https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/11/13/can-we-live-like-windy-miller/

Within Labour’s – how can I put this politely – “ambitious” net zero plans, the term “energy flexibility” features prominently. The term is clearly preferable to the plain language “rationing,” but without major – i.e., cultural revolution scale – changes to our way of life, electricity rationing is the inevitable consequence of the current net zero project.

Energy flexibility, aka demand management, is the plan to use a series of carrots and sticks to iron out the intermittency of wind and solar by increasing and (mostly) decreasing consumer demand accordingly. The botched roll-out of (not so) smart meters was meant to begin the process – allowing electricity suppliers to offer flexible tariffs to customers prepared to switch use to off-peak periods. The 2021-22 energy shock prompted an opposite approach – paying high-use consumers to lower their consumption at peak times. And in 2024, several suppliers are offering low-cost or even free electricity during off-peak times in exchange for lowering their consumption during the peaks. At least two suppliers currently offer electric car owners the unsustainably low price of just seven pence per kWh (compared to the standard rate of 22 pence) if they are prepared to leave it to the supplier to decide when to charge the vehicle (mostly in the early hours of the morning when demand is at its lowest).

Even if the proposed build-out of new renewable electricity generation and Grid infrastructure is achieved (and there is good reason to expect failure) the impact will be too great to be manageable using incentives and penalties on the demand side. The unspoken show-stopper is that with the best will in the world, the increasing intermittency caused by the end of coal generation (2024), the phase out of nuclear (2026-28), the inadequacy of storage capacity (the already herculean plan is for 50-90 GW but more than 7,000 GW is required), the lack and increasing cost of new gas capacity, and the massive expansion of intermittent wind generation (40% land and 60% offshore) means that in periods of wind drought – such as in recent weeks when slow moving, high pressure air settles over the British Isles – the authorities (government, regulator, and grid operator) will have to choose between blackouts and rationing (for which plans are already well developed).

Even without wind droughts though, attempts at demand management are likely to have perverse and unintended consequences. At present, most of an average day is considered “off-peak” (although there is a significant difference between 10.00am to 4.00pm demand and that of the 11.00pm to 7.00am demand). Peak demand, then, refers to two spikes – 7.00am to 10.00am and 4.00pm and 11.00pm. The Grid, as originally purposed, could meet these fluctuations in demand by simply ramping up the output from coal and gas – where necessary using the relatively tiny amount of pumped hydro to fill the momentary gap as output was increased. In the envisaged net zero grid, there is no such ability to increase the wind to meet demand. And so, incentives must be used to lower but broaden those demand peaks.

Offer cheap, or even free, electricity on a Sunday or in the early hours, and you create a huge incentive for people to do household chores during those periods instead. But this only works so long as the legacy peak periods remain. But since the price of electricity is only going in one direction, and at a time when even relatively rich households are having to tighten their belts, the savings to be made from changing household routines may outweigh convenience and inertia. Indeed, for those in the top half of the income distribution, access to automated technologies such as vacuum cleaners, dishwashers and washing machines will allow those tasks to be done while the humans are asleep in their beds. Moreover, the richer a household is, the easier it will be to cut peak time demand through energy-efficiency. There is, for example, a huge energy saving to be made by switching from gas (most of the heat goes around the outside of the pan) to induction (all the heat remains inside the pan) cooking. But since this requires the initial outlay for a new cooker and a new set of induction-compatible pans, it is not an option for those with little in the way of discretionary income. In practice, while the rich will do energy-efficiency, the poor will do shivering in the dark.

This, however, creates an additional headache for the Grid operators. Because of the way windfarm development is funded, operators are guaranteed a set price irrespective of whether they are generating or not. And while much of the criticism of intermittent supply has focused on periods when there is not enough wind, the payment system results in additional costs when there is too much wind as well. If, for example, there is so much wind that, with the proposed expansion in capacity, supply greatly exceeds demand, even with the proposed expansion of storage there will be nowhere for the electricity to go. And so, the Grid operator will pay the windfarm operators to shut down entirely. And it goes without saying that the Grid operator does not eat that cost. Indeed, by 2030, the average household bill is set to increase by more than £1,500 just to cover the cost of shutting down wind generation when too much wind exceeds demand.

In a roundabout and somewhat hi-tech way then, those tasked with achieving net zero are discovering a property of wind power which industrialisation sought to overcome. In the renewable energy economy which preceded ours, sailing ships might spend weeks in the doldrums, their sailors resting while waiting for the wind to blow once more. Meanwhile, in the height of the summer heat, English peasants in villages up and down the land would look enviously at the miller, sat idly in the shade with no means of grinding the grain until low pressure westerlies arrived once more. But nobody envied the sailors or the millers when the wind blew up again, since this was the time when they had to work flat out to make up for lost time… sailors and millers alike might go several days without sleep to optimise the productive energy from the wind.

Those were simpler times of course. And a simpler and more localised economy had the capacity to allow people to alter their working practices according to the weather. But one of the big “successes” of the neoliberal revolution was precisely the “flexibility” of 24/7 working, aided by electric-powered information and communications technology, which made us “competitive” (although only at the cost of greater complexity and a huge loss of resilience). Because the other side of “energy flexibility,” as we lose firm (24/7 fossil fuel and nuclear) generation is surely that, rather than paying windfarm operators to sit idle, we will instead have to follow Windy Miller in doing as much of our work as possible during periods when there would otherwise be excess wind… particularly if state-imposed demand management incentivises us to do so.

Seen from the bottom of the pile in Britain’s excessively unequal income distribution, this is obvious enough. Shivering in the dark and relying on charity for food has already become commonplace for millions of low-income households. Energy saving for the growing precariat is not a means of “green” virtue-signalling, but an essential part of coping with fast-declining prosperity. And insofar as energy suppliers are offering cheaper energy at night, don’t be at all surprised to find that a growing part of the precariat class is becoming nocturnal.

The greater – and largely unconsidered – problem though, lies on the supply side of the economy. The process of encouraging millions of people to adjust to using off-peak electricity only really works when intermittency can be balanced with some combination of nuclear, gas, and imports. Take those away, and the certainty about peak and off-peak times recedes in importance compared to energy supply. That is, today (prior to the gargantuan attempt at an energy revolution) the peaks and troughs are a by-product of our living and working arrangements. Night working exists, of course – how else do you imagine your post arrives (or more usually fails to arrive these days) or food appears on the supermarket shelves every morning? But these are the minority of economic activities. For the majority of – business and household – economic activity – and thus energy use – occurs during the day. But greater intermittency means that these routines will no longer be guaranteed. What does a business do if there is a wind drought during the day? Can it afford to pay its workers to stand idle? Would its workers be flexible enough to come back when the wind starts blowing? Most importantly, could our just-in-time supply chains survive in such an unpredictable energy landscape?

Can we live like Windy Miller? The answer (no) is already being provided in the corporate sector, where godzillionaires like Musk, Gates and Bezos are talking about building their own private nuclear facilities to power their datacentres (and presumably selling their excess power into the public Grid). However, since their business models depend upon a critical mass of consumption, even if they do go nuclear, unless the wider economy has sufficient 24/7 electricity, demand will collapse, and they too will be out of business.

This is the real madness of pursuing net zero before the necessary technologies exist. And again, those at the bottom sense this (even if few can explain it) far more viscerally than those who make the decisions. Real world experience shows that as the price of energy rises, far from embracing the “green” levies, millions of people cease consuming… starting with discretionary spending, but eventually eating into what is considered essential too. This is already impacting businesses (lost sales) and state services (extra demand for health and social care services) and may be beginning to add to the social security bill too.

The insanity though, is not in people who have no alternative to adapting to greater intermittency and higher prices, but in a political and professional-managerial class which continues to behave as if they will somehow be exempt. As the old saying has it, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”