Monday was another of those dunkelflaute days when the wind barely blows, the sun doesn’t shine and it’s cold. At times, gas-fired power stations were generating 70% of the UK’s electricity while windfarms and solar facilities were contributing as little as 7% combined.
It was a reminder of why, even under the government’s rapid programme to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 by expanding renewables, the current gas-fired capacity of 35GW will be retained as backup. The fossil-fuelled plants may stand idle most of the time – they are scheduled to account for only “up to 5%” of generation over a full year in 2030, versus 34.7% in 2023 – but, when they’re needed, they will sometimes still be operating at full pelt.
