"Ministers have been warned that Britain could face a looming gas supply crisis by the end of the decade and should draw up plans to guard against the emerging risk. The government's energy advisers urged ministers to address an emerging risk to gas supply security that could mean homes and businesses going without gas during a prolonged period of cold weather."
"If even one piece of Britain's ageing gas infrastructure suffers an outage, then the UK's gas supplies would fall short of demand across all the scenarios it has modelled to 2030, according to the report. This event would be unlikely, it said, but would lead to emergency measures such as shutting off gas supplies to factories and power plants. In extreme scenarios homes could be affected as well."
"Britain is heavily reliant on imports of gas via pipelines from Norway and continental Europe, as well as shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the US. About a third of the UK's gas is from North Sea fields but domestic production fell to 50-year lows last year and are expected to fall further towards the end of the decade."
Ministers were urged to prepare contingency plans for a possible gas supply crisis by the end of the decade. The National Energy System Operator's first gas supply assessment since its creation found that overall demand will likely fall but potential shortfalls could occur on the coldest days. An outage of ageing gas infrastructure could create supply deficits across all modelled scenarios to 2030, prompting emergency measures including shutting supplies to factories and power plants and, in extreme cases, homes. Domestic North Sea production has fallen to 50-year lows and is expected to decline further, increasing reliance on pipeline imports and LNG shipments.
#gas-supply-security #energy-infrastructure #domestic-production-decline #imports-and-lng-dependence
Read at www.theguardian.com
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