Barnaby Wharton

So, today Civitas has published a great new report, publishing the "realisistic" costs of Net Zero. Apparently, it’s a whopping £4.5 trillion, or £6,000/home/year. Wow. However, how do these numbers stack up? (tl;dr: no. but stick around for the 🧵, because it's fun). 1/12

Overall, the £600 figure is reached by rogue assumptions, misassignment and double counting. We need a robust debate about energy costs, as it is complicated, policy and essential to our economy. But this sort of contribution falls well short of what is needed.

What is more, if we are citing Ofgem's numbers, here, let's go the whole hog. The £60 is the gross addtion, when netted against savings, the impacts are much lower, and lower than doing nothing (see curtailment above.) ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/…

I've not posted here for a long time, but like Apollo Creed, I've been provoked back into the ring. The new GWPF report, saying that renewables secured in the latest CfD auction (AR7) will add £600 to energy bills needs addressing. A🧵with gifs. Yes, I know how Rocky IV ends

.@neso_energy has announced that its methodology for developing the first Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP) has been approved by the Secretary of State and @ofgem 🎉 The SSEP will provide the first high-level blueprint for Great Britain's energy infrastructure from 2030 to 2050, providing clarity to industry, investors and consumers on what a future energy system will look like and how the country will use it to meet its needs 💡 Commenting on this news, our Director of Future Electricity Systems Barnaby Wharton (@BarnabyCBW) said ⬇️ “The Strategic Spatial Energy Plan will outline a clear vision for a zero-carbon energy system, powered by renewables and underpinned by the grid infrastructure we need to deliver it. Publishing this methodology is a critical step, and we look forward to working closely with NESO and industry to help shape a robust, cost-effective plan that delivers for consumers. "The certainty that this key blueprint will provide will help to attract billions in private investment, leading to tens of thousands of new jobs across the renewable energy sector, including our fast-growing supply chain based in the UK". 📰 neso.energy/news/milestone…

Well that was unexpected.

While I don't know exactly what happened, and we should wait for the full investigation, let me explain exactly what happened here from my comfy armchair. I'm not a power system engineer, but I've seen some charts on the Internet 🧵

Just a guess, but I suspect we are about to discover a surprising number of hitherto unknown experts on power system frequency stability and cascading relays.

No doub there will be lots of pepole jumping on solar/wind/renewables as the cause. Rumours of cyber attacks abound. We don't know. As Jeremy says, this is unprecedented, let's wait until we have some facts before pointing fingers...