Emergency blackout plan that pays Brits up to £100 to turn off energy WON’T take place tomorrow, National Grid says
NATIONAL Grid has decided not to run its emergency blackout plan tomorrow that would have seen Brits being paid to reduce their electricity use.
Earlier today, it was said that the emergency electricity plan could be activated for the first time with supplies tight due in part to problems in the French energy grid.
The scheme, which launched at the start of this month, has already been tested twice in the last two weeks but has not yet been run for a live event.
But the National Grid decided not to launch the emergency plan which could have seen homeowners earn up to £100.
Concerns were raised over Britain's energy supply on Monday and Tuesday evenings as the grid operator issued two separate indications that things could get tight.
The National Grid Electricity System Operator issued and then rapidly cancelled a notice that the difference between the amount of electricity available and the supply of electricity would be smaller than hoped for on Monday evening.
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The so-called Capacity Market Notice was issued at 1.33pm, with a warning of a tight grid at 6pm. The notice was cancelled again at 2.04pm.
And it means the multinational electricity company may pay households to cut their energy usage in a bid to avoid power cuts tomorrow evening.
It comes as low temperatures and outages on France's nuclear power fleet are set to put pressure on power supplies, according to market experts Enappsys.
Under the DFS scheme, National Grid will pay households to cut power demand in a number of ways.
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This could be by stopping running the washing machine or dishwasher until the supply crunch has eased.
Households which have signed up to the programme in advance will get a message asking them to turn off appliances at a certain time in exchange for £3 per kilowatt-hour saved.
If the £3 is fully passed on by the suppliers to customers, that implies payments of up to £20 for each day when requested by National Grid.
Power supply and demand has to be constantly balanced to avoid triggering blackouts.
England will play Wales in the two teams’ final game in the group stages of the World Cup at 7pm on Tuesday.
National Grid has developed the scheme over the past few months amid concern over winter energy supplies due to gas shortages triggered by Russia's war on Ukraine.
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A spokesperson for National Grid ESO said earlier: "What has happened is that the ESO has issued an indicative notice on BMRS to alert demand flexibility service providers that we may issue a requirement at 2:30pm for the use of DFS tomorrow night.
"We’re still assessing what requirement we might need, so it’s still possible that we will issue a requirement for 0MW at 2:30pm that will stand down the use of the DFS tomorrow night."