The 10 days of anti-cyclonic gloom at the start of November broke records for length and the thickness of the cloud. It is rare, even in the darkest days of December, for the solar panels on my roof in Bedfordshire to record less than a kilowatt hour of electricity production a day. During the gloom only 5.1kWh were produced.
Slow wind-speeds over the same period meant renewable energy made only a small contribution to the country’s electricity supply. The fossil fuel lobbyists made much of this shortfall, warning against the perils of the government aim of net zero.
They have a point. Battery storage installations are increasing everywhere but the backup power they offer is short term, needing to be topped up after a few hours. Solutions include pumped storage, where water is lifted to high reservoirs in times of plenty to be released in times of need, and other longer-term schemes such as compressed air.
Unfortunately successive governments have neglected to develop the UK’s plentiful tidal power in all its forms. Underwater turbines exist and various forms of tidal dams are planned but the political push required to fully develop these reliable and predicable forms of generation has been lacking.
