Amber alert on NI’s electricity grid as wind doesn’t blow and loss of Kilroot slashes margins

The warning – which did not mean that blackouts were imminent – was in place from 5pm to 6.30pm.

It comes during the first serious cold spell since the closure of Kilroot Power Station’s coal-fired units and the bungled delay in replacing them, something which drastically reduced margins in the electricity system.

In a message to the island-wide Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM), the market operator told market participants this afternoon: “Due to tight generation capacity margins in the SEM, a System Alert (amber) will be issued effective from 17:00 to 18:30 on 15/01/2024 in Northern Ireland.

“A further communication will be issued when the System Alert has been lifted.”

The System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI) said the alert was caused by increased demand and very little wind production. It said there was no need for consumers to take any action, and pointed to its winter outlook which had predicted that such alerts will become more common.

There is no immediate risk of blackouts. The electricity grid’s lowest level of alert is amber, followed by a red emergency alert — and blackout after that.

Today’s conditions represent the most challenging for the grid operator, combining little wind with cold weather.

About 43MW of wind power was being generated this afternoon — a fraction of the 1,060MW peak wind generation. Most of the rest of the electricity in the system is coming from gas, with the remainder being imported from Scotland via the Moyle Interconnector.

At times of shortage, that means that Northern Ireland has to pay whatever the market rate happens to be — even if it is astronomically high due to shortages in Great Britain — to keep the lights on.

Last August, the Belfast Telegraph reported that the closure of Kilroot’s two coal-fired units, removing about 465MW from the system, made blackouts more likely.

Stormont had known for years that this was coming but failed to adequately prepare.

Kilroot’s Czech owners, EP UK Investments, were allowed to shut the coal unit on a Saturday and have the gas units planned to start up on the Sunday. There was no room for slippage without an ensuing crisis.

Instead, the gas units weren’t ready — and still aren’t operational.

Even when the gas units come online, they will not come close to replacing the lost power — something the authorities initially failed to grasp because they appear to have misunderstood the type of turbine being installed.

At the time, industry sources said privately that if the winter is mild, there is significant wind, and if the other major power plants, Ballylumford and Coolkeeragh, don’t break down, then the lights should stay on.

However, they said that the calamitous scenario is of a harsh winter in which aging power stations are put under heavy demand, increasing the risk of breakdowns, coupled with little spare electricity from GB or the Republic and a prolonged period of freezing weather in which there is no wind.

That would be even worse if there was a problem with the fault-prone Moyle Interconnector, which can carry 441MW from Scotland.

Until Kilroot’s coal-fired units closed, Northern Ireland had about 1,865MW of conventional generating capacity. Less than 1,400MW remains.