UK Rates Its Gas System Highly, Despite Storage Qualms
A statutory UK security of supply report, published December 4 jointly by the government and energy regulator Ofgem, argues there is enough resilience in the UK gas supply system, even with the definitive closure of the country’s largest gas storage facility.
The government’s business and energy (BEIS) department’s strategic assessment of gas security of supply, published October 12, found that Britain would have enough import capacity under high demand and the resilience to cope with severe shocks.
However, the latest report cites National Grid’s Future Energy Supply 2017 report this year that notes that “the announced planned closure of the Rough storage site in June 2017 has meant that the ‘Steady State’ scenario, with high demand and moderate supply, comes close to failing the N-1 test in the late 2020s and as we near 2040, on the assumption that no new infrastructure is built.” (N-1 is a calculation of whether peak gas demand could still be met if the single largest piece of infrastructure failed).
Rough long-term storage facility represents 3.3bn m3 of the total Great Britain gas storage capacity of 4.7bn m3, around 70%. Centrica recently announced plans to withdraw up to 0.868bn m3 of gas this winter, with deliverability starting at 12mn m3/d from early October, falling to 6mn m3/day as gas is withdrawn.
“As this assessment outlines, current and forecast levels of GB supply and storage infrastructure are sufficient to meet all customer demand in all but the most extreme cases,” the BEIS/Ofgem report notes.
The BEIS/Ofgem report also says that the UK has an import deliverability of about 57bn m3/y from Norway, 46 bn m3/y from the rest of the continent, plus 49bn m3/y through LNG import terminals – so far in excess of of its overall 2016 gas consumption of 78bn m3 (according to Eurogas provisional data in April 2017) which was roughly half imports, and half UK-produced.
Experiences last winter in southern France, though, when Algerian LNG exports from Skikda stopped for three weeks exacerbating gas shortfalls and storage runs, may be fresh in some minds in Britain this year, even if it is not an analogous situation.
The report also judges that Britain’s gas supply infrastructure can sustain a ‘1-in-20’ peak day demand (defined as the amount of infrastructure needed to transport the gas that would be required by customers in the coldest day of winter, in the coldest winter of a 20-year period). This forecast value, at 502mn m3, is higher than the record peak day demand of 465mn m3 experienced in winter 2010/11. The latest report finds that the UK gas transmission network achieved overall 99.975% reliability in 2016/17, while its distribution network is equally robust, with a reliability rating of 99.998%.
On Brexit, the BEIS/Ofgem report stated: “The UK is seeking a deep and special future partnership with the EU on energy. A well-functioning energy market is of vital importance for the European economy and the well-being of citizens. The UK will work to ensure that our future partnership is successful at ensuring efficiency of trade.” But the report contained no insight of how this will be negotiated, this likewise having only briefly been alluded to in a recent EC third report on the state of the Energy Union too.