UK importing record quantities of power, worth £250m each month
New Drax Electric Insights report reveals that 20% of our electricity came from Europe in the second quarter of 2024, accounting for more than twice the volume generated by UK-based solar panels and almost as much as gas.
We’ve heard a lot in recent weeks about the new government’s plans to greatly increase the amount of renewable energy created across the UK. In July, Energy Minister Ed Miliband even spoke of a ‘rooftop revolution’ as he overturned bans on three massive new solar farms.
Photo by Nicholas Doherty
It’s true that we’re producing ever greater amounts of green energy, which account for an ever greater proportion of the total energy we consume. But one issue that often gets overlooked is the amount of electrical power that we import from abroad through a series of underwater cables known as interconnectors. That’s what is addressed in the latest quarterly Drax Electric Insights report by academics from Imperial College London and commissioned by Drax through Imperial Consultants.
The UK has imported electricity from abroad since 1961. In recent years, changes in power grids and in trading rules has led to a significant rise in both the number of interconnectors and the volume of power being important. During the second quarter of this year, the UK imported a record 12.2 TWh of electrical power, while exporting just 3 TWh.
At first glance, this increasing reliance on imports may seem to present a risk to the UK’s energy security. Yet that’s not the conclusion of Dr Iain Staffell from Imperial College London, the lead author of the new report. He says that, as the renewables revolution takes hold in the UK, the existing interconnectors will be used to export increasing volumes of UK-generated energy..
The report provides further detail on this essential infrastructure. For example, one of the newest such interconnectors is the North Sea Link project connecting the UK to Norway. This began operations in 2021 and can transport 1.4 GWs of electricity; if it were a conventional power station, it would be the UK’s seventh largest by capacity.
Norway boasts more than 1,200 hydro storage reservoirs and more than double the number of pumped storage hydro plants found in the UK. This enormous capacity is used to balance out drops in supply from intermittent sources of electricity such as wind and solar farms.
At present, the UK has just four pumped storage hydro plants, despite the increasing need for enhanced storage capacity to manage intermittent power of this kind. A new plant hasn’t been built in the UK since 1984; the report suggests that many potential projects remain in limbo due to barriers to securing private investment. The report covers some efforts to address, including the £80m upgrade of Drax’s own Cruachan pumped storage facility in Scotland as well as plans to build a brand-new 600 MW plant next to the existing site.
Dr Staffell says: ‘Much of Britain’s conventional power generators like coal and nuclear stations have retired in recent years. Fewer dispatchable generators means less competition and higher prices, making cheaper electricity from the continent much more attractive to import. The government must be mindful of the need to retain sufficient dispatchable generation capacity on our system for both energy security and affordability reasons as it works towards its ambition of having a clean power grid by 2030. Britain is always going to need weather-proof sources of power to keep the lights on.
‘There’s been a huge rise in the volume of solar power capacity installed on the continent. Germany has installed 14 times as much solar capacity in the last three years as the UK to cut its reliance on Russian gas. That means in spring and summer months there is often an abundance of cheap electricity on the continent which the UK can import.
‘As long as we maintain sufficient homegrown, dispatchable generation on the system then interconnectors can actually strengthen our energy security. The new government wants to make Britain a clean energy superpower, and if we achieve the scale of installed renewables that is being talked about, we simply won’t be able to use all of the power we generate here in the UK. Being able to either store this power at home through more storage capacity or selling it abroad is an attractive proposition. During periods of high winds in the North Sea but calmer weather on the continent, exporting power could be potentially lucrative for the UK and help to lower bills for consumers here.’
Ian Kinnaird, Scottish Assets Director at Drax, adds: ‘As the UK becomes more reliant on wind and solar power, we will need other sources of electricity to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine. At Drax, we believe a new generation of pumped storage hydro plants can play a pivotal role in enhancing UK energy security. With the right support from government, we can move forward with our plans to build the country’s first new pumped storage hydro plant in a generation at Cruachan. It’s an incredibly exciting project that will support almost a thousand jobs and leave the UK with a more secure energy grid.’
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