Successive Governments have been being warned about the impending ‘Energy Gap’ for the last 15+ years and they’ve just kept on passing the buck, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be around when the thingy hits the wotsit. We’ve been merrily closing down coal and gas fired Power Stations without having sufficient spare capacity to cover the loss of supply.
Now Japanese and French companies are pulling out of financing new Nuclear Power Stations because our Government now wants them to take all the ‘investment risk’ – Toshiba have literally just pulled out of building the new Nuclear Station at Wylfa. Our Green Energy sources still can’t take up the slack and the expanding (albeit only 5% at the moment) demand for recharging electric vehicles is exacerbating the problem.
The ‘spin’ will be that it’s to ‘smooth the changeover’ from one form of supply to another, but that should be seamless. We are going to have an Energy Shortage. Expect ‘cheap overnight prices’ to rise within the next few months.