Featured Posts
Time to accept that wind farm costs are not falling
There has been a consistent narrative that the cost of building new wind farms is falling, with falling subsidy [...]
Windfall tax harms oil and gas production and must be cut
In May last year, the UK Government introduced a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies [...]
Why Norway’s views on energy security should ring alarm bells across Europe
Norway's energy security would appear to be a done deal, yet the past couple of years have been very [...]
Addressing the high real cost of renewable generation
Over the past few months we have been inundated with claims from interested parties that more renewables are the [...]
Recent Posts
The energy price cap is finally on the table but will anyone actually be happy with it?
Yesterday the Government published its draft Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill, essentially imposing caps on some energy bills until 2020, with a possibility of extending until 2023. "The Government wants markets to thrive and we continue to [...]
Measuring grid inertia accurately will enable more efficient frequency management
Last week saw the news that National Grid has successfully trialled a method of measuring the inertia of the electricity system in real time. This may seem like a technical curiosity, but it has major implications for system management. [...]
Local flexibility markets mark the emergence of the new DSOs
The electricity system is in transition. Transmission connected, centralised synchronous generation is being displaced by multiple small installations of intermittent asynchronous generation connected at the distribution level. Advances in sub-transmission technology including as storage, smart homes, electric vehicles, DSR [...]
Changing regulatory landscape for electricity storage is not all good news
The last couple of months have seen some interesting newsflow in relation to electricity storage. Storage projects are increasingly popular, with developments occurring at every level of the system from grid-connected utility-scale projects to behind-the-meter domestic storage, and the [...]
LAES: a cool idea if it can be shown to be cost effective
In June, Highview Power Storage secured funding from Innovate UK to modify its Liquid Air Energy Storage ("LAES") system to improve its response times. LAES is an interesting concept, as it provides the potential for bulk energy storage without [...]
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage the electricity grids of the future
Existing power grids were designed to transmit electricity over relatively short distances, however, increasingly grids are required to supply major cities from remote offshore wind farms at the same time as integrating local generation. With generators feeding variable amounts [...]
Interconnector projects move forward, but are they as good as they seem?
The first sections of the new electricity interconnector between the UK and Belgium were installed this month with the laying of the first 59km section of the Nemo Link, a joint venture between the UK's National Grid and Belgium's [...]
Further evidence that climate models overstate global warming
Yesterday scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Oxford together with University College London, announced that climate change is not as bad as previously thought due to modelling errors. In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the [...]
CfD auction sees cost of renewables falling…but system costs should not be ignored
Earlier this week, the Government published the results of the second round of CfD auctions, which saw offshore wind secure contracts at lower than expected levels. CfDs were introduced as part of the Energy Market Reform, largely to replace [...]
The DSR market is slowly developing, but more needs to be done to encourage participation
Last week Energyst published its latest report into the demand side response market, which confirmed the findings of previous reports, that businesses are generally positive about DSR as long as operations are not affected. Un-tapped appetite among SMEs was [...]
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