Capacity Market
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 [...]
Today National Grid ESO has published its early view of the Winter Outlook for 2022/23. Unbelievably, it believes the capacity margin will be slightly higher than last year at 4.0 GW compared with 3.9 GW. This strikes me as extreme wishful thinking which does [...]
On Monday 18 July, National Grid ESO issued two Capacity Market Notices, the first at for 7pm which was cancelled after about half an hour, and the second for 8pm which was cancelled with fewer than 10 mins to go before the start of the [...]
Ever since I began my blog I have been warning about falling winter capacity margins and the risks to security of supply in the British electricity market. There are compelling reasons why this winter may see these concerns crystallise into real risks to energy [...]