As we head into another week of freezing weather conditions, demand levels for gas have reached record highs. News headlines warn of the country heading into a gas crisis, with warnings from the National Grid of supplies in some areas at breaking point. So how bad is the situation?
The continued cold snap has overwhelmed the entire country sparing nobody from its Arctic conditions. Understandably households are turning up their thermostats, and relying on their heating like never before. And since we are discussing the very serious situation of a gas supply shortage, has the freezing weather exposed a major problem in our energy market’s gas reserves?
The alarming news is the extent of the UK’s reliance on gas, and indeed its energy policy when it comes to gas reserves. Under normal weather conditions, we have two weeks of gas in reserve; however the unusual freezing weather has left us with only eight days worth, according to Greg Clark, the shadow energy secretary.
Compare this to some of our European counterparts, and you will be shocked. Germany for instance has forty days worth of gas in reserve, and given the UK is the fourth largest gas provider in the world, people are understandably questioning what has gone wrong.
The government faces fierce accusations from the opposition party of failing its energy policy. Clark said the government had it’s ‘…head in the sand’ because it failed to build more gas storage facilities over the past decade.
He also said the UK lacked ‘essential back-up’ plans. ‘When will the government understand we need more storage capacity and the ability to get gas to consumers so nobody has to face the possibility of going without gas during cold snaps like this one?’
Others do not think the situation is quite as bad as this, despite the National Grid requesting large industries to cut back on their consumption. David Hunter, energy analyst at McKinnon & Clarke dismissed the Conservative’s claim of eight days gas reserve as suggestive, and that we actually have three weeks worth available. This is still disturbingly low if you compare it to the four months Germany has.
A National Grid spokesperson said there was no danger of the UK running out of gas, and instead blamed the issue on a specific gas field. He also added that any gas shortage alert had now been lifted and claimed ‘We do have more than adequate supplies for the whole of the UK’.
Nevertheless this does highlight a serious flaw in our energy supply system. Hunter blamed ‘The chronic lack of storage capacity impacting on security of supply’. He also said without building scalable renewable energy sources like nuclear or wind, the UK would continue to be dangerously reliant on gas. And with supply in the North Sea drying out, we would need to rely increasingly on imported gas from places like Russia and the Middle East.
Lord Hunt, the energy minister reassured there was ‘no risk of consumers being cut off…’ and added, ‘Britain has a vast amount of storage – it’s called the North Sea. It’s been our main source of gas for years and will continue to provide a large chunk of our supply beyond 2020…’
It would seem there is no immediate gas crisis, and as consumers we should not be worrying about being switched off. Though it has identified problems in our energy policy, and our government does need to address the issues raised and put better reserve plans in place for the future.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8448670.stm
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/98d6049a-fbca-11de-9c29-00144feab49a.html
http://blogs.news.sky.com/eurovision/Post:69d37583-30b8-422e-a582-b43a3ba58064
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6951257/UK-gas-demand-hits-record-high-as-big-freeze-sets-in.html
