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Electricity prices - what next?

AJJewsbury

Electricity prices look to be soaring. Seemingly the tariff I'm on isn't one of those covered by the government's price cap and it looks like the price per kWh for this coming year will be over 80% higher than a year ago. Presumably everyone else will see similar increases soon - when the price cap is next revised in April if not before - or even higher increases as the delay means their suppliers are even more out of pocket. Presumably gas prices will increase by even larger proportions.

It seems the recent inflation is primarily down to demand exceeding supply in the international wholesale gas market causing the price to rocket.

Because of the way the UK wholesale electricity market is organised, if I've understood it correctly, the most expensive generator needed at any point in time effectively sets the price for the entire market. One interesting consequence of this seems to be that those renewable/nuclear generators who have agreed a fixed 'strike price' with the convernment (which for recent wind was lower than the typical price for gas generated electricity) have to charge their customers the full market price, but can only keep the 'strike price' and have to return the remainder to the government/regulator. Effectively renewable customers are in a way subsidising fossil fuelled generation, rather than the other way around - which presumably wasn't the intention.

Hopefully things will stabilise a bit as winter passes - but what's the long term outlook?

"Reforms" to the wholesale electricity market to better protect the whole from changes in price of just one fuel?

An acceleration in the move from using imported fossil fuels for generation to more locally sourced energy (mostly renewables)?

A greater emphasis on demand reduction (more efficient appliances/lighting, significantly better insulation for buildings)?

More "time shifting" of demand - to times of day were there's non-gas generating capacity available?

Another look at minimising distribution "losses" - look again at BS 7671 appendix 17 perhaps?

   - Andy.

Parents

  • If we are to become ENTIRELY reliant on largely intermittent renewable energy then yes a great deal of storage will be needed. However we could meet a significantly greater part of our demand from renewables WITHOUT any new storage.

    During several recent nights wind has produced about 12 GW, gas about 3 GW, biomass about 2 GW and net imports about 2GW. That suggests that we could increase wind power generation by at least 50% WITHOUT any new storage, but by simply reducing gas and biomass burn and reducing imports.

    In short the NEAR TERM aim should be to increase renewable generation so as to meet 110% of present winter overnight demand and a significantly greater percentage of daytime demand. Existing interconnector capacity could export the extra 10%

    The medium term aim should be to further increase renewable generation and to shift more demand to those hours when renewable energy is plentiful.

    The long term aim should be !00% renewables with storage. The fact that this is not yet achievable should not be used as an excuse to do nothing. Time to make a start right now.

Reply

  • If we are to become ENTIRELY reliant on largely intermittent renewable energy then yes a great deal of storage will be needed. However we could meet a significantly greater part of our demand from renewables WITHOUT any new storage.

    During several recent nights wind has produced about 12 GW, gas about 3 GW, biomass about 2 GW and net imports about 2GW. That suggests that we could increase wind power generation by at least 50% WITHOUT any new storage, but by simply reducing gas and biomass burn and reducing imports.

    In short the NEAR TERM aim should be to increase renewable generation so as to meet 110% of present winter overnight demand and a significantly greater percentage of daytime demand. Existing interconnector capacity could export the extra 10%

    The medium term aim should be to further increase renewable generation and to shift more demand to those hours when renewable energy is plentiful.

    The long term aim should be !00% renewables with storage. The fact that this is not yet achievable should not be used as an excuse to do nothing. Time to make a start right now.

Children
  • in reply to broadgage

    I do not agree with this renewable nonsense above. To even get anywhere near we need 60GW divided by the capacity factor of about 25% of renewables. So 240GW unless we increase electricity use for heating and transport (policy!) when we need much more. This many windmills would cover the entirety of Wales, and cost so much that electricity could never be even reasonably priced. Storage is also very very expensive, say £300 per kWh from Tesla, and because there are not many sites where pumped storage is both possible and anywhere near large enough. So a few £Trillion to get a "magic" number with no scientific justification, just to reduce temperatures by an average of 0.02 degrees, you have to be deluded beyond belief.

    I am seriously shocked that supposed engineers could make such comments.

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