Capacity Market
Today the Government has announced a new consultation to promote energy security (yet to be published) as part of its ongoing Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (“REMA”). Two main elements are being highlighted – a desire for more gas-fired generation to provide a backup [...]
Along with most everyone else in the energy market I have been of the opinion that coal power stations in the UK must close by law by 1 October 2024. I have learned that this is not in fact correct. In late 2020 the [...]
As the country basks in a heatwave, National Grid ESO has published its early outlook for next winter (this is the third year it has issued an early outlook, and it has come out a month earlier than in the past two years). The [...]
Over the past few days forecasters have been warning of a cold snap, with particularly cold weather hitting the north of the UK, which began on Tuesday – as I began writing this post at lunchtime on Tuesday 7 March there had been some [...]
Last week the T-4 capacity auction for delivery in 2026-27 closed at a record price for the long-term auction of £63 /kW /year, an double the previous high in the T-4 auction, and higher than the price in the T-1 auction the previous week. [...]
Last week saw the T-1 capacity market auction clear at its second highest level ever of £60 /kW/year, down from £75 /kW/year last year when the auction cleared at its maximum price since the procurement target was higher than the amount of capacity participating [...]
On Monday 28 November, National Grid ESO issued the second Capacity Market Notice (“CMN”) of the winter, again on a day with low wind output. Although the Notice was cancelled after around half an hour, it is certainly a sign of trouble as temperatures [...]
Just after 2:30 yesterday afternoon, National Grid ESO issued the first Capacity Market Notice (“CMN”) of the winter, predicting a spare generation margin of just 177 MW at 7pm – CMNs are issued automatically if the margin drops below 500 MW. Although the Notice [...]
Today, National Grid ESO published its Winter Outlook for 2022/23, updating its position since the early outlook issued in July, which was widely seen as unrealistic. The position in July was that a capacity margin of 4.0 GW was expected, a small increase on [...]
I have received a response from National Grid ESO to some of my questions on the Early Outlook for Winter 2022. In this post I update my analysis and add some further commentary on the risks to energy security this winter. Reliance on interconnectors [...]