How likely are the lights to go out this winter?

Britain will make it through the winter without the lights going out. That’s the view of the National Grid, which is responsible for Britain’s energy system. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on the BBC’s headline: ‘Homes face winter power cuts in worst-case scenario, says National Grid’. But Fintan Slye, executive director of the grid, offered some words of reassurance: 

‘Under our Base Case we are cautiously confident that there will be adequate margins through the winter period.’ 

In other words: the lights won’t go out. In the scenario considered most likely, we’ll be left with a small margin of six per cent – or just under four gigawatts (GW) of unused capacity. Crucially, that’s about the level we’ve had to spare in winters gone by. Much of the coverage elsewhere has focused on the worst-case scenario included in the Winter Outlook report. Under that scenario, Britons could face rolling blackouts throughout the colder months lasting three hours a day.