Environment and Climate Change Committee
Wednesday 16th September 2026
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10:00
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
Good morning and welcome to the Lords Committee on the Environment and Climate Change. And today we will be holding the first session of our new inquiry to into whether the government has a firm handle on how to fill the renewables energy gap. When the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. A weather phenomenon often referred to as Dunkle Floater. And before we start, may I remind everyone that the session will be webcast live, that a transcript will be made and made public? Witnesses will have an opportunity to review the transcript and, if necessary, make very minor amendments.
Members are reminded that they should declare any relevant interests the first time they speak. And this, of course, applies equally to all witnesses. And I will take the opportunity here to say that I am a director of peers for the planet. We are very grateful to our panel of expert witnesses for making the time to be with us today. Doctor Emily Wallis is not quite with us, but we hope that she will be very shortly.
So may I ask each of our witnesses present to briefly introduce themselves? Can I start with you, John Saltmarsh?
Members are reminded that they should declare any relevant interests the first time they speak. And this, of course, applies equally to all witnesses. And I will take the opportunity here to say that I am a director of peers for the planet. We are very grateful to our panel of expert witnesses for making the time to be with us today. Doctor Emily Wallis is not quite with us, but we hope that she will be very shortly.
So may I ask each of our witnesses present to briefly introduce themselves? Can I start with you, John Saltmarsh?
10:02
10:02
10:02
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
Thank you very much. And thank you both again very much for making the time to be with us today. The purpose of today's session is to understand the impact of wind and sun intermittency, and how potential gaps in energy delivery from renewables could be filled. So let me start by asking the first question, which is what is Dunkel flatter? And please, when you address this, could you do so from both a meteorological perspective and an energy sector perspective? I'd be interested to know whether it is quantifiable.
So therefore how is it measured and how is it defined. And lastly, how useful do you think the term Dunkel flauta is for modelling and preparing for the risk of energy shortfalls from renewables? Professor Bell? May I come to you first?
So therefore how is it measured and how is it defined. And lastly, how useful do you think the term Dunkel flauta is for modelling and preparing for the risk of energy shortfalls from renewables? Professor Bell? May I come to you first?
10:03
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yes, certainly. Now I'll have to leave it to Doctor Wallace. Hopefully Emily will get here soon to address the meteorological phenomena behind it. And? And, for example, how long it might last, how you can forecast it. But from an energy system perspective, there's no set definition. If you. Can in practice.
10:03
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Okay. So it. When we have when we want to make use of energy from renewable sources, wind and solar in particular. To meet demand, of course, we're subject to the variability of wind and solar. So when it's not so windy, not so sunny, we have to meet the energy demand from somewhere else. At least, you know, the demand for electricity. So we can see periods of time when the total available power from renewables is low.
That, of course, suggests a bigger need for meeting the electricity demand from somewhere else. We could quantify this in terms of residual demand. So at any moment in time, what's the demand for electricity and what's available from wind and solar. And that kind of residual demand, if you like, is the gap. If that persists over some period of time, then that's clearly a bigger amount of energy that we need to find from somewhere else.
And that's what we can quantify. And you can use modelling to do that. And we can look over different periods of time. So for example, what is that gap over let's say the worst case day or week or two weeks, four weeks. And of course that's going to be subject to weather variability as well. So we might be able to model weather patterns over a sort of multi-decade period. 3040 years depending on what the data is that we have available.
And then we can look at something like the 95th or 99th percentile of that gap over those different periods of time. From there, we have to understand what is the risk of not meeting that gap? What would the consequences be? So in the first instance, you would hope that actually demand would reduce. So in that period of time, the cost of getting meeting that electricity demand from other sources is going to become increasingly high.
That would, you would expect, would be an incentive to try to reduce your use. And we've seen, for example, you know, a few winters ago at the beginning of the Ukraine war, when gas prices went sky high, some industrial users of gas just stopped, just stopped using it just stopped production. So there's that element, which of course is not ideal, but it would be a feature of how economics works in terms of supply and demand .
Flexing to move when you use energy is possible. So for a day that's totally possible across all sectors. But for a period like five days or a week or more for the domestic sector, especially if you're depending on electricity for heat or for transport, you can't really rely on that kind of demand flexibility. So that kind of gap still remains to meet that demand from from somewhere else. I should also say, as a last resort, you might have to rely on rationing access to electricity, such as rota electricity, disconnections.
The last time we did that in the UK was in the early 1970s, when fossil fuel supplies were disrupted. So it is a thing that that can happen.
That, of course, suggests a bigger need for meeting the electricity demand from somewhere else. We could quantify this in terms of residual demand. So at any moment in time, what's the demand for electricity and what's available from wind and solar. And that kind of residual demand, if you like, is the gap. If that persists over some period of time, then that's clearly a bigger amount of energy that we need to find from somewhere else.
And that's what we can quantify. And you can use modelling to do that. And we can look over different periods of time. So for example, what is that gap over let's say the worst case day or week or two weeks, four weeks. And of course that's going to be subject to weather variability as well. So we might be able to model weather patterns over a sort of multi-decade period. 3040 years depending on what the data is that we have available.
And then we can look at something like the 95th or 99th percentile of that gap over those different periods of time. From there, we have to understand what is the risk of not meeting that gap? What would the consequences be? So in the first instance, you would hope that actually demand would reduce. So in that period of time, the cost of getting meeting that electricity demand from other sources is going to become increasingly high.
That would, you would expect, would be an incentive to try to reduce your use. And we've seen, for example, you know, a few winters ago at the beginning of the Ukraine war, when gas prices went sky high, some industrial users of gas just stopped, just stopped using it just stopped production. So there's that element, which of course is not ideal, but it would be a feature of how economics works in terms of supply and demand .
Flexing to move when you use energy is possible. So for a day that's totally possible across all sectors. But for a period like five days or a week or more for the domestic sector, especially if you're depending on electricity for heat or for transport, you can't really rely on that kind of demand flexibility. So that kind of gap still remains to meet that demand from from somewhere else. I should also say, as a last resort, you might have to rely on rationing access to electricity, such as rota electricity, disconnections.
The last time we did that in the UK was in the early 1970s, when fossil fuel supplies were disrupted. So it is a thing that that can happen.
10:06
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
Excellent. Thank you very much indeed. Doctor Emily Wallis is with us now from the Met Office. Doctor Wallis, please introduce yourself. But may I put the first question to you also. And then you can go straight into the question as well. So we really want to know what is flatter from meteorological point of view and from your perspective . Also from an energy sector perspective, we'd really like to try and understand how it's measured and defined, whether it's quantifiable.
And lastly, how useful a term is it for modelling and preparing for the risk of energy shortfalls from renewables. Quite a lot in there. So over to you.
And lastly, how useful a term is it for modelling and preparing for the risk of energy shortfalls from renewables. Quite a lot in there. So over to you.
10:07
10:07
10:07
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
be with us. It's my pleasure. So my name is Emily Wallis. I'm a fellow in weather and climate extremes at the Met Office. I'm also seconded to the National Energy System Operator as a meteorological advisor there. And finally, I'm a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde. So today I'm speaking on behalf of the Met Office. Met office is an executive agency of the Department for business, innovation, Science and Trade.
Whilst we're best known for our UK weather forecasting service, we're actually also a world renowned climate research organisation. So from that point of view I'm talking this morning. So Duncan Keith may well have already covered. It literally means dull doldrums. So that's referring to a lack of wind and a lack of sunshine. And the meteorological cause of this is anticyclones or high pressure sitting over the UK and Europe.
When we're thinking about the weather, it's useful to think in a sort of large spatial terms because that's how our weather manifests. So what we're talking about in a flat situation is a high pressure system sitting over the UK. Often that will be sitting over northern Europe at the same time. These are large scale phenomenon. They tend to stay in place for long periods of time. They often stay in place for long periods of time.
High pressure means we've got descending air and that's what traps the the moisture at the Earth's surface. And that's why we tend to get drizzle or low cloud associated with these high pressure systems. So the Met Office refers to them as anticyclonic gloom. There was one last year that was long enough and dull enough for us all that the Met Office wrote a blog about when will it end? So that's sort of quite a typical feel for a cloud event, is that we're all feeling a bit tedious.
And of course it's got implications for the energy sector as well. So the other feature that you can get with the event is cold conditions as well. And in that case we'd have more impact on the energy system. So I've talked about wind. I've talked about lack of sunshine. I've talked about temperature. And all of those have implications for energy systems. So obviously the wind and the sunshine will or the lack of will reduce the amount of generation from wind and PV on large scale, but also on what we call embedded generation.
So on our houses. So that will.
Whilst we're best known for our UK weather forecasting service, we're actually also a world renowned climate research organisation. So from that point of view I'm talking this morning. So Duncan Keith may well have already covered. It literally means dull doldrums. So that's referring to a lack of wind and a lack of sunshine. And the meteorological cause of this is anticyclones or high pressure sitting over the UK and Europe.
When we're thinking about the weather, it's useful to think in a sort of large spatial terms because that's how our weather manifests. So what we're talking about in a flat situation is a high pressure system sitting over the UK. Often that will be sitting over northern Europe at the same time. These are large scale phenomenon. They tend to stay in place for long periods of time. They often stay in place for long periods of time.
High pressure means we've got descending air and that's what traps the the moisture at the Earth's surface. And that's why we tend to get drizzle or low cloud associated with these high pressure systems. So the Met Office refers to them as anticyclonic gloom. There was one last year that was long enough and dull enough for us all that the Met Office wrote a blog about when will it end? So that's sort of quite a typical feel for a cloud event, is that we're all feeling a bit tedious.
And of course it's got implications for the energy sector as well. So the other feature that you can get with the event is cold conditions as well. And in that case we'd have more impact on the energy system. So I've talked about wind. I've talked about lack of sunshine. I've talked about temperature. And all of those have implications for energy systems. So obviously the wind and the sunshine will or the lack of will reduce the amount of generation from wind and PV on large scale, but also on what we call embedded generation.
So on our houses. So that will.
10:10
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Embedded generation, embedded PV panels on, on people's roofs, which means that they're suppressing the demand. If they're operating, they're suppressing the demand from those households as opposed to allowing the whole demand to be seen by the transmission system. The temperature relates quite strongly already to demand for electricity and also demand for gas. So in that sense, they are really important for our energy system. I suspect Keith may have covered this already. There is no single definition for Duncan Flat.
They're usually focused on the winter months only when when we think about Duncan flat. And that's because we tend to see lower or we have shorter sunshine hours tend to see lower sunshine strength radiation in the winter months. So for that reason, they are often thought about as a wintertime condition. And that descending air trapping cloud is also a wintertime phenomenon. You don't tend to see that in the in the summer months.
So much so neurologically, they can be defined in a number of different ways. We can define them, as the name suggests, using wind and sunshine amounts. So perhaps choosing some particular locations in the UK where there's. We know there's generation and looking for periods of time where both sunshine and wind are low at, say, the 20th percentile of what's normal at that location. And we can define them with just wind. So on our current energy system, Duncan flat events are primarily controlled by the amount of wind.
And that's, that's the, that's the larger factor within within the Duncan flat. So just defining on wind is an option. The other alternative is thinking about the cold dunkel flute, which as I say, are the arguably more important type of dunkel flute, because that will be increasing the demand at the same time as the wind and solar generation is depressed. So that emits sunshine from the equation. The final meteorological way of thinking about the problem would be through pressure patterns.
So looking for that high pressure, there were a number of different ways of doing that, some using AI approaches to sort of match pressure to predefined pitches, if you like. The other would be via something called something like the North Atlantic Oscillation, which is a measure of the the tendency for winds to come from the west, or for that prevalence of westerly winds to to be reduced. Two ends of the spectrum in terms of defining on energy .
Some of the common ways of defining dunkel flute would be just on generation. So either observed generation from wind and solar , or modelled generation taken from meteorological conditions. So there's a number of translations between what the wind is doing and what the sunshine is doing, what the temperatures are doing towards generation. The other approach is demand net renewables. So this is taking, again, either observed or modelled demand. What we expect the demand to be, then subtracting the amount of renewable generation.
So high demand net renewables means that we've we've got a lot of demand to be met with not so much renewables to meet that demand, it probably means we're using gas or interconnectors at the moment. If we have low demand net renewables or indeed negative, that means that we won't be using so much gas. That's the sort of opposite of a dunkel flatter and the final way, and Keith and John may be able to step in to describe some of the mechanics of this more than I will, would be using something called capacity expansion models.
So these models are energy system models designed to. Or one of the. One of the uses of them is to chart out potential pathways to meet particular conditions. So for example, net zero 2050. What a capacity expansion model does is take year by year or can do year by year weather conditions and build out the technologies that are required in order to meet demand for those weather conditions and day by day. So a way of defining Dunkel or, or these sort of conditions is something called system defining occurrences within that modelling process.
So where there's a big step change in the technology that's required to meet a particular weather condition, perhaps because in the time series, something as bad hasn't been met before. So maybe some additional details that fellow panel members can can add in there. In terms of definition, the best practice approaches take a sort of cumulative view of Dunkel fallout, because one of the things that can be particularly taxing is if they're going on day after day.
So a very severe Dunkel fallout may be less important depending on the energy system than one that is perhaps less deep, but goes on for a number of days. As I say, intensity is important. So there's no specific definition for Dunkel fallout. But what we do have is models and data. So in terms of understanding, there's an awful lot of rich information around what we can expect to experience today and what we can expect to experience in decades to come coming out of climate simulations.
And it's that rich information combined with understanding of energy systems or energy system modelling that we can use in order to understand whether or not our system is resilient or what it takes for our systems to be resilient. And that's that's the really important part, is the is that collaboration between the rich information coming out of climate systems, climate modelling, and, and how we apply that to energy systems. And so it's advocating for that data driven evidence approach, because what matters is system dependent, it's situation dependent and it's application dependent.
So that rich approach is really needed. So how useful a term is it for for.
They're usually focused on the winter months only when when we think about Duncan flat. And that's because we tend to see lower or we have shorter sunshine hours tend to see lower sunshine strength radiation in the winter months. So for that reason, they are often thought about as a wintertime condition. And that descending air trapping cloud is also a wintertime phenomenon. You don't tend to see that in the in the summer months.
So much so neurologically, they can be defined in a number of different ways. We can define them, as the name suggests, using wind and sunshine amounts. So perhaps choosing some particular locations in the UK where there's. We know there's generation and looking for periods of time where both sunshine and wind are low at, say, the 20th percentile of what's normal at that location. And we can define them with just wind. So on our current energy system, Duncan flat events are primarily controlled by the amount of wind.
And that's, that's the, that's the larger factor within within the Duncan flat. So just defining on wind is an option. The other alternative is thinking about the cold dunkel flute, which as I say, are the arguably more important type of dunkel flute, because that will be increasing the demand at the same time as the wind and solar generation is depressed. So that emits sunshine from the equation. The final meteorological way of thinking about the problem would be through pressure patterns.
So looking for that high pressure, there were a number of different ways of doing that, some using AI approaches to sort of match pressure to predefined pitches, if you like. The other would be via something called something like the North Atlantic Oscillation, which is a measure of the the tendency for winds to come from the west, or for that prevalence of westerly winds to to be reduced. Two ends of the spectrum in terms of defining on energy .
Some of the common ways of defining dunkel flute would be just on generation. So either observed generation from wind and solar , or modelled generation taken from meteorological conditions. So there's a number of translations between what the wind is doing and what the sunshine is doing, what the temperatures are doing towards generation. The other approach is demand net renewables. So this is taking, again, either observed or modelled demand. What we expect the demand to be, then subtracting the amount of renewable generation.
So high demand net renewables means that we've we've got a lot of demand to be met with not so much renewables to meet that demand, it probably means we're using gas or interconnectors at the moment. If we have low demand net renewables or indeed negative, that means that we won't be using so much gas. That's the sort of opposite of a dunkel flatter and the final way, and Keith and John may be able to step in to describe some of the mechanics of this more than I will, would be using something called capacity expansion models.
So these models are energy system models designed to. Or one of the. One of the uses of them is to chart out potential pathways to meet particular conditions. So for example, net zero 2050. What a capacity expansion model does is take year by year or can do year by year weather conditions and build out the technologies that are required in order to meet demand for those weather conditions and day by day. So a way of defining Dunkel or, or these sort of conditions is something called system defining occurrences within that modelling process.
So where there's a big step change in the technology that's required to meet a particular weather condition, perhaps because in the time series, something as bad hasn't been met before. So maybe some additional details that fellow panel members can can add in there. In terms of definition, the best practice approaches take a sort of cumulative view of Dunkel fallout, because one of the things that can be particularly taxing is if they're going on day after day.
So a very severe Dunkel fallout may be less important depending on the energy system than one that is perhaps less deep, but goes on for a number of days. As I say, intensity is important. So there's no specific definition for Dunkel fallout. But what we do have is models and data. So in terms of understanding, there's an awful lot of rich information around what we can expect to experience today and what we can expect to experience in decades to come coming out of climate simulations.
And it's that rich information combined with understanding of energy systems or energy system modelling that we can use in order to understand whether or not our system is resilient or what it takes for our systems to be resilient. And that's that's the really important part, is the is that collaboration between the rich information coming out of climate systems, climate modelling, and, and how we apply that to energy systems. And so it's advocating for that data driven evidence approach, because what matters is system dependent, it's situation dependent and it's application dependent.
So that rich approach is really needed. So how useful a term is it for for.
10:16
10:16
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Sorry. So it's really useful for communicating compound risk. So I described that picture of the the large scale the long term, the combination that you might get cold at the same time, it's a term that helps us to communicate that compound aspect. So it supports having a conversation, but it lacks the meteorological and engineering precision that we need to say, okay, are we resilient to a Dunkel fallout? It's not a question you can answer.
So yes, it's it's back to that genuine collaboration between the rich information we have about the climate and what it could do and how we build our energy system. But yes, I'll stop there. Thank
So yes, it's it's back to that genuine collaboration between the rich information we have about the climate and what it could do and how we build our energy system. But yes, I'll stop there. Thank
10:17
10:17
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I will I will be very brief because I think our two colleagues have covered this in immense detail. I would absolutely agree. It's really a great sort of useful shorthand, but it's if you try and focus down on what we actually mean in terms of is it two weeks, is it one week? Is it 24 hours? That doesn't really help. So, you know, the, the, the second point I think, to think about is that it's not just about the sort of the supply of energy.
You need to think about demand as well. And so within sort of the catapult modelling, we talk about gaps rather than a Dunkel fallout because it's not just the Dunkel fallout. You mentioned the sort of the cold weather, cold weather drives up demand. And so it's the gap between supply and demand that is a really important bit. It's also broader than a single event. Generally, it's defining the amount of storage that you want as far as your energy system is concerned.
But there are two ways to deplete storage, one of which is to have a long period with slightly below average wind or renewables or generation, whatever you're particularly measuring. And the other is to have a really intense period. And, you know, in a lot of the sort of the scenarios we see, it's not the really intense period of two week. Dunkel that's the problem. It's the hundred days of 5% below average wind.
So that's the really important from a planning sort of planning basis. You very much need to state, you know, what you actually mean by a Dunkel and how you're measuring it. And clearly the amount of storage you require varies dramatically depending on your mix of renewables and firm generation. So, I mean, most of our modelling would sort of recommend a balance between renewables and nuclear. And generally the more nuclear you put in the the higher the costs are of the overall generation, but the less.
You need to think about demand as well. And so within sort of the catapult modelling, we talk about gaps rather than a Dunkel fallout because it's not just the Dunkel fallout. You mentioned the sort of the cold weather, cold weather drives up demand. And so it's the gap between supply and demand that is a really important bit. It's also broader than a single event. Generally, it's defining the amount of storage that you want as far as your energy system is concerned.
But there are two ways to deplete storage, one of which is to have a long period with slightly below average wind or renewables or generation, whatever you're particularly measuring. And the other is to have a really intense period. And, you know, in a lot of the sort of the scenarios we see, it's not the really intense period of two week. Dunkel that's the problem. It's the hundred days of 5% below average wind.
So that's the really important from a planning sort of planning basis. You very much need to state, you know, what you actually mean by a Dunkel and how you're measuring it. And clearly the amount of storage you require varies dramatically depending on your mix of renewables and firm generation. So, I mean, most of our modelling would sort of recommend a balance between renewables and nuclear. And generally the more nuclear you put in the the higher the costs are of the overall generation, but the less.
10:19
10:19
10:20
10:20
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
That's how I've been referring to it. But I was interested to understand whether the industry refers to it as Dunkel flat. But anyway, we'll stick to Dunkel slaughter. So some sources define a Dunkel flat as a period of at least ten consecutive hours, in which wind and solar generation falls below 10% of installed capacity. Now, it seems to me that moving forward, a baseline definition would be useful. Is this the sort of thing that you think could be useful as a baseline definition? Doctor Wallace Professor Bell.
10:20
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So leading off John's comment, really the the ten hours would be a relatively short period to to be worrying about some simulation, some calculations done by a colleague, a Met Office colleague, Gillian Kay, some time ago defined a less extreme version. So 20% wind capacity effectively. And she was finding up to five weeks was possible. Unlikely but possible. A 1 in 40 event would be three consecutive weeks of of suppressed wind at around the 20% mark.
So it's not that very severe.
So it's not that very severe.
10:21
10:21
10:21
10:21
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I think I would favour looking at things from an energy system perspective, because that's what we're trying to deliver , is reliable supplies of energy. So what Emily called demand net renewables. I called residual demand. I think we need to be able to quantify that. And we can do that using the models. But we can look at that and the risk over different periods of time, given the variability of the weather over again over long periods.
So we might define it in a 24 hour sense or one week, four week, or indeed, as John suggested, even 100 days. And look at a particular infrastructure mix of where we're getting the energy from and what the demand is, and the different options of that, of how much we want to build and what storage capacity and so on, and run through the models to assess the one day, one week for week 100 day risks that we're exposed to.
And but then in the end, we still need to make a judgment about what is an acceptable level of risk because we can't eliminate it completely.
So we might define it in a 24 hour sense or one week, four week, or indeed, as John suggested, even 100 days. And look at a particular infrastructure mix of where we're getting the energy from and what the demand is, and the different options of that, of how much we want to build and what storage capacity and so on, and run through the models to assess the one day, one week for week 100 day risks that we're exposed to.
And but then in the end, we still need to make a judgment about what is an acceptable level of risk because we can't eliminate it completely.
10:22
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
Thank you. No wonder we get the doldrums in the autumn. For that reason, could I declare my interests? I have small shareholdings in National Grid, BP and shell. Well, Bureau. The registrable amount of shares could I start with, Doctor Wallace? Just. You touched on this as a phenomenon across northern Europe. Being half Danish, I follow DMI, the Danish Meteorological Institute. Do you cooperate with the Danes and the Norwegians, who probably have had renewables for far longer than we have to, to learn from their experience.
10:23
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
In terms of meteorology, it's a very much a global collaboration, meteorology. So yes, the I'm not aware of specifics, but there will be links into the Danish Met Institute, no doubt. In terms of the energy. It's not something that I've had specific links before. Again, my expectation is that the. I know that there is a lot of international collaboration in the energy sector as well, you know, learning from other organisations.
10:23
10:23
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
Can I just ask Mr. John Saltmarsh you your organisation did a joint report not so long ago on the frequency, duration and severity conditions. If you could share perhaps the conclusions with the committee so we can get that as evidence today. And also, just to ask, how effectively do you think these events can be predicted? I think you looked at a period of roughly every year, eight years, but presumably from what we've heard already, it is largely unpredictable.
But it would help us to understand.
But it would help us to understand.
10:24
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, we we very much looked backwards rather than trying to predict forwards. And the probably the best data for this actually comes from a Royal Society report that Chris Llewellyn Smith did a couple of years ago on large scale electric storage, where he looked back over 37 years from 1980 to 2016. And in that he you know, he analysed the gaps in lots of different ways, identifying sort of 22 hour gaps, which was one of the peaks of short, short duration gaps up to how many months of the year did we or how how many of those months did we see 20 below 20% below normal? What they sort of identified there was three years, 1997, 2007 and 2013, where they had a whole month where wind and solar output was 65% below average.
And that was one of their sort of forcing, forcing functions. We've we've done similar. We ended up identifying a two week period as probably the, the, the worst of situation we saw in the eight years that we were looking at. And that resulted in the the sort of the model we had for generation and the mix of generation resulted in a 15 terawatt hour gap, which needed to be plugged with some form of long duration storage.
If that answers the question.
And that was one of their sort of forcing, forcing functions. We've we've done similar. We ended up identifying a two week period as probably the, the, the worst of situation we saw in the eight years that we were looking at. And that resulted in the the sort of the model we had for generation and the mix of generation resulted in a 15 terawatt hour gap, which needed to be plugged with some form of long duration storage.
If that answers the question.
10:25
10:25
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10:26
10:26
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yeah. Just a couple of quick things. You know, I think we can model what would happen if weather conditions from the past were reproduced. So to the extent that future weather patterns are similar to past weather patterns, which we know it isn't because climate change is happening, we could say that a particular condition could arise. I expect it's more difficult to say exactly when it will arise.
Some of our modelling we used 34 years of past weather, put it through a representation of a 2030 electricity system, and found a kind of similar results to what John mentioned in terms of scale of the gap of sort of 10 to 15 terawatt hours. Other thing I'll just quickly mention you talked about Norway and Denmark. In a sense, Norway especially has faced these kinds of questions for a very long time because they make use of a lot of hydropower.
They have a lot of electricity demand, and most of that is met from hydropower. They've got a plan for how much water they're going to get. What will the weather deliver in terms of snow and rain , and plan their reservoir sizes on that basis to manage the possibility of not having enough. So this has been sort of this kind of issue has been a live question for them for a very long time. So yeah, when you mentioned collaboration, that's a useful place to look, although I understand from talking to colleagues that there's still a lot of debate about quite how you model and assess the risk associated with this.
Some of our modelling we used 34 years of past weather, put it through a representation of a 2030 electricity system, and found a kind of similar results to what John mentioned in terms of scale of the gap of sort of 10 to 15 terawatt hours. Other thing I'll just quickly mention you talked about Norway and Denmark. In a sense, Norway especially has faced these kinds of questions for a very long time because they make use of a lot of hydropower.
They have a lot of electricity demand, and most of that is met from hydropower. They've got a plan for how much water they're going to get. What will the weather deliver in terms of snow and rain , and plan their reservoir sizes on that basis to manage the possibility of not having enough. So this has been sort of this kind of issue has been a live question for them for a very long time. So yeah, when you mentioned collaboration, that's a useful place to look, although I understand from talking to colleagues that there's still a lot of debate about quite how you model and assess the risk associated with this.
10:27
10:27
Earl Russell
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Earl Russell
Good morning. Thank you very much for being with us today. I might start with you, doctor Emily Wallis, if I might. My question is really, how is the Met Office working with Niso and other key stakeholders in the energy sector to understand the risk? Obviously, you've given us a long introduction in your first piece, which was was very, very useful about different ways of defining it, the the interaction of weather systems and our building of the energy transition and obviously different kind of conditions.
So we could have, you know, we could have a long, slow decline or we could have a deep period of no wind or no wind plus cold weather. So I'm really just interested in, in with all these unknowns. How could you just say a little bit more about how you're working with the energy sector to understand, manage and kind of predict some of these risks? And just for the sake of the next question will be on climate change.
So if we probably park that for the next question.
So we could have, you know, we could have a long, slow decline or we could have a deep period of no wind or no wind plus cold weather. So I'm really just interested in, in with all these unknowns. How could you just say a little bit more about how you're working with the energy sector to understand, manage and kind of predict some of these risks? And just for the sake of the next question will be on climate change.
So if we probably park that for the next question.
10:28
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Okay, great. So the energy security energy sector is extremely important to the Met Office. And the thing I say an awful lot is that weather is the fuel of our future system. And it's no less important a vector than than any other. So on that basis, the Met Office has a formal agreement with the National Energy System Operator to build a partnership to support them, to have the best forecast information, the best planning information and the best information to support resilience that we can from a meteorological point of view and that expertise as well.
We on a daily basis, we're sending observations to support demand calculations, forecasts to support generation demand forecasting. At National Energy System. Operator, we've worked with the teams there who are already using 10,000 simulations of weather to inform their winter outlook. So that's the margins of electricity that we're expecting to see over the coming months. We're now built in some predictability information into that as well, from innovative approaches coming out of the Met Office Hadley Centre.
Beyond that, there's already use of data going much further ahead. So, yes, we'll come to projections in a moment, so I won't dwell on that one. The Met Office was involved in the Royal Society report to pull the conclusions about long duration storage beyond the historical record. So one of the things, particularly in the case of wind, is that we know it's very variable and we've only been observing it for about 50 years. So we haven't seen some of the combinations of weather that can be thrown at us.
So we've been using an approach called unseen, which helps to simulate beyond what we've already seen. And that was involved in the Royal Society Report. We've worked alongside the National Infrastructure Commission, as was the Climate Change Commission, sorry, Climate Change Committee, to support the calculation of adverse weather scenarios for exactly this sort of purpose. So what is what are some of the worst conditions we can see for that sort of stress testing of future energy systems? We're also working really closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
We've got a sort of channel of work there on energy security as well as climate change work, which is more long been going on longer and have relationship international gas and much of the rest of the industry. Energy Networks Association. Yes, it's it's a very important area for us at the Met Office. If I
We on a daily basis, we're sending observations to support demand calculations, forecasts to support generation demand forecasting. At National Energy System. Operator, we've worked with the teams there who are already using 10,000 simulations of weather to inform their winter outlook. So that's the margins of electricity that we're expecting to see over the coming months. We're now built in some predictability information into that as well, from innovative approaches coming out of the Met Office Hadley Centre.
Beyond that, there's already use of data going much further ahead. So, yes, we'll come to projections in a moment, so I won't dwell on that one. The Met Office was involved in the Royal Society report to pull the conclusions about long duration storage beyond the historical record. So one of the things, particularly in the case of wind, is that we know it's very variable and we've only been observing it for about 50 years. So we haven't seen some of the combinations of weather that can be thrown at us.
So we've been using an approach called unseen, which helps to simulate beyond what we've already seen. And that was involved in the Royal Society Report. We've worked alongside the National Infrastructure Commission, as was the Climate Change Commission, sorry, Climate Change Committee, to support the calculation of adverse weather scenarios for exactly this sort of purpose. So what is what are some of the worst conditions we can see for that sort of stress testing of future energy systems? We're also working really closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
We've got a sort of channel of work there on energy security as well as climate change work, which is more long been going on longer and have relationship international gas and much of the rest of the industry. Energy Networks Association. Yes, it's it's a very important area for us at the Met Office. If I
10:31
Earl Russell
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Earl Russell
could summarise in terms there's very, very close collaboration, drawing on historical records, the latest technology and AI for future predictions. But basically, risk is at the heart of what you're doing and the collaboration between yourself and Niso and the other energy sector in terms of understanding weather impacts on our transition and our ability to generate. That's it.
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10:32
10:32
10:32
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10:32
10:32
Lord Jay of Ewelme
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Lord Jay of Ewelme
Thank you. Thank you very much. I mean, you've talked you've talked about the difficulty of of prediction, which we all of us, I think, entirely understand. But one question which is which is often asked at least I find is often asked is whether the frequency, duration or severity of. Will be or might be.
10:33
10:37
10:37
10:37
10:37
10:37
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Beautifully summarised. As I described at the beginning, high pressure systems do tend to be very large scale. So you know, you could draw a big circle of, of that high pressure system that could easily incorporate UK and much of northern Europe. But actually there's a lot of subtlety in there, which is why I'm advocating for that rich data approach to the problem and, and finding the, you know, in order to find the very worst conditions, it will be very system dependent, very situation dependent, and exactly where the winds happen to be blowing.
It will have subtleties to it as well as that very large scale picture.
It will have subtleties to it as well as that very large scale picture.
10:38
10:38
Earl Russell
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Earl Russell
just a very short supplementary from me. Just I wanted to ask just for a comment on changed winter wind under climate models. Is there any signals that we might get more periods of either that 20% less wind over longer periods or periods of very low wind? And I guess the other thing, just a comment I might make is that obviously our climate is changing and we've defined duncalfe on place past climatic conditions.
But is there any particular other types of climatic conditions that could cause problems for our renewable, renewable energy sector? For example, I'm thinking about still wind and very, very high summer temperatures as an example. But just a comment on that doesn't either.
But is there any particular other types of climatic conditions that could cause problems for our renewable, renewable energy sector? For example, I'm thinking about still wind and very, very high summer temperatures as an example. But just a comment on that doesn't either.
10:39
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. So the the. So yes, there isn't a strong signal for changes to wind speeds. So that in that case, yes, we might see something worse than we've ever seen before. But that's not that's not because of a strong climate change signal. There are some models that say higher, some that say lower. But generally the variability eclipses it in terms of other weather conditions. Absolutely, yes.
There's there's lots of weather that stresses our energy system. Heat waves is a great example because that will be in conjunction potentially with a lack of water, wildfires, infrastructure. Problems, risks. We also, in these sort of high pressure systems get often worse air quality because again, we've got that descending air, stagnant air underneath. So air quality can be a problem. And I've already mentioned cold going alongside the fallout.
If you think about the health impacts on as a result of that cold, you know, different compounding aspects. Okay.
There's there's lots of weather that stresses our energy system. Heat waves is a great example because that will be in conjunction potentially with a lack of water, wildfires, infrastructure. Problems, risks. We also, in these sort of high pressure systems get often worse air quality because again, we've got that descending air, stagnant air underneath. So air quality can be a problem. And I've already mentioned cold going alongside the fallout.
If you think about the health impacts on as a result of that cold, you know, different compounding aspects. Okay.
10:40
Lord Krebs
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Lord Krebs
Yeah. This is a thank you , chair. I should declare an interest that I used to be an adviser to Drax, the energy company. I stopped doing that last year. This is a question to Emily. Tim Palmer has recently written an article in The Economist, which he alludes to in addition to the thermodynamic impact of climate change, which is what you talked about, there could be another impact, which is that it changes the circulatory systems themselves, for example, altering the jet streams.
And therefore it might be that there there eventually is a tipping point, which the climate system, or including the regional weather system, moves into a new model or new mode. And I just wondered whether that has widespread acceptance in the climate modeling community or whether it's an outlying view.
And therefore it might be that there there eventually is a tipping point, which the climate system, or including the regional weather system, moves into a new model or new mode. And I just wondered whether that has widespread acceptance in the climate modeling community or whether it's an outlying view.
10:41
10:41
10:41
Lord Trees
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Lord Trees
Thank you very much, Lord chair, thanks very much for coming. I'm not an electrical engineer, and we're trying to concentrate in this inquiry on Dunkle Flautre, but I'd like you to confirm what's emerging from what you've said, that a taking wind. First of all, the amount of electricity generated by a turbine is going to be related to the speed of the turbine and ergo, the speed of the wind, right. So there is a variable continuum.
Actually, Dunkle Flautre is the extreme of a continuum, right. So there are varying degrees of necessity to augment that supply it. Does that also apply to solar. I mean the intensity of radiation will affect the output of a given solar capacity. Yes. Thank you. I think that's quite important for us to understand that. In terms of thinking about solutions.
Actually, Dunkle Flautre is the extreme of a continuum, right. So there are varying degrees of necessity to augment that supply it. Does that also apply to solar. I mean the intensity of radiation will affect the output of a given solar capacity. Yes. Thank you. I think that's quite important for us to understand that. In terms of thinking about solutions.
10:42
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I guess just building on that, I mean, firstly, a lot of it is predictable. I mean, certainly with solar, we have very good models. And over the course of the country, we've got an idea of, you know, how much cloud cover there's likely to be so we can make very good predictions. And similarly, the prediction for wind is getting much, much better. And we've got ways of dealing with this for the short term with batteries and other sort of short term storage.
There's the Dunkel issue, as far as we were concerned, was very much more on the long duration storage bit. And how do we deal with that element of it. Fine.
There's the Dunkel issue, as far as we were concerned, was very much more on the long duration storage bit. And how do we deal with that element of it. Fine.
10:43
10:43
10:43
Lord Redwood
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Lord Redwood
I'd like to ask a question which bridges into the next group of questions, but arises directly out of the fascinating testimony by Professor Bell, because Professor Bell told us that when there are these problems of windless and sunless days and weeks, the first thing would be dearer electricity. And then if that didn't shake enough demand off, then you would obviously need to go to rationing. And he reminded us of the 1970s model.
Now, as a very young man, I experienced that and it was called the three day week. And it was the first time when I had a very profound disagreement with the so-called conservative prime minister, who imposed this on the country and discovered that it wasn't popular, and he promptly lost a general election caused on the issue. So I'm just would like to explore with the professor a bit, how practical is this idea that in order to deal with windless and sunless periods, you either make sure any the rich can still carry on buying power at crucial times, or you ration us all.
Now, as a very young man, I experienced that and it was called the three day week. And it was the first time when I had a very profound disagreement with the so-called conservative prime minister, who imposed this on the country and discovered that it wasn't popular, and he promptly lost a general election caused on the issue. So I'm just would like to explore with the professor a bit, how practical is this idea that in order to deal with windless and sunless periods, you either make sure any the rich can still carry on buying power at crucial times, or you ration us all.
10:44
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
This is a policy decision, isn't it? In the end, about how much risk you know , we're willing to take and policy makers making that decision on behalf of the whole of society. So whether, you know the particular economic model for how you recover the cost of that is something, again, for policy makers to decide, and whether it's a progressive policy or a regressive one, that's a decision to be made. I think the key point, of course, is that energy is a crucial part of modern society, and reliable supplies of it are therefore important.
It's also worth not, you know, noting the importance of energy supplies for various aspects of critical national infrastructure, things like, you know, kind of health services, transport, water treatment and so on. So this has to be taken, of course, very seriously, regardless of where you get your energy from. And there are risks associated with all forms of energy supply. So I think notable about the 1970s, that was a fossil fuel based energy system, had some nuclear power.
And nuclear power has has a has a value. And I know the energy system catapult has been an advocate of nuclear power for, for a very long time. And it has its advantages, although the costs are stubbornly refusing to come down. So that has to be sort of, you know, it's all part of that of that decision and risk taking or risk judgement context.
It's also worth not, you know, noting the importance of energy supplies for various aspects of critical national infrastructure, things like, you know, kind of health services, transport, water treatment and so on. So this has to be taken, of course, very seriously, regardless of where you get your energy from. And there are risks associated with all forms of energy supply. So I think notable about the 1970s, that was a fossil fuel based energy system, had some nuclear power.
And nuclear power has has a has a value. And I know the energy system catapult has been an advocate of nuclear power for, for a very long time. And it has its advantages, although the costs are stubbornly refusing to come down. So that has to be sort of, you know, it's all part of that of that decision and risk taking or risk judgement context.
10:45
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
Absolutely. And we will certainly be asking government about that when when they are before us and before we move on to Lord Krebs . Question on future, on technologies that could fill the gap, I just want to go back to how we quantify and measure the problem and whether it's important for parliamentarians in terms of holding, in terms of accountability, if you like, for the system, because we need to be able to grab hold of some, some, some data, some baseline, etc.
to say, hey, this is not right. And what did you do to, to, to, to meet this foreseeable problem? So from publicly available information, it's not clear what parameters Nieto has chosen to assess the risk of Dunkle flash or events. So my question to each of you. We've heard of some of the difficulties in looking at these parameters, but nevertheless, I think it behoves experts to be able to to.
Define some of those parameters and give us some indication of the, the, the guidelines to which they should be working. So what parameters, in your view, should Nieto use to assess the risk of Dunkle flash or events? I know that's a quite a tough question, but I think it's something that we really need to try and try and get to the bottom of. Professor Bell, would you like to start us off?
to say, hey, this is not right. And what did you do to, to, to, to meet this foreseeable problem? So from publicly available information, it's not clear what parameters Nieto has chosen to assess the risk of Dunkle flash or events. So my question to each of you. We've heard of some of the difficulties in looking at these parameters, but nevertheless, I think it behoves experts to be able to to.
Define some of those parameters and give us some indication of the, the, the guidelines to which they should be working. So what parameters, in your view, should Nieto use to assess the risk of Dunkle flash or events? I know that's a quite a tough question, but I think it's something that we really need to try and try and get to the bottom of. Professor Bell, would you like to start us off?
10:47
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I think I would suggest something that I mentioned earlier, which is an assessment of the risk in terms of that energy gap, that residual demand over different periods of time, given the long term variability of weather. So of course, it's something that has to be done using modelling. And that's a thing that has to be looked at carefully. What is the kind of credibility of your model where you're getting the data from and so on.
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10:48
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Nieto has this responsibility as being a strategic energy planning adviser to government. So Nyiso would be the first party that I would look to, but I think there's no harm in others kind of having a separate assessment so we can compare with what Niso is saying. Perhaps we can get things out more quickly than Niso seems to be doing. We can be kind of open about the modelling methods, and be happy to have those methods critiqued to understand where we can improve the methodology or where it seems to be, you know, all pushing in the same direction.
And we can be confident in the results. I know Energy Systems Catapult, John has already talked about has done some of their modelling. My group at the University of Strathclyde has done some as well. Parties, you know, various consultancies have done some climate change committee commissioned work from a consultancy called A3. So all of this is helping to inform, but it needs to be done sufficiently robustly and also transparently and, and, and giving the kind of full picture of information.
So I'm not sure the full picture is always there. I kind of, for example, in my group, a lot of our funding is a bit piecemeal. So we, we do bits and pieces and improve the model. But I think to kind of properly inform all of this debate, I think I think there is there is more that can be done.
And we can be confident in the results. I know Energy Systems Catapult, John has already talked about has done some of their modelling. My group at the University of Strathclyde has done some as well. Parties, you know, various consultancies have done some climate change committee commissioned work from a consultancy called A3. So all of this is helping to inform, but it needs to be done sufficiently robustly and also transparently and, and, and giving the kind of full picture of information.
So I'm not sure the full picture is always there. I kind of, for example, in my group, a lot of our funding is a bit piecemeal. So we, we do bits and pieces and improve the model. But I think to kind of properly inform all of this debate, I think I think there is there is more that can be done.
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10:49
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I just I just add that from, from a modelling perspective, you know, a model is just that it's not a perfect representation of the real world. And you have to make compromises to make the models sort of run and be meaningful. And people make different compromises. They end up with a different set of assumptions. And the only way that you can actually sort of test this for, for real, is to compare results of different models and have, as Keith says, full transparency of what, under what assumptions and what sort of modelling approaches are being taken.
So it's much more than simply defining what a Dunkle floater is and everyone will be happy. It's it's much more about how are you actually using that information?
So it's much more than simply defining what a Dunkle floater is and everyone will be happy. It's it's much more about how are you actually using that information?
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10:50
Earl Russell
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Earl Russell
I just want to pick up on a couple of points Professor Bell made. I think it it is a really important point that that that transparency is there and not just in relation to Dunkle Floater, but across the whole of the energy sector, that different forms of energy have different risks and different profiles associated with them. I just wanted to simply ask you, do you think there's more in terms of the whole of the energy mix and some of the rationale and risk profiles associated of making that more publicly available, so that there's opportunity for greater parliamentary scrutiny on the actual energy mix that's being created and the risk profiles associated with the different sectors.
10:50
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I think there is more that can be done. I think some of these models are difficult to set up. They're quite kind of, you know, time consuming, especially in kind of management of the data, sometimes also very long to run. And yeah, that kind of means that people can take quite a while to get around to publishing their results. And, and I'll confess, my group is a bit the same, you know, we kind of got some stuff we could get out there, but the kind of, you know, for, for academics, we were pushed towards doing quite rightly, you know, peer reviewed journal publications which take which take forever, frankly.
So I think there is value in sort of quicker, dirtier analyses that illustrate the nature of the problem and the dimensions of the problem and can help inform that debate with the kind of the slight caveat. As John said, there are always kind of approximations or assumptions that are made. So the quick, dirty, dirty models will have some things that are a bit rough around the edges, but I think they can help, as you say, to kind of assessment of the of the various options.
So I do get a bit frustrated sometimes that that Niso is so cautious in what it puts out that everything seems to be very slow. So they've delivered, I think just a week or two ago, six different possible pathways for their strategic spatial energy plan delivered to the Secretary of State. But they haven't told anyone else what they are and what the dimensions are. So yeah, I'm not sure that's okay. So the Secretary of State wants to be able to make a judgement on, you know, got a role in government.
Of course, there's an important you know, the Secretary of State has that or has a degree of authority. But the kind of debate for, you know, of course, of, you know, public debate about what are the right options and understanding the different risks, I think is I think is important.
So I think there is value in sort of quicker, dirtier analyses that illustrate the nature of the problem and the dimensions of the problem and can help inform that debate with the kind of the slight caveat. As John said, there are always kind of approximations or assumptions that are made. So the quick, dirty, dirty models will have some things that are a bit rough around the edges, but I think they can help, as you say, to kind of assessment of the of the various options.
So I do get a bit frustrated sometimes that that Niso is so cautious in what it puts out that everything seems to be very slow. So they've delivered, I think just a week or two ago, six different possible pathways for their strategic spatial energy plan delivered to the Secretary of State. But they haven't told anyone else what they are and what the dimensions are. So yeah, I'm not sure that's okay. So the Secretary of State wants to be able to make a judgement on, you know, got a role in government.
Of course, there's an important you know, the Secretary of State has that or has a degree of authority. But the kind of debate for, you know, of course, of, you know, public debate about what are the right options and understanding the different risks, I think is I think is important.
10:52
10:52
Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
Okay. So just to quickly summarize that there's lots of strands of very useful information, like various stakeholders, various the responsible for bringing strands together currently is, but we don't know what needs to. And their work and workings are not public domain. And you can be. Is that a good summary?
10:53
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Some of what they do and some of their working is in the public domain, are they? I mean, they try to be. But other aspects of the work they seem to be not at the position of, I don't know, let's I'm not I'm putting words there, not completely confident about the methods that they've developed yet on a kind of wait before they put it out in the public domain, the strategic energy plan. I think that's something that a way of proceeding with these signals and presenting it first to the state is something that I think I, my understanding, agreed with.
10:53
Lord Krebs
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Lord Krebs
Chair, I'd like to move on to the potential techniques or approaches or periods of intermittency. Renewable supply is illustrated by when they were flushed out and there's. And I'd like to distinguish between long term in days to weeks than short, short and short, which should be how in a. I wonder if you could each of you in turn Each of you in turn say what you think the potential technologies in the running are for both long and short term energy storage, and what the timescales for their deployment are and what scale is feasible .
For
For
10:54
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
them. I don't know whether, perhaps you'd like to. Very happy to sort of start off on that. So I mean, I think you're absolutely right to look at what can we do in the lesson a day. So within day balancing and how do we deal with the the much longer term. I sort of think there is there are two ends to that. And there's the within day, you know, your primary solution is going to be batteries and just moving demand around, which in a lot of cases is batteries.
When you choose to charge your car, for example, is still making use of a battery. So that's the sort of the within day bit. But at the end of that day, all those batteries and forms of energy. And if you're, for example, overheating your house and then letting it cool down a bit, you that will only last for a short period of time. And you need to return those batteries or the house temperature to what it was at the beginning of the last day, by the beginning of the next day.
So those are the ones that are really about. flexibility and moving stuff around short term. And then at the other end, you need sort of technologies that are really long term and from a sort of energy systems catapult perspective, we believe that that is almost certainly going to be sort of molecular storage of some sense. So broadly storing gas, whether that gas is.
When you choose to charge your car, for example, is still making use of a battery. So that's the sort of the within day bit. But at the end of that day, all those batteries and forms of energy. And if you're, for example, overheating your house and then letting it cool down a bit, you that will only last for a short period of time. And you need to return those batteries or the house temperature to what it was at the beginning of the last day, by the beginning of the next day.
So those are the ones that are really about. flexibility and moving stuff around short term. And then at the other end, you need sort of technologies that are really long term and from a sort of energy systems catapult perspective, we believe that that is almost certainly going to be sort of molecular storage of some sense. So broadly storing gas, whether that gas is.
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10:55
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
But you need this storage to be able to, to run your. generators for periods of days or weeks. The interesting bit comes in the perhaps the sort of the two days up to sort of five, ten days, which is, you know, just a place that hydro is, you know, operating to a degree at the moment. And there are a lot of other technologies that are being developed there compressed air storage, some forms of sort of thermal storage, etcetera.
And the debate is really, do they have a role in their own right? Or are you going to see batteries that will become. increasingly less.
And the debate is really, do they have a role in their own right? Or are you going to see batteries that will become. increasingly less.
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10:56
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Starting to sort of encroach into the into the one day, two day, you know, batteries were always talking about one hour. Suddenly we're now talking about batteries as four hours, eight hours or even ten hours. And that can continue to sort of expand. And from the other end, your molecular storage, be that. hydrogen or whatever, is that going to sort of start encroaching from the top? And do you end up with a squeezed middle? And is there a role for some of these technologies in the middle? And I don't think anyone's got a clear answer to that at the moment.
It very much depends on the price of those .
It very much depends on the price of those .
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10:56
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Their round trip efficiency. And, you know, there are two prices there. The price of actually the sort of the the entity that sort of storing it and also the, you know, the price for volume of storage. If you're talking about hydrogen, you've got a very cheap price for the volume of storage, but it's quite. expensive to generate it and produce power. Batteries, on the other hand, cost a huge amount to actually store energy, but it can put it out very, very cheaply and has a very high round trip efficiency.
So there are horses for courses.
So there are horses for courses.
10:57
Lord Krebs
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Lord Krebs
10:57
10:57
Lord Krebs
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Lord Krebs
And also the potential scale of which they could be deployed. Just to take, for instance, Chris Llewellyn Smith concluded in his report that we needed north of 100 terawatt hours of long duration energy storage, which when I was on the S and T committee and we looked into, we thought that was probably pretty extreme and more like sort of.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Which is probably a sort of technology readiness of eight. It's not being deployed at scale for a number of reasons. But in terms of and we're probably talking about sort of five years before you would actually see significant, significant amount of it, even if we were to start today and actually move forward with some of the projects that seem to be a bit stalled at the moment. But in terms of sort of scale, at the moment, we have something like.
18 gigawatt hours of. batteries and we have something like. 12 gigawatt hours of pumped hydrogen storage, pumped hydro storage. So effectively.
18 gigawatt hours of. batteries and we have something like. 12 gigawatt hours of pumped hydrogen storage, pumped hydro storage. So effectively.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Put that into context. If we move to 30 million electric vehicles, that would. increase the total amount of battery storage to two terawatt hours. That's still not getting anywhere close to the sort of. 1020 terawatt hours that people are sort of saying is probably the likely amount of long duration storage on sort of the gaseous storage at the moment. If you look at rough, which is the sort of the main sort of gas storage plant plants, it's a disused oil field in the North Sea that stores something like.
1816 to 18 terawatt hours of energy today. So it's a completely sort of, you know, 3 or 3 orders of magnitude difference between what we're likely to see with batteries and what we're likely to see with molecular storage. Even if you were to convert rough into hydrogen storage, and there are some sort of big challenges with doing that, not least we haven't done that sort of thing before. That would reduce the amount of storage, perhaps eight terawatt hours of hydrogen.
But it's still massive .
1816 to 18 terawatt hours of energy today. So it's a completely sort of, you know, 3 or 3 orders of magnitude difference between what we're likely to see with batteries and what we're likely to see with molecular storage. Even if you were to convert rough into hydrogen storage, and there are some sort of big challenges with doing that, not least we haven't done that sort of thing before. That would reduce the amount of storage, perhaps eight terawatt hours of hydrogen.
But it's still massive .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Yes. Thank you very much, Emily. Is there anything you'd like to add? No, no. I think you're best off with Keith and John for the technology questions. What I would add is the the importance of thinking about as well as the sort of average conditions that the storage is operating in, what are the. potential hazards, compounding hazards that might need to be considered? At the same time, water. resources would be an obvious one, whether, you know, there is a signal in the amount of rainfall we're expecting to see into the.
future where that's relevant to storage, for example, it would be worth to think about that sort of compound picture of what else . Is going
future where that's relevant to storage, for example, it would be worth to think about that sort of compound picture of what else . Is going
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
hand, time to deployment and alternative technologies? I think I think John has summed it up very, very well. I think, you know, that kind of importance of that scale of tens of terawatt hours of molecular based storage, I think seems to be the way to go. I think, again, another important point that John made was about the cost. So the cost of converting and the, you know, the rate of converting energy from one form to another.
So the power cost per megawatt compared with the cost for the in terms of the volume, the total volume over a period of time, the cost per Meg per megawatt hour. So that that is a trade off depending on what you want to do with the storage. So at the moment, lithium ion batteries are playing very well in kind of giving a rapid response to things to smooth out variations on the electricity system. But the, the kind of cost per megawatt hour of those batteries might not be competitive with, with other options.
And just in terms of moving the things along and how quickly Lord Krebs, you recall in the Science and Technology Committee hearing evidence from some of the people involved on the sort of geological storage side that there is work to be done to evaluate the different options there and just establish that a particular geological resource that you think is suitable, really is suitable, and then to get it . available and in the conversion of to and from hydrogen.
So we keep being told by the big gas turbine. manufacturers that, yeah, yeah, we're ready. We can, we can do it. And then the buyers, it's like a sort of stand off saying, well, we're going to, we'll buy one when you've proven the price and the and the. performance and the manufacturer is saying, well, we'll prove the price and performance when you place an order. So .
We've somehow
So the power cost per megawatt compared with the cost for the in terms of the volume, the total volume over a period of time, the cost per Meg per megawatt hour. So that that is a trade off depending on what you want to do with the storage. So at the moment, lithium ion batteries are playing very well in kind of giving a rapid response to things to smooth out variations on the electricity system. But the, the kind of cost per megawatt hour of those batteries might not be competitive with, with other options.
And just in terms of moving the things along and how quickly Lord Krebs, you recall in the Science and Technology Committee hearing evidence from some of the people involved on the sort of geological storage side that there is work to be done to evaluate the different options there and just establish that a particular geological resource that you think is suitable, really is suitable, and then to get it . available and in the conversion of to and from hydrogen.
So we keep being told by the big gas turbine. manufacturers that, yeah, yeah, we're ready. We can, we can do it. And then the buyers, it's like a sort of stand off saying, well, we're going to, we'll buy one when you've proven the price and the and the. performance and the manufacturer is saying, well, we'll prove the price and performance when you place an order. So .
We've somehow
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Is a really cheap way of. storing energy for short periods of time. There are a number of companies in the UK released an innovative companies producing heat batteries, for example, which can provide the energy to to your house for a period of a day. You can charge it up overnight and then use that heat during the day. So thermal storage is a great way of looking in terms of your sort of firming up.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
is really what you're proposing to do with, with tidal, with, with wave and with some of these other technologies. Yes, you can do that. And they are, you know, good. approaches most of our modelling at the moment, and this is perhaps sort of energy systems catapult sort of the way we sort of priced the these technologies compared to nuclear, we tend to firm up our renewables with nuclear. And that proves to be the most cost effective solution.
We build into our modelling prices for, for, for tidal prices, for, for wave technology. But at the moment, the sort of the data we're seeing says that those prices need to come down a long way before they're attractive. So absolutely, there are a good.
We build into our modelling prices for, for, for tidal prices, for, for wave technology. But at the moment, the sort of the data we're seeing says that those prices need to come down a long way before they're attractive. So absolutely, there are a good.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Briefly add to that. Yeah, great point about thermal energy storage over short periods of time. It's really cheap. People have been trying, exploring, using, for example, disused mines. It's still heat then stored over a longer period, then extract heat. So maybe using a heat pump pump or something. So it's not always it's not very cheap by the time you come to heat in and out. But but it's got potential.
And then in respect of marine. energies .
And then in respect of marine. energies .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Of course, under the water and the different sort of stresses on the on the machinery. So that's still to be still to be proven, I suppose, in terms of the reliability of it. Tidal barrage, expensive, very high capital costs, environmental impacts. But you can store a lot of energy and access a lot of energy. So yeah. And John has said, you know, it depends what you what assumptions you make about these relative costs, how some kind of optimal.
design would come out from your, your big energy system model. And in terms of wave energy, okay, I'm not an expert on this stuff at all. So I'd have to defer to the experts. But wave energy is actually comes from the wind as well. So the best way of harnessing the wind . Energy, I think
design would come out from your, your big energy system model. And in terms of wave energy, okay, I'm not an expert on this stuff at all. So I'd have to defer to the experts. But wave energy is actually comes from the wind as well. So the best way of harnessing the wind . Energy, I think
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
That my understanding is that renewables, in any event, rely a lot on household subsidies and other subsidies. So Whittaker has given given sort of a number of variations, I'm quite taken by energy from waste. And of course, we have Drax and Drax used to take quick growing willow coppice trees from local farmers across Yorkshire. So it had a double effect. Are these not proper alternatives? Why .
Are we
Are we
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
we've not been a success. Carbon capture and storage. Sorry. If we go back to the the coal age when most of our power stations were coal powered, we had huge amounts of energy stored in piles of coal beside power stations. We've now got huge amounts of energy stored in, well, firstly in the North Sea in terms of the the sort of the fossil fuels of gas reserves and in the gas network itself and in our storage.
So we have this storage has been intrinsically part of our system in the past. And by moving to a world where we're using more.
So we have this storage has been intrinsically part of our system in the past. And by moving to a world where we're using more.
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
taken for granted. We need to address the fact that there's a gap there. Just humor me for a moment. Yeah. If we relied on energy from storage, energy from waste, which serves two purposes, it's getting rid of household residual household waste, and it's creating an energy stream. And it's working very successfully in North Yorkshire, but it's going into the national grid. You know,
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It could be used locally, which is a whole separate question. But you seem to discount it. I'm not discounting it, but it's a matter of scale. If you burnt all the waste that we've got, it wouldn't come anywhere near I could write to you with the exact numbers. I don't have that off the top of my head, but it would it would come to a very small. percentage of the overall demand for electricity or the overall demand for energy we have.
So, you know, we're not discounting any of these other technologies and saying they don't have a role. But let's look at the sort of the big, the big . Sort of
So, you know, we're not discounting any of these other technologies and saying they don't have a role. But let's look at the sort of the big, the big . Sort of
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
one. I'll just yeah, thanks. Just to add very quickly as well. So I mean. bioenergy does have a role to play. And to the extent that you can store, you know, the kind of the wood pellets or whatever, it's a storable source and it's replenishable because you can, you know, grow more biomass. But of course, we need to be careful about the provenance of the biomass. You know, is it genuinely. sustainable and what impact it has relative to other potential uses of land in respect of energy from waste? It has carbon emissions.
So what is it? A sort of. 40% ish? I think I get the numbers for the right way round of of waste I think is biogenic. So kind of counts as biomass if you like. But the rest of it, a lot of that is tends to be fossil based. So so it has has emissions. So energy from waste is . Not
So what is it? A sort of. 40% ish? I think I get the numbers for the right way round of of waste I think is biogenic. So kind of counts as biomass if you like. But the rest of it, a lot of that is tends to be fossil based. So so it has has emissions. So energy from waste is . Not
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Lord Redwood
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Lord Redwood
And we do need to speed up a bit. Colleagues. Well, I'd like an update on the Swansea tidal barrage scheme because my understanding was the public sector scheme didn't have numbers that added up. And part of the problem was the design life of the barrier. And that I thought now the private sector had extended the life to 125 years and had found potential industrial interest in co-development and in co contracts, and they thought that was now economically viable.
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Earl Russell
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Earl Russell
us with with their suggestions. Earl Russell, just very, very briefly, John Saltmarsh, I would go back to the really. fascinating comments she made earlier about this times three order of. magnitude of lack of long duration. energy storage. And as you rightly said, every energy system has had its need for storage. Under whatever type of energy you're using, you need a store of it. I guess my basic question to you, just for a brief comment, is we have this huge gap and we're not.
managing to fulfill it. Do you think technology will develop to fill it in time? And why do we. continue to transition our energy system and continue to have this gap in long duration energy storage? And just a comment. Obviously, waste fuel energy . From
managing to fulfill it. Do you think technology will develop to fill it in time? And why do we. continue to transition our energy system and continue to have this gap in long duration energy storage? And just a comment. Obviously, waste fuel energy . From
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
waste is the most polluting form of energy we generate. And I think my comment would be that at the moment we don't really need it because we've got lots of gas generating. plants and we can use those when the wind isn't blowing. And, you know, we put them in the 80s and 90s and the dash for gas. So the problem comes in the sort of the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
20, you know, over the. 2030s when a lot of those reach the end of their life and get taken out of commission. So it's not a sort of a burning issue today. And as it stands at the moment, you know, the. technologies to burn. hydrogen or to create hydrogen in the first place, and then to burn it, or to use carbon capture and. storage and store the carbon dioxide you produce are going to be more expensive than simply burning and pumping the the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as we do today.
So there isn't really a economic business case for anyone to develop one as it stands at the moment. And that requires government policy really to if you if you want to . Generate
So there isn't really a economic business case for anyone to develop one as it stands at the moment. And that requires government policy really to if you if you want to . Generate
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Lord Rooker
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Lord Rooker
another session. Lord Rooker, your question. Yeah. Good morning. I don't laugh, but I'm a non-paid director of the Ludlow Hydro, which is a small Archimedes screw on the river tame a River team. Rather. I have to say that because there are some nitpickers out there, I've got it on the. It supplies 400 zero hours is when the river's running, but we need rain in Wales to run the river.
I want to ask about gas and the. Using butane gas power, but also Doctor Wallace, you said. And it was really on the first three questions, but it overloads all what we've been talking about at the .
I want to ask about gas and the. Using butane gas power, but also Doctor Wallace, you said. And it was really on the first three questions, but it overloads all what we've been talking about at the .
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Lord Rooker
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Lord Rooker
Of no wind and no sun. Basically, I'm assuming the. interconnectors are out because you made it clear it's across Northern Europe, so we have to take account of the. interconnectors are not available. And that's the way I've looked at the. conversation so far that that we've got to. But I want to ask you about the government's Clean Power. 2030 target. The 5% come in retained from retained gas. I mean, what do you see as the trade offs between retaining gas beyond the early.
2030s and investing in.
2030s and investing in.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Completely unproved like carbon capture and storage? Can I make a comment on the on the scale of the high pressure, just to start off the conversation, then I'll probably pass on. So there were situations might be where the high pressure sits over the northern Europe as well because of the scale of it, that that is something that will happen from time to time. Often it won't. The high pressure will be offset.
And so we will have renewable generation from the continent. It's also true to say that that wouldn't be the only source of electricity generation on the continent. And so whether or not the interconnectors are flowing would be a much more complex question than whether or not the wind was blowing. But of course, there's a relationship there, and it's thinking about a large scale. Lack of wind is certainly a scenario . That we
And so we will have renewable generation from the continent. It's also true to say that that wouldn't be the only source of electricity generation on the continent. And so whether or not the interconnectors are flowing would be a much more complex question than whether or not the wind was blowing. But of course, there's a relationship there, and it's thinking about a large scale. Lack of wind is certainly a scenario . That we
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
should be considering. And then I'll pass to my colleagues. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting question. You should be asking some of the other people that come to give evidence, which is do their models actually assume that. interconnectors will be flowing at the times when we've got peak peak stress, because it does make a huge difference to the overall cost of the system and the overall amount that you need.
But, you know, I would also say that you are probably always going to end up with some unabated gas being burnt for short periods of time, because it's probably your cheapest fallback. And if you're sort of dealing with something that happens once every ten, 20 years, then do you really want to put a sort of a huge, you know, carbon capture and storage plant on the end of that? Or is it just better to accept that, you know, every 10 or 20 years we are going to have to burn a bit of gas and we will, you know, absorb it in some other way.
So I think it's, you know, it's not a sort of a it's unabated gas or carbon capture and storage. There's a spectrum between those. And as time goes on, you know, the, the less you're using these plants and having them for backup, the less important the carbon emissions come.
But, you know, I would also say that you are probably always going to end up with some unabated gas being burnt for short periods of time, because it's probably your cheapest fallback. And if you're sort of dealing with something that happens once every ten, 20 years, then do you really want to put a sort of a huge, you know, carbon capture and storage plant on the end of that? Or is it just better to accept that, you know, every 10 or 20 years we are going to have to burn a bit of gas and we will, you know, absorb it in some other way.
So I think it's, you know, it's not a sort of a it's unabated gas or carbon capture and storage. There's a spectrum between those. And as time goes on, you know, the, the less you're using these plants and having them for backup, the less important the carbon emissions come.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
backup and the cheapest way possible. Yeah. I think just to add to what my esteemed colleagues have said, I think Emily is quite right. There are kind of nuances and subtleties around what really is happening on a continent scale. It's not always that it's going to be still absolutely everywhere. As it happens, the model, that of the electricity system that we've got in my group does model the whole of Europe. John.
So we we do try try to do that. And, you know, nuclear power, hydro power would be some of it. It's available, but there might be a lot of demand for it.
So we we do try try to do that. And, you know, nuclear power, hydro power would be some of it. It's available, but there might be a lot of demand for it.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
That we've already got between Britain and Norway offers a very nice kind of. complementing of resources. When it's windy here, we can export electricity to Norway. They can leave more water in the reservoir while still meeting demand. In Norway, when it's less windy here, we can basically make use of their water that they've saved in the meantime. So the storage. facilities can be, you know, there's a spatial dimension to it as a as a choice about where they need to be.
If you've got the ability to move energy across space. And yeah, I think John's point about, you know, what the volumes are, you know, a small amount of unabated gas, the emissions associated with that are small. But we have to understand well how small and how much do we need to capture. And if we do have some and do have some of those emissions, that's part of our carbon budget. So if we've got more emissions in one sector, we have to reduce maybe have to reduce emissions in another sector.
But it is important to get that sense of scale, of quite how much and how often we . Would end up
If you've got the ability to move energy across space. And yeah, I think John's point about, you know, what the volumes are, you know, a small amount of unabated gas, the emissions associated with that are small. But we have to understand well how small and how much do we need to capture. And if we do have some and do have some of those emissions, that's part of our carbon budget. So if we've got more emissions in one sector, we have to reduce maybe have to reduce emissions in another sector.
But it is important to get that sense of scale, of quite how much and how often we . Would end up
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
it. Thank you very much. I can't comment on that one. I think, I mean, to be slightly fair to niso, I think the question they were given was what would need to happen in order to meet this target. So I think they've got caveats in the report about this is highly challenging. And certainly when I've spoken to the people involved in some of that work privately, they've been very keen to highlight how challenging a lot of .
These
These
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
it. So that's that isn't a problem then if the water resource in Norway is so fantastic. But but also they they as I was discussing earlier, they still have to manage the risk associated with that. So, you know, the possibility of having a relatively dry winter. So there's not as much snow. They really depend on the snowmelt in spring to fill up their reservoirs. So they've got to size their.
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Lord Trees
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Lord Trees
Thank you, Lord trees. Your question. Thank you very much, chair. My question to some extent you answered. I mean, it's what challenges exist for gas power with carbon capture and storage? Is there anything more you want to add to what you've said so far? And particularly though, can you what chance is there of a.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Place in the time frame we need? It depends which time frame you're looking at by 2050. Almost certainly. Yes. I mean, I think there is always the question about what do you mean by commercially viable? Because, you know, it's always going to be cheaper to use the the atmosphere as a sewer than to store the . Carbon.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
We are going to have to do some carbon capture and storage at some point. because we are going to almost certainly overshoot our carbon targets and have to do some sort of amelioration. And carbon capture and storage is one way of doing that. So I think it needs to work. You know, we've proven that you can pump carbon. dioxide dioxide into the ground. It's been used for decades for enhanced oil recovery.
It's pumping it into the ground and keeping it . There with
It's pumping it into the ground and keeping it . There with
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
problem. Yeah, I would just fully support what John has just said. I mean, it's been an ongoing debate about how you get the business model right, to get some of this actually, you know, deployment of carbon capture and storage at scale. My understanding is that the. Teesside industrial cluster has a dispatchable power agreement that it's supposed to be delivering some, I mean, decent sized. scale plants by, I think, around 2028.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So what is the problem with hydrogen storage? Right? Technically there is. There is no problem. We've had. hydrogen salt caverns in the past. In the UK, most of them have been converted to methane at the moment. And you know, you can convert one back again. You can produce new salt caverns. So that's you know, that technically is doable. The reason that it appears to be stalled is because of the costs of doing it.
And we've been very good at sort of funding.
And we've been very good at sort of funding.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Which, you know, you can do an awful lot of. innovation for, you know, ten. £10 million when you come to. Right. We actually want an end to end plant that's going to sort of electrolyze power, produce hydrogen and store it in the ground, and then put a gas turbine on the end of it at a scale that's useful for for grid grid.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Then you're talking, you know. 500 million upwards. £1 billion that needs to come from somewhere. And simple answer is, I don't think the government has had the the money to do that. So I think that's predominantly why it's stalled. It's very difficult to do that. without putting money into it, because as I say at the moment, it's cheaper to do that with a simple . Unabated
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Baroness Whitaker
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Baroness Whitaker
I will do so. Thank you. We will return to intermittency. The majority of the new. capacity set out in the government's Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, and the Clean Flexibility. Roadmap is set to be delivered between 2030 and 2050. Now, do you think that that level of. progress is right, and if not, where in what areas . Ought
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Right. Well I I'm not quite sure how to answer this one. I mean, the starting point is that the more variable renewables you add onto the system, the more you're going to make this a problem that you need to be to be solving. And clearly, as you know, we have a plan at the moment that is moving to significant, significant amounts of wind for the future. So that problem becomes.
increasingly an issue. It's it's driven as much as anything at the moment by when the gas plants are going to go offline. And so, you know, as we've discussed in the previous point, you know, we are we are not moving fast enough with. replacements of those gas turbines. And even if you replace to replace them, like for like, there is a huge waiting list for gas turbines at the moment.
So it's not as if you can turn around and say, right, we'll just do more gas and expect that to appear within, you know, two years or some such. It's, you know, it's going to be longer than that. So we, you know, there is a looming problem as far as this is concerned. And we will almost certainly solve it by running these gas plants on for longer and running something on beyond its its lifetime ends up with the cost going up because you end up with more .
Maintenance,
increasingly an issue. It's it's driven as much as anything at the moment by when the gas plants are going to go offline. And so, you know, as we've discussed in the previous point, you know, we are we are not moving fast enough with. replacements of those gas turbines. And even if you replace to replace them, like for like, there is a huge waiting list for gas turbines at the moment.
So it's not as if you can turn around and say, right, we'll just do more gas and expect that to appear within, you know, two years or some such. It's, you know, it's going to be longer than that. So we, you know, there is a looming problem as far as this is concerned. And we will almost certainly solve it by running these gas plants on for longer and running something on beyond its its lifetime ends up with the cost going up because you end up with more .
Maintenance,
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Baroness Whitaker
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Baroness Whitaker
This will require investment in new low carbon generation. But I would also like to turn your attention to the market. mechanisms at the moment for getting all these new. technologies onto the market. Seems to me that there you could say there's a market. failure at the moment from the lack of. investment in scaling up new technologies. I mean, we do have the.
contracts for. difference system and tidal energy has got a little way with that. But as you pointed out, the other marine things are very expensive. That's because they're still at the. prototype stage.
contracts for. difference system and tidal energy has got a little way with that. But as you pointed out, the other marine things are very expensive. That's because they're still at the. prototype stage.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
know, private sector come in on this. What I mean, this has always been the way, you know, you need to first of a kind funding, etc., to come from somewhere other than the private sector. That private sector doesn't like taking those first risks. And, you know, the costs of borrowing associated with first of a kind is absolutely enormous compared to what the government can borrow at. So it makes a lot of sense for government to be funding things like this.
It then comes down to priorities. The other point to note with this sort of, you know, how do we prepare for these Dunkle floaters and long, you know, events that happen very, very rarely is is it ever going to be sensible to have a contracts for difference that, you know, will pay you once every 20 years when you're. So I think there's going to be an argument in the future for should governments be taking, you know, saying this is a strategic asset that we we need to buy and we shouldn't put the risk of when it's going to be used onto the private sector because we'll pay through the nose for that risk when actually, you know, it's, it's the government that's insuring against that risk.
So I think there's, you know, the, the contracts for difference has been very successful for what it's done to enable wind.
It then comes down to priorities. The other point to note with this sort of, you know, how do we prepare for these Dunkle floaters and long, you know, events that happen very, very rarely is is it ever going to be sensible to have a contracts for difference that, you know, will pay you once every 20 years when you're. So I think there's going to be an argument in the future for should governments be taking, you know, saying this is a strategic asset that we we need to buy and we shouldn't put the risk of when it's going to be used onto the private sector because we'll pay through the nose for that risk when actually, you know, it's, it's the government that's insuring against that risk.
So I think there's, you know, the, the contracts for difference has been very successful for what it's done to enable wind.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
as we have discussed earlier on, you've got these two solutions, one for the short term. problems within day and one for the longer ones. And you know, if you solve the short ones and you solve the long ones, you'll probably deal with a bit in the middle. If you just go for the bit in the middle, you will leave the.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
necessarily work. Thank you. Anything to add? No. So just to comment on the the way in which the process is in place at Neso already are taking account of this. intermittency problem. So I already described the short term, I suppose, checking the resilience against Duncan Flower to another. intermittency in the winter ahead is taken care of in the winter outlook where they use these 10,000 simulations.
It is also making its way into the sort of. resampling of weather. Years is also making its way into calculations around the capacity market and also resource adequacy out to 2040. So the simulations to understand the problem are making it into those assessments. And then, yes, the policy .
It is also making its way into the sort of. resampling of weather. Years is also making its way into calculations around the capacity market and also resource adequacy out to 2040. So the simulations to understand the problem are making it into those assessments. And then, yes, the policy .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Overrun by a couple of minutes? Excellent. Thank you. Yeah. So I'll I'll chip in a couple of quick things for the short term variability. The market mechanisms do seem to be working, you know, kind of battery deployment. Grid scale batteries are being installed and used. There is a new mechanism, the cap and floor mechanism that is trying to encourage further investment, in particular the pumped hydro storage, to kind of give that to help manage the investment risk.
So it's kind of sharing of risk really between consumers and and the investors. We've we've talked about the scale of this long duration, longer term storage, and we're kind of maybe being a bit scary. And I'm a bit scared by the scale of tens of terawatt hours. But on the other hand, we've got to start somewhere. So it can't all be delivered overnight. So we've got to start doing things inevitably gets developed in stages. So there are opportunities for learning by doing when we get going.
But as I noted, these things are kind of expensive. There are a few things we have to see how effective they are. The dispatchable power agreement, the hydrogen transport business model . That
So it's kind of sharing of risk really between consumers and and the investors. We've we've talked about the scale of this long duration, longer term storage, and we're kind of maybe being a bit scary. And I'm a bit scared by the scale of tens of terawatt hours. But on the other hand, we've got to start somewhere. So it can't all be delivered overnight. So we've got to start doing things inevitably gets developed in stages. So there are opportunities for learning by doing when we get going.
But as I noted, these things are kind of expensive. There are a few things we have to see how effective they are. The dispatchable power agreement, the hydrogen transport business model . That
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
put forward. You know, are they going to actually deliver? And I think we can maybe also say that I'm back to the kind of choices on how the storage of energy. John's already noted, we've made uses use of the store ability of fossil fuels forever. Really. Of course, it's a one way store. We're not going to turn it back into the fossil fuel. The point about wind and solar and its.
variability is, although there are periods when this residual demand is large and has to be filled that gap from somewhere else. There will be periods when that is negative. There is there is a surplus that can be used. So that represents an opportunity in terms of making a form of energy that can be . Stored
variability is, although there are periods when this residual demand is large and has to be filled that gap from somewhere else. There will be periods when that is negative. There is there is a surplus that can be used. So that represents an opportunity in terms of making a form of energy that can be . Stored
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Lord Redwood
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Lord Redwood
finish off, I'm going to come to Lord Redwood and then Lord Jay. Briefly, I think you'd be very helpful to the committee if we could have into the evidence, what is the current gas dispatchable capacity which we rely on to keep the lights on? And what is the current view of the system about how much dispatchable gas we will still need in 2030.
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Baroness Sheehan
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Baroness Sheehan
the main board of EDF in Paris. Excellent. Thank you very much, and colleagues. Thank you all very much. And our panel of expert witnesses for being with us today. We look forward to receiving the bits of supplementary evidence that you've undertaken to, to, to send to, to us. And with that, I call an end to the formal . And to
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