Energy: a matter of distrust

By Richard North - November 2, 2022

There’s an element of self-fulfilling prophecy about the possibility of power cuts this winter, with intermittent media stories which all point in one direction, almost as if we are being prepared for the worst.

Fairly recently, we had a story about the BBC preparing “secret scripts” for possible use in winter blackouts but now, in the latest chronicles of doom is another “exclusive” report, also from the Guardian stable

This one is headlined: “Government tests energy blackout emergency plans as supply fears grow”, from which we learn that Whitehall officials have been “war gaming” a contingency plan called “Programme Yarrow”, described as a “blueprint for coping with outages for up to a week”, in the event of a national power outage.

Needless to say, when the paper went to an official source for comment, the spokesperson did their best to play down the significance of the exercise, saying: “As a responsible government, it is right that we plan for all potential scenarios and work with industry to prepare and exercise robust contingency plans”.

“This work”, says the spokesperson, “is ongoing continuously and is an important strand of our national resilience planning”. And, if that is the case, one can only hope that it is somewhat better founded than were the preparations for the wrong kind of pandemic.

But, to put the “war gaming” in some kind of more immediate context, the paper enlists Jan Rosenow, Europe director at the Regulatory Assistance Project, described as “an energy thinktank”, although it’s more of a global warming advocacy operation, pushing “clean” energy.

Despite this, Rosenow talks a certain amount of sense, suggesting that there are sound reasons for suspecting that the government’s actions might be a little more than routine. “There are so many things coming together at the same time”, he says: “the gas shortages, high prices, the problems with electricity generation from nuclear plants in France”.

Interestingly, though, Rosenow didn’t mention the current situation in Ukraine, where the Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure have turned the country from a potentially major electricity exporter into a net importer.

The omission is perhaps understandable. Although the attacks have been widely covered in the media, detail on the damage done has been sparce. Only now – once more courtesy of the Guardian – do we get a real inkling of what is happening, as the paper reports: “Ukraine faces ‘winter humanitarian crisis’ with energy grid on the brink”.

Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chief executive of Ukrenergo, had told the paper that: “virtually all” large non-nuclear power stations in the country had been hit, as well as more than 30 percent of the network’s routing substations. Describing the position as critical, Kudrytskyi described the Russian attack as, “the biggest missile attack on electricity infrastructure in history”.

If the Russian attacks continue, Kudrytskyi warns, “power cuts in Ukraine will become longer and longer”, adding that despite Ukrenergo’s efforts, it was not possible to repair the grid as fast as it is being destroyed. “It’s much easier obviously to launch missiles than to restore substations”, he says.

The trials of this country may seem remote, except that Ukraine was set to supply Europe with a significant amount of power through the winter, the lack of which could have knock-on effects which impact on the amount of power coming through the interconnectors to Britain, should our own supplies start to fail.

Another recently emerged factor is the Met Office long range forecast which suggests that Britain faces a higher risk of a colder and less windy winter. This combination of chilly temperatures and low winds is yet another pressure point that could see the lights going out in Britain.

And all this is on top of the normal hazards confronting the grid, for which plans were originally drawn up (or revised) in 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the aim being to improve planning and resilience in the event of a major technical fault.

Such faults could arise following flood damage or a lightning strike on a substation but have now been extended to cover an attack by a hostile state on sub-sea power cables, following the Nord Stream pipeline attacks and the Russians accusing the UK of complicity, with the implied threat of retaliation.

Thus we have the Guardian reporting on government documents, marked “official sensitive”, which warn that in a “reasonable worst-case scenario” all sectors including transport, food and water supply, communications and energy could be “severely disrupted” for up to a week.

Programme Yarrow prepares for a situation where power is unavailable, without any pre-warning, to all premises without backup generators during winter. It envisages that 60 percent of electricity demand will be met “between day 2 and day 7” when households and businesses will be given “intermittent access” to rationed supply.

According to the documents seen by the Guardian, an agreement between energy regulator Ofgem and National Grid stipulates that all of the electricity demand should be met after a week. The government expects that target to be met even in a worst-case scenario. Even then, there is an admission that: “All sectors will be severely disrupted, including communications, transport networks, energy supply, food and water supply”.

In the event of blackouts, ministers – we are told – will prioritise getting food, water and shelter to the young and elderly, as well as those with caring responsibilities, plans which Whitehall officials are currently “stress-testing”, with a series of exercises held with government departments and councils across the country in recent days.

But with the leak of the government’s plans comes some insight into how the political blame game might be played out, with Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, complaining that: “All governments do contingency planning for worst-case scenarios but the truth is that we are vulnerable as a country as a direct consequence of a decade of failed Conservative energy policy”.

“Banning onshore wind”, he says, “slashing investment in energy efficiency, stalling nuclear and closing gas storage have led to higher bills and reliance on gas imports, leaving us more exposed to the impact of Putin’s use of energy as a geopolitical weapon”.

Given that energy policy has been off the rails for multiple decades, and the original “do nothing” policy on nuclear power stemmed from the Blair administration which was voted into office in 1997, Miliband – author of the Climate Change Act – has something of a nerve, pinning all the problems on the Conservatives – even if “hug-a-husky” Cameron failed in almost every respect when it came to making up for Labour’s shortfalls.

Nevertheless, the government seems more than a little sensitive about the news that it is carrying out contingency exercises. One of those ubiquitous anonymous sources tells us that, “the government doesn’t want any publicity on Yarrow, as they don’t want it to be seen as linked to Ukraine, energy supply and the cost of living”.

However, the same source advances the view that the very fact the government is so heavily engaged in the process means “they have a real concern it [a supply failure] could happen”.

What is perhaps particularly sinister is that the Yarrow plans prepare for a more severe scenario than that outlined by National Grid last month, which warned of three-hour rolling blackouts at worst, and then only if temperatures drop sharply and Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe.

Users will be comforted to learn that households and businesses will be given 24 hours’ notice of a planned outage, and the plan could be published up to a week ahead on a rolling basis.

For some, though, power cuts are already a reality, as predatory electricity suppliers exploit a feature of smart meters which enable them to switch on remotely a “pay as you go” facility analogous to prepayment meters, without the trouble of replacing existing meters.

Given that much of the propaganda on smart meters is directed at convincing gullible consumers that they will have “greater control” over their energy usage, this is yet another reason to distrust the utilities – and their government sponsors – in which case we should also expect the worst when it comes to continuity of supply.

After all, if the government’s contingency plans are no better than they were for Covid, that self-fulfilling prophesy seems a rational response.