Featured Posts
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 [...]
Energy security strategy: worryingly vague, worryingly long-term and worryingly still supply focused
Last night the Government announced its much anticipated energy security strategy, with the full version appearing this afternoon. The [...]
Price cap subsidies for every household as default tariff hits record highs
This morning Ofgem has announced a record increase in the level of the default tariff price cap, from £1,277 [...]
Recent Posts
Falling nuclear capacity adds to winter worries
Low nuclear availability added to the capacity issues in the GB market over the past winter, and as the fleet ages and new nuclear is further delayed, these problems are set to become more acute. Since the first commercial [...]
Despite its impending exit coal power was still important last winter
Over the last couple of years, Britain’s ongoing reliance on coal has been the subject of a few of my posts. Despite the “coal-free” days hype in the summer, the continued use of coal in winter goes unremarked. But [...]
With tight margins and high prices, was Winter 2020 a sign of things to come?
Winter 2020 was a bumpy ride in the GB electricity market. Electricity Margin Notices ("EMN") (the new name for a “NISM” – Notice of Insufficient System Margin) were issued six times, there were two Capacity Market Notices ("CMN") (following [...]
Should electricity markets be more local?
While working on my new training offering, I have been reading about the very earliest days of electricity and reflecting on how some of the early trends of local electricity markets and de-centralisation are experiencing a renaissance. The 19th [...]
Per Ardua ad Astra
Today is the 5th anniversary of my blog, and, in common with may of my readers, the past year has presented significant and unexpected challenges. And in common with a great many people, I suffered health problems last year [...]
New report shows challenges with de-carbonising home heating
Today Citizens Advice has published a report, Home Truths, into consumer experiences with home heating approaches including low carbon technologies and new insulation. The report draws on the calls made over the past three years to its Consumer Service [...]
National Grid exits gas and aims to buy WPD
This morning, National Grid has announced the acquisition of Western Power Distribution (“WPD”), the largest of Britain’s distribution network operators (“DNOs”), in a move that signals a transformation for the company and for the GB electricity system more broadly. [...]
Another BritNed outage illustrates the risks of the current offshore infrastructure regime
The 1 GW BritNed interconnector linking GB with the Netherlands has suffered another fault and is expected to be out of service until late April, meaning it has spent much of this winter out of action. In addition to [...]
UK ETS auctions to launch in May with higher reserve price
Last week saw some updates to the new UK Emissions Trading Scheme (“UK ETS”) which is set to replace the EU ETS which the UK left on 1 January when Brexit took effect. The Government has published participation guidance, [...]
Drones and droids: automated power system monitoring
When people talk about digitisation in energy the things that spring to mind are often use of sensors to gather more granular consumption information, and more sophisticated market and system data platforms, allowing new forms of trading and optimisation. [...]
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