In order to meet the needs of moving to carbon zero over the coming years, it will be necessary to increase the power transmission capacity of the National Grid by a factor of at least two. Currently, the perceived view is that a large number of additional grid links will be needed to facilitate the increased capacity. That would require extensive planning applications and would further delay any project planning and design development. It is thought that this could involve a delay of up to fifteen years. However, there is a simpler solution that would not require any additional power lines. Of course, there would be additional work to be done on the infrastructure, but it should not involve any additional planning permissions.
Outline Solution
Additional power can be transmitted via the existing grid. Now power is the product of voltage and current, so increasing either or both would increase the capacity of the grid. However, there are problems with both potential solutions.
Increasing the voltage would be the most problematical because the distance between adjacent phases may need to be increased and the distance between the transmission lines and the pylon may also need to be increased. This is because, particularly during damp conditions or periods of high humidity, leakage between phases or between the transmission lines and the pylons may be an issue. That may involve the complete redesign and replacement of all pylons. It would also involve replacing the transformers and upgrading the voltage rating of the infrastructure within the grid substations.
Increasing the current would require increasing the diameter of the transmission lines. Such an increase may cause the physical load capacity of the pylons to be exceeded, requiring additional strengthening of the pylons and insulators.
It is clear that increasing the current would require significantly less work than increasing the voltage. Therefore, increasing the current is the preferred solution.
Practical Considerations
Doubling the diameter of the transmission lines would enable the grid to carry four times its present capacity. However, there would need to be a significant increase in the capacity of the grid substations and local transformer stations. Increased capacity between the grid and local transmission networks would also be required. The loadbearing ability of all existing pylon designs would need to be assessed to ascertain whether or not any strengthening work or insulator replacement would be necessary.
Another consideration is the connection of the onshore converter stations to the grid. It will be necessary to construct links between the converter stations and the existing grid. It is assumed here that the planning of these connections has been incorporated into the converter station project plans. However, some reconfiguration of the converter stations may also be required in order to feed increased current to each grid link.
Consequences
The essence of this strategy is one of speed. It is essential that the required structural assessments, design changes and upgrading requirements be carried out at the earliest possible dates so that planning restrictions can be avoided and implementation be completed in good time to meet the expected demand on the grid loading. Otherwise, all the well-intentioned changes to the strategy for carbon reduction will disappear well into the future.
Current Lib Dem policy
Current Lib Dem policy, dating back as far as 2016 including Conference Motion F10 and the webpage ‘Solving the Energy Crisis’ issued by Wera Hobhouse on the 18th of March this year includes the following commitments:
- reducing access costs for grid connections and reforming the energy network to permit local energy grids;
- ensuring that the National Infrastructure Commission, National Grid, Ofgem and the Crown Estate work together to deliver net zero;
- building more interconnectors to guarantee security of supply; we aim to reach at least 80 per cent renewable electricity in the UK by 2030;
- the installation of charging points in residential areas and ultra-fast chargers at service stations will be ramped up;
- Ofgem will work with National Grid, the National Infrastructure Commission and the Crown Estate to meet the Liberal Democrats’ net-zero targets;
- legislation to require Ofgem to enable anticipatory investment and new investment requirements for National Grid.
However there is little detail about how this would be achieved.
Implications for Lib Dem Policy
An additional commitment is necessary to implement the above strategy. This needs to be of the form:
- to require Ofgem to enable immediate investment requirements for National Grid for the purpose of assessing the feasibility of a significant increase in the current capacity of the existing grid infrastructure;
- to make financial provision for the completion of the upgrade of the existing grid infrastructure within the life of a single parliament;
- Ofgem to work with National Grid to plan how to connect the increased local load demand into the upgraded existing grid;
- Ofgem to work with National Grid to plan how to connect new generating stations to the upgraded existing grid.
* Laurence Howe first joined the Liberal Party in 1974, and he recently stood down as a town councillor for Hessle Town Council. Professionally he worked as a computational physicist, ending his career as chief scientist at the National Traffic Control Centre.
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9 Comments
Surely, rather than ramping up capacity we should be drastically cutting usage, through energy efficiency, insulation and widespread use of solar and wind power with small scale local generation?
Laurence,
1. What specifically does OfGem need to do to enable immediate investment requirements for National Grid for the purpose of assessing the feasibility of a significant increase in the current capacity of the existing grid infrastructure?. Is there anything stopping National Grid commencing this assessment?
2. What kind of numbers are we talking about to make financial provision for the completion of the upgrade of the existing grid infrastructure within the life of a single parliament?. Is it included in the National Infrastructure plan?
Capacity will have to be increased – virtually all transport is powered by fossil fuels at present and will be converting to virtually all electric. It’s essential to achieve Net Zero then Net Negative (as there’s already too much CO2 in the atmosphere), but it will be a hard transition.
Even with the same level of usage, higher capacity reduces transmission losses. Andrew is right that the switch to electric cars will increase demand. So will the switch to heat pumps and finishing electrifying the railways. The nature of renewable generation means that you need to cope with maximum generation levels which can be greater than maximum usage and we need to send it further often via storage facilities. It’s not easy to put small scale offshore wind or tidal near Birmingham.
The upgrade the Grid to the extent suggested within the life of a Parliament is impossible.
It took ten years to get a line approved in North Yorkshire in the nineties/noughties, obviously this may change with new planning laws.
But crucially the supply chain and finding the engineers and technicians to do this in such a short time would be very difficult.
National Grid are only responsible for the high voltage transmission grid (long distances) – unfortunately electricity will no longer be generated in large plants in the industrial coalfields but in a far more distributed manner, including offshore. Work is also needed to add capacity to the local distribution grids, which are operated by other firms. Ofgem sets the grid investment expectations for all these firms as part of its price control regime.
In the end consumers have to pay for this through their bills, but the recent global energy price increases have resulted in pressures to constrain costs to consumers. The current Government are proposing to shortcut the planning process to get new links built faster, but there are other options apart from more pylons, such as buried cables.
According to Enerdata, electricity consumption peaked in 2005 and has been falling about 1.2% pa. As major renewable inputs are added from new wind farms, improvements to long distance transmission are being made. To reduce the strain during peak consumption periods large banks of batteries are being installed. I live in York and we have one already at the main distribution centre on the edge of the city. It doesn’t seem to me that the grid is likely to be a problem, provided the government doesn’t stop it from doing its job.
There are two massive improvements that should be addressed, which are to reduce the colossal amount of waste energy lost as heat from substandard buildings and to increase generation locally. Every new development should be designed with minimum energy consumption as a priority. We should also require installation of PV systems on new buildings – it is much cheaper to do this as part of the build. Retrofitting PV to existing buildings is cost effective and could be encouraged by reinstating the feed-in-tariff.
I’m sure that the present government is more interested in protecting the profits of the fossil fuel industry, which is why so little progress is being made on energy conservation and the installation of renewable electricity. With a new government and relatively little upheaval, we can enable businesses and homeowners to invest in their own futures and clean up the energy infrastructure. There’s plenty of enthusiasm to get on with it.
If upgrading the infrastructure is so complicated then considerations needs to be taken into account of where renewable energy is placed so that it is optimally placed to serve the grid where it is most needed.
To clarify a few points about the original paper. The whole point of the exercise is to avoid having to build new pylons, thus circumventing the need for additional planning permission. So the long delays which Andy Hyde has suggested should not be an issue. I agree that supply chain problems might be problematic.
I agree with Mick Taylor that LESS energy should take precedence over green energy but, in order to do that, we would need to see a drastic reduction of road transport, both in a private capacity and for the transcontinental transport of goods. Also, we would need to accept that, as in the times when I grew up, the heating of a single room in a household should be the norm rather than the current vogue of central heating. I suspect that this would be politically unacceptable to the majority of the population.
I agree with Jeremy Hodge that National Grid are responsible for high voltage transmission. But to transmit power around the country, whatever the source, EHV lines (Extra High Voltage, typically 400kV) are necessary to reduce transmission losses. If the work were undertaken before the expected increase in demand, the result would be reduced transmission losses in the short term, as suggested by Peter Davies.
John Reed’s suggestion of reducing the losses from existing buildings makes sense, but retro fitting existing buildings, particularly old ones, may take more energy than it saves. With regard to PV installation, I have fitted PV to my own house resulting in an 80% reduction in household power consumption from the grid.
One of the assumptions that seems to be made is that heat pumps are the only solution as replacements for gas or oil-fired boilers. But the technology to convert gas boilers into hydrogen powered boilers is only just round the corner. The major problem with hydrogen production is that, currently, 96% is produced from fossil fuels. In order to ramp up production using electrolysis a massive investment would be needed in electrolysis plants. It would, of course, make perfect sense to locate these close to offshore wind farm terminals, which would greatly simplify the need for EHV conversion to connect to the grid.