Are You Prepared for Power Cuts This Winter?
Last week I was in France for a few days and noticed that the French Government was planning to impose power supply restrictions on certain types of home.
On returning to the U.K., I found a letter from Scottish and Southern Electricity explaining to its customers how they should prepare for power cuts here in Britain:
I also see that the Dutch are about to start rationing electricity this winter, and other European countries may follow, as they did last year.
It would seem that those crazy conspiracy theorists who predicted that our rulers’ saving-the-planet Net Zero policies would result in electricity supply shortages were right.
It’s extraordinary how so many of yesterday’s ‘conspiracy theories’ turn out to be today’s reality.
Are you prepared for power cuts to your home and business this winter? You’d better be.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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Yes I have generators that can power my home for up to 72 hours.
And we have a wood burner and a camping stove for just such occasions
Chimney swept & log store stacked to the rafters here. Plus wax candles & glass lanterns to put them in.
I got a mate who knows where every tree has fallen to harvest wood from, he invites me along and when I say I think I’m ok for wood he tells me you probably need more. He had a hip operation so brings me along to carry the big bits!
A good mate.
Strangely, apart from the advice about keeping some warm clothing and blankets handy, they don’t seem to have addressed the scenario where you’ve followed government advice and become entirely dependent on electricity for heating.
Just wait til Qatar restricts our gas supply.
LOL! You beat me to it. As Europe has burnt its boats with Russia..just think what will happen if the OPEC countries turn off the taps in retaliation for what is happening in Gaza….?
May you live in interesting times…indeed…
more to the point – if the Gaza conflict escalates to Israel backed by US vs Iran we may say goodbye to Qatari LNG on which we depend for more than 25% of our LNG supply. see https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-01-25-mn-5730-story.html “Jan. 25, 1987 An Iranian gunboat fired five missiles at a British tanker but missed, and the vessel continued its voyage through the Strait of Hormuz unharmed, marine salvage executives said Saturday. The 47,989-ton Isomeria was attacked overnight shortly after it lost its escort, a British warship that had encountered technical problems and could not go farther, said the executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Isomeria, owned by Shell Tankers Ltd. of Britain, was en route to Kuwait to pick up a shipment of liquefied gas when it was attacked. ” Then, 35 years ago this was a LPG ship I had technical involvement. One of the missiles penetrated the machinery spaces but fortunately failed to explode, the cargo tanks were empty and although the escorting frigate had problems, at least we had that capability of 45 or 47 naval ships then. Plus crews then were prepared to sail into a war zone for a % uplift in pay. Now… Read more »
To be honest, the best we could hope for is massive, widespread, frequent power cuts this winter. It’s about the only thing that might wake the population up to the communist net zero project before it’s too late.
But I fear for most people there will be few if any. In short, nothing that will drive people to question the policy.
It might get worse in the future, but I am certain they will try to make it very gradually worse.
Still, we can only hope.
Strange to be rooting for massive power cuts really.
Totally agree
Also the same goes for voting Lib/Lab/Con. If you think any of those parties are the answer then they don’t understand about the World Economic Forum!
Oh, people will notice. They will have no Wi-Fi, no fixed phones and probably (after an hour or two) no Mobile so no G4 etc. People panic when they are deprived of such things. Also “working from home” will not be easy if not impossible.
Yes, they WILL notice!
I’m old enough to remember the 3 or 4 day week and rolling blackouts due to the miners strike. In those days we were not dependent on computers, card machines in shops etc so life went on. Make sure you have some cash!
I’m in an area prone to outages already – had one last night. I immediately thought of the two new EVs which have appeared in the village recently….!
Well, we’ve suspected for a long time that this would happen and now it seems it will happen because they’re telling us it will. Those of you who are old enough to remember the winter power cuts of the 1970s will have some recollection of what they’re like: they bring families and communities closer together. We all huddle around fires (of the woodburning or gas variety (somehow huddling around the heat pump doesn’t really have any appeal!) and the candles and play games and tell each other stories. In my view, the current conflicts were very carefully choreographed to create chaos and provide the reasons for shortages of this and that and a continuing rise in prices. Hopefully it will instigate some community spirit as we all realise what is important – all of us together against THEM.
Well although I too will suffer, I must say GOOD!
Only when our soporific population cannot watch Eastenders or ‘Corrie’, shop on line, catch up on social media, stream Netflix will they wake up and do something.
Uh? There have always been power cuts from time to and the leaflet explains what to do if in the unlikely event that there is one – talk about alarmism.
Have you zero understanding of what happens when the wind is very weak (typical Winter, see the weather today (and I do know it is only Autumn!). All we need a problem with one gas fired turbine station, and there will be power cuts. Or something with the gas imports, which is very likely given the Middle East situation. Remember no electricity means no phone, no internet, no heating at all (even if gas), no light etc. Good luck!
Last winter we depended on the 2 Drax coal fired stations to keep the lights on. They are now permanently closed.
As I wrote there are power cuts every year. The question is how likely are we to have planned power cuts due to lack of capacity because the wind is low. As a “real engineer” I am sure you will appreciate actual data on this. The most recent data I can find on electricity consumption is here. In 2022 peak demand for electricity was about 49 GW (this has been falling in recent years). There was (just) sufficient capacity to meet this demand from fossil fuels plus nuclear (43.5 GW + 5.9 GW). This can of course be supplemented via the interconnector from Europe. So if there was absolutely zero from renewables at a time of peak demand we could still cope. What if a gas turbine failed? There are 32 gas turbines in the UK. Most of them have less than 1 GW capacity so we can easily cope without. If we were at peak demand, and Pembroke B (2.2 GW) failed, and there was zero contribution from renewables, then we might lean rather heavily on the interconnectors until the problem was fixed. If it looked like long term problem (and a long term peak demand and zero renewable)… Read more »
I got everything together before last winter as I thought we would have power cuts then, but it turned out to be disappointingly mild generally (south west). We have everything to be able to manage without power for some time, – heat (multi fuel stove and calor gas heaters), light (camping lanterns, head torches and candles), portable gas cooking stoves and a good supply of tinned and dry food. That advice in the letter above suggests you have a phone that doesn’t need mains power in case of emergency. This is a wonderful suggestion for those that don’t have a mobile signal (which is a great many rural areas) and where BT is going to remove the copper phone lines so that your house phone will run off your broadband hub. As usual, there is never any joined up thinking on these things.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for a spell of below zero windless and sunless days, when I have no doubt everything will go to total pot!
Generally mobile phones & G4 will go down after a short time. Our local mobile tower goes down after one hour of blackout. Also fibre-based phones will not work without the hub being powered. We live rurally and blackouts are not unusual.
If you think that you are prepared for a full power cut lasting for a protracted period then all is well and good. It isn’t that easy preparing for just seven days of complete loss of utilities. Maybe you might be able to burn something in your garden but can you keep core body temperature warm enough over a few weeks without outside assistance. We just think that because we hare a rich and successful country and an island as well that nothing very bad could ever occur here. This is completely out of line with reality. Look at civil defence for example. I have lived in countries where they have shelter for everyone in the event of a major crisis. You won’t find that here. You need to be realistic.
As I said to a couple of builders when delivering Back to Normal leaflets a couple of years ago and was told “oh you’re one of those conspiracy theorists”, “for conspiracy theory read spoiler alert “.
Over the last 18 months I’ve bought:
Winter is coming. And thanks to the f’wits in Parliament, the country has no energy security.
I was ready last winter but fortunately Drax kept their 2 coal fired plants running. This year we don’t have that backup so we will have blackouts. This, of course, is what “Smart” meters are all about – not our convenience (surprise! ) .
I have a small generator to run background and heating and various LED camping lights. I isolate from the meter and use a “widow maker” lead to plug the gennie into the house system. Use with care as the lead has a plug both ends, one of which is potentially live! You absolutely MUST see that you are disconnected from the grid. If you have PV Panels they should work.