Thread by @aDissentient

One of the hidden horrors of Net Zero is the need to pay out very large sums of money for things that were previously free. A recent Government data release reveals an eye-watering case in point. (THREAD)

Back in the olden days, coal fired power stations naturally stabilised the grid. Huge rotating turbines essentially acted as a store of energy – ‘inertia’ in the jargon.

If a power station tripped off the grid, this ‘store’ prevented instantaneous collapse of the whole grid, allowing corrective measures to be put in place.

But now, in our wisdom, we have now closed down all our coal-fired power stations. As a result, the grid is very short of inertia. We now frequently have to pay gas-fired power stations to switch on to provide some. Failure to do so would risk the whole grid collapsing.

Paying gas-fired power stations to switch on is expensive, so grid managers have set up a programme to reduce the costs. This mostly involves paying gas-fired power stations to tick over in the background.

It also involves building flywheels as standalone sources of inertia. They don’t generate any power – we just pay them to sit there, spinning away, so that there is some inertia around in case there is a problem.

Recall that inertia use to be entirely free.

So how much are we forking out? In a recent answer to a question in Parliament, it was revealed that we have spent up to £350 million per year in the Balancing Mechanism – all those units we have paid to switch on to provide inertia. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questi…

That figure seems to be dropping – it’s only £83 million in 2023/24. This seems to be the result of the new programme, which is costing around £160 million per year.

So it looks as though we are paying at least £200 million per year for a service that fossil-fuel power stations used to provide for free.
This is just another reason why your electricity bill keeps going up.