spending tens of trillions whilst allowing millions to die of disease and hunger (all ID’d/injected)

Even if “net zero” was valid as a strategic goal, it could be achieved by planting trees:

(100) Quick reminder – there are 3 trillion trees on the planet – each tree absorbs 25 kg of CO2 a year= 75 billion tonnes a year – mankind emits 35 billion tonnes of CO2 – so what’s the problem?

The entire premise that methane, CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock is based on the false premise by the UN FAO that livestock contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation industry – claims of 17% turned out to be 3%.

(100) The UN FAO fraud that started the global war on cow farts – starting in 2006 – completely debunked – every government policy based on this crap is based on BS

And le5’s not forget that building electricity generated by natural gas steam turbines costs half the price of wind turbines for more reliable generation with lower maintenance and uses an existing grid. The UK has enough natural gas to last generations. The “raw material” is priced at 3 bucks per MWH – 0.3 cents per kwh – 0.24 pence per kwh – compared to this for households:

A single natural gas futures contract costs around 3 bucks and has a specification of 10,000 mille mille BTU – mille = 1,000, mille mille = a million, = 10,000,mille mille BTU = 10 billion BTU.

From here 10 billion BTU converts to around 3 million kwh.

Million BTU to Kilowatt-Hours Conversion (MMBTU to kWh)

The electricity supply to the grid (not the direct gas supply to a separate gas grid) loses around half to two thirds during the electricity generation process using steam, so we can work with 3 bucks for just a million kwh.

That is 0,3 cents per kwh = 0.24 pence per kwh– compare that to the 6.408 pence per kwh charged to UK households.

Where is the regulator OFGEM in pushing back on this mark-up of 267 times? Where does it factor in to all the strategic planning for UK energy security.

Maybe the costs of processing natural gas futures “raw material” via steam turbines in a natural gas power electricity power plant are a penny or more after decades of running such power plants. But they are not anywhere near 6.408 pence per kwh. Nor are UK households receiving upgrades to gas pipelines or infrastructure of 117 pounds a year for 24 million UK households connected to natural gas = 2.8 billion in “standing charges” for “maintenance”,

It is sickening that the renewables scam is multiples of the already existing natural gas scam.

 

Onwards!!!


This article (The “false assumptions” within the Marxist UK Labour government’s renewable energy plans unravel – rising electricity prices and tax hikes on the way to fund the forced build out of the grid) was created and published by Peter Halligan and is republished here under “Fair Use”

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