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
Shining a light on solar + storage
Solar + storage, the combination of solar power and electricity storage, is seen by many as the Holy Grail of the energy markets and the key to a secure, low carbon future. However two recent reports provide conflicting views on whether [...]
Decarbonising with hydrogen: more hot air?
Hydrogen gas has been mooted as a possible solution to the challenge of decarbonising heating, one of the major sources along with electricity generation and transport, of carbon emissions. Notably, the city of Leeds in the UK is investigating [...]
Should the Carbon Price Floor be scrapped?
The Carbon Price Floor (“CPF”) is a UK government mechanism designed to support decarbonisation by making it more expensive to generate electricity with carbon-intensive fuels. The doubling in the CPF in 2015 from £9 / tonne to £18 / [...]
EFR: what we learned from the first auction
The first auction for enhanced frequency response (“EFR”) in the UK closed at the end of August, with just over 200 MW being secured by National Grid under 4-year contracts, at unexpectedly low prices. All of the winning sites [...]
Transmission matters: it’s not just about capacity
Transmission systems are key to delivering security of supply and yet tend to be treated as an afterthought - note for example Germany's massive deployment of renewables in the north of the country without a corresponding investment in the necessary [...]
Turndown DSR should be a no-brainer, so what’s holding it back?
Turndown DSR is what most people think of when demand-side response is mentioned, ie reduction of demand by consumers in response to either price signals or instructions from the system operator. As it involves reduced consumption and moving consumption [...]
Creating investment signals: proper price formation in electricity markets
I’ve been thinking a great deal recently about how policymakers can address the challenges of stalled investment in the energy markets. My post yesterday on system tightness underlines the importance of the challenge, so I was pleased to come [...]
Tight system sees power prices spiking
Does the current tight system give a flavour of the winter ahead? This week has seen high peak power prices, with day-ahead prices in the N2EX auction spiking at £999/MWh yesterday, as the system was shocked by a combination [...]
Roughing it: what will the loss of Rough gas storage mean this winter?
When people think about energy storage, their minds tend to leap to electricity storage technologies like batteries or pumped hydro, however energy is also stored in raw material form...piles of coal by a power station or as gas. In [...]
National Grid to recover most but not all black start costs
Back in June I described the increasing costs National Grid is incurring to protect the UK’s black start capabilities. Over the summer, Ofgem issued its decision on cost recovery, and ruled that while National Grid could recover the costs [...]
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