Britain became a net exporter of electricity to France in the last three months of 2016. Find out more in this blog.
On the MyGridGB live dashboard, the import of electricity from various interconnectors are shown. Interconnectors link Great Britain to her neighbours (namely France, Netherlands and Ireland) and allow the import or export of electricity.
In 2015, Britain imported a total of 6.6% of her electricity needs, mostly from France. Historically there has rarely been a net export of electricity from the country. Recently however, exports have been much more common. In this blog, we look at that change and why it has happened.
The chart below shows the net use of our interconnectors every hour of the past 2 years.
[visualizer id=”564″]
Since October 2016, Britain has exported an increasing amount of electricity. That is not because demand has changed or our homegrown power is different. Looking in detail, we find that the import from the French Interconnector has collapsed.
As many may know, French electricity is mostly nuclear powered. The collapse in imports is due to failure of the interconnector and also failure of French nuclear plants. Because nuclear plants are large and can have long shutdown periods, their failure has an acute impact.
[visualizer id=”566″]
This is born out by the fact Britain has been exporting to France so consistently over the past two months, that there is a net export- highly unusual!
The UK Government and National Grid wants more interconnectors to be part of our smart power system and to help reduce energy bills.
Whether more interconnectors are built or not, our existing interconnectors will be a useful barometer for how Britains electricity and that of our neighbours is changing.
You can read more about this technology at this link.
