SRC-242

Frequency Risk and Control Report 2025, Security and Quality of Supply Standard, The Report - For Approval. Minimum Inertia Requirement and Additional Response Holding

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0793 Britain's system operator plans to run the grid with less spinning inertia, and it sets that limit from the size of the biggest single generator loss it must survive, currently 1800 megawatts.
• CLM-0795 Britain's system operator says that at the lower inertia level it is moving to, losing 2000 megawatts at once would be enough to start disconnecting customers, and losing 3.3 gigawatts at once could cause a nationwide blackout.
• CLM-1487 In Britain, the amount of fast back-up power kept ready depends mainly on the biggest single block of power that could be lost at once; the rules do not set it by fuel. So a space solar station would need about the same fast back-up as a gas power station whose biggest single loss is the same size. A 2 GW space plant would be a bigger single loss than the 1,800 MW Britain now plans for, if one fault could take all of it. A satellite in geostationary orbit also passes through the Earth's shadow each night for about six weeks around each spring and autumn equinox, for up to about 70 minutes. Those times can be predicted exactly, and other power stations would have to cover them.

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