Page 9 - October 2019

industry & government news

LIGHTNING STRIKE UK CANNOT REACH NET ZERO
BLAMED FOR BLACKOUT EMISSIONS ‘IF MINISTERS REMAIN

FIXED ON ECONOMIC GROWTH’

IT IS THOUGHT LIGHTNING CAUSED TWO POWER
GENERATORS TO GO OFFLINE

NATIONAL GRID HAS blamed
a lightning strike for Britain’s
biggest blackout in more than a
decade after it caused two power
generators to go offline.
The strike was one of many
to hit the grid on the same day
as the 9 August blackouts but
National Grid claims the bolt hit a
transmission circuit north of London
and managed to bring down two
electricity generators more than 100
miles apart in an “extremely rare and
unexpected event”.
A report revealed National Grid was NEW ZEALAND HAS SHIFTED ITS NATIONAL PURPOSE
unable to cover the twin outages at a AWAY FROM GDP TOWARDS WELLBEING
gas-fired power plant in Bedfordshire
and an offshore wind farm off the east THE UK CANNOT reach net zero ensure they are working to a common
coast of England because it did not greenhouse gas emissions by the environmental framework. He noted this
have enough backup. target of 2050 while ministers remain type of cross-departmental arrangement
The outages took place within fixed on growth as measured by GDP, already exists with the Brexit ministry,
seconds of each other immediately the government’s chief environment which vets Brexit decisions.
after the strike, according to the scientist has warned. Sir Ian said technology would be
report, causing disruptions across Sir Ian Boyd has made clear the scale an essential element in reducing our
much of England and Wales. of the challenge the UK faces to meet impact on the planet, but indicated the
The report said the Hornsea its own environmental goals, and said biggest challenge would be in reducing
offshore windfarm shut down after the public had little idea of the changes rates of consumption.
experiencing an unusual voltage necessary to rein in our impact on the He added: “We’ve got to reduce
fluctuation “coincident with the natural world. demand to a much greater extent than
lightning”. A spokeswoman for People must eat less red meat, travel we have in the past, and if we don’t
Ørsted, the windfarm owner, less and buy fewer clothes, he said, but reduce demand we’re not going to
declined to comment when he also warned that enormous political reduce emissions.
approached by The Guardian. reassessments must be made in order “Emissions are a symptom of
RWE, the owner of the gas plant, for these necessary changes to happen. consumption and unless we reduce
has warned that it is too soon to Sir Ian made the comments to the consumption we’ll not reduce emissions.”
say whether lightning had any BBC as he steps down from the Defra But Josh Burke, a policy fellow at
impact on its operations because post he has held for six years. LSE’s Grantham Institute for Research
investigations into the root cause of He said: “The way we live our lives is told The Independent their research
its outage are ongoing. generally not good for the environment. has indicated achieving net zero and
Prof Dieter Helm, a government “We like to consume things, but the maintaining economic growth are not
adviser on energy policy, said: more we consume the more we absorb mutually exclusive.
“The key point is that the power the resources of the planet. “We probably shouldn’t scrap
cut should never have happened “That means we have to grow those GDP entirely, but it is a fairly blunt
in the first place. If power cuts resources or we have to mine them – and instrument in that it doesn’t take into
can happen when just two power in doing that we generate waste. And account natural capital or social capital
generators drop off, then something consumption is going up all the time. for example,” he said.
fundamental has gone wrong.” “There’s a conundrum – how do we “In New Zealand, they decided to
The energy regulator has responded shift ourselves from consuming? We augment GDP with these additional
by launching an investigation into need to do more about learning to live metrics, so they record natural and
whether National Grid’s statutory sustainably. We talk about sustainability social capital and those are the kinds of
requirements, which are set by Ofgem, but we don’t really know what it means.” things we can do too.”
require it to hold enough reserve Sir Ian also called for the creation He said the institute’s research
electricity supplies to stabilise the grid of a “net zero ministry”, which he concluded it was possible to have
following outages. said could work across government to sustainable growth at the same time as
vet the policies of all departments to transitioning to a low carbon economy.

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News.indd 4 19/09/2019 15:05