How is that Andy, severe events become less in number per year? Are you attempting to suggest that higher temperatures make severe weather less likely, surely that may be considered a "good thing"?

How is that Andy, severe events become less in number per year? Are you attempting to suggest that higher temperatures make severe weather less likely, surely that may be considered a "good thing"?

I'm merely pointing out that counting the number of items isn't entirely the same as measuring the overall amount - 9 category 5 hurricanes maybe counts as worse in most ways than 10 category 3 ones.

   - Andy.

If you look the average severity is also falling, but that is far too complex to discuss here. You only hear about particularly severe ones on the MSM, and the potential damage is always hopelessly exaggerated, with comment from someone whose house is damaged. If you want to avoid the risk, move somewhere else, the SE American coast etc has always been subject to severe weather! Note the snow starting now in Montana and even Texas. Is that normal weather variation (neither is unknown) or climate getting colder? You will have to wait 30 years before any valid decision can be even commented on.

The scandal is that all generators get paid the price of the highest priced contract which won out in the bidding to supply energy. When desired this tends to be the price of gas. So all suppliers get the price of the gas fired power station. So wind generators with all their subsidies bid low, secure the contract and the reap the rewards of someone risking bidding at a higher contracted price. It is the economics of the mad House. Only a marketeer trying to engineer a false market could have come up with such nonsense. It is political dogma on steroids.

It's the way an auction market works.  If it's a windy day and you own a wind farm, you'll offer your electricity for a fraction of a penny below whatever gas-fired electricity costs.  You'd be mad to sell it for less.

If we ever get enough wind farms to power the country, presumably the price would drop on a windy day.  But only if it's windy enough.

The alternative would be to nationalise everything and charge a price to reflect the average cost of all the generation on that day.

It's the way an auction market works.  If it's a windy day and you own a wind farm, you'll offer your electricity for a fraction of a penny below whatever gas-fired electricity costs.  You'd be mad to sell it for less.

The electricity market is slightly odd though, in that (if I understand it correctly) everyone gets paid the highest bid price for that half-hour, rather than their bid - so you could bid 1p/MWh and still get paid £100/MWh if that was the bid of the 'last to switch on' - so you don't needn't go to the bother to work out what the highest will be and aim to just undercut it.

It would be wonderful for renewable generators, except that for many the "subsidy" comes in the form of a guaranteed fixed price - the lower the market price the larger the subsidy. But it also works the other way - if the market price is higher than the fixed price, the generator still gets only the fixed price, and the "subsidy" then flows back to the subsidy pot - so reducing the amount the suppliers have to pay into it - or even being paid back the supplier (effectively subsidising the market in general, including fossil fuel generators!)

   - Andy.

I would change policy to ensure that all future tax payer subsidized green energy contracts are awarded on the proviso that the generators will only be able to sell directly to the UK at cost+5% max and not on the global energy market. Then let us see how many will step up and commit.

I also believe that the green energy providers have now reached maturity and should no longer receive any form of state subsidy whatsoever. If they truly believe that they are the cleanest cheapest source of electricity then let them go alone and prove it.

I would change policy to ensure that all future tax payer subsidized green energy contracts are awarded on the proviso that the generators will only be able to sell directly to the UK at cost+5% max and not on the global energy market. Then let us see how many will step up and commit.

Isn't that pretty much what the "strike price" system already does - fixes the price/MWh the generator receives - independent of the volatile UK "market" price? And yes, many have indeed stepped up on that basis.

It might be better extending the same system to fossil fuelled generators too - by the same argument those taking gas out of UK North Sea gas fields and using it to supply the UK electricity grid, could similarly be divorced from the global market. That might cut down massively the huge subsidies (e.g. £400+ per household) that are currently needed to prop up the fossil fuel sector (not to mention the tax breaks for exploration companies).

I also believe that the green energy providers have now reached maturity and should no longer receive any form of state subsidy whatsoever. If they truly believe that they are the cleanest cheapest source of electricity then let them go alone and prove it.

Arguably both the generators and the UK electricity market system have some maturing still to do. To some extent, with offshore wind "strike prices" auctions coming in far lower than the general gas generated price, even before the current crisis, we're certainly getting there. The problem for investors (often pension funds) is future uncertainty - and much of that is due. not to the variability of renewables, but to the long term unpredictability of the electricity market - mostly driven by the volatility of fossil fuel prices. Ultimately most people see that reducing our dependence on imported energy is of strategic benefit, and (in whatever form that takes) that will mean changes, and changes cost and need to be paid for - even if there is ultimately a long term saving. The exact mechanisms for enabling changes are mostly political tactics - whether it's done through general taxation, national debt, levy on consumption, windfall taxes, direct public funding, re-directing private investment or whatever - we'll all end up paying (and gaining) in the end.

    - Andy.

A new electricity market is needed.- A Single Buyer market. Check out the pdf written by a engineer from NZ.

notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/.../

To add to the up and coming crisis born out of political stupidity we are going into cold weather with little wind. With sky high energy costs. Could the single buyer market work.

Maybe. But something needs to change  and quickly too.

watt-logic.com/.../