Energy Policy
Once upon a time we heated our homes and cooked by burning wood we had gathered and chopped ourselves. Later more energy efficient coal was delivered directly to our cellars via small trapdoors at street level. Later yet dirty coal was replaced by cleaner [...]
The much anticipated changes to the embedded benefits regime came a step closer last week with Ofgem’s announcement that it is minded to implement a proposed change to the CUSC that would limit the demand residual component of TNUoS payments to embedded generators to [...]
Last week the UK’s House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs joined the calls for electricity market reform, in a critical report: The Price of Power: Reforming the Electricity Market saying that the Government’s energy policy objectives conflict with each other, and have [...]
Transmission charging is far from simple even in the traditional model of electricity networks, as illustrated by the diagram below. In principle, the costs of bringing electricity from large units of generation to consumers is socialised across users via three main tariffs: Transmission Use of [...]
The question of electricity market competitiveness is never far away, particularly when any of the Big 6 suppliers raise their prices. The level of concern about potential anti-competitive behaviour by the big suppliers who dominate the GB market prompted an investigation by the Competition [...]
In my last post I wrote about the increasing cost of environmental policies on the back of prices rises from npower and a capacity auction that will secure capacity for next winter at over three times the price of the scheme it replaced. Since [...]
The cost of electricity is in the news once again with the move by supplier npower last week to increase prices by 15%, arguing that higher wholesale prices together with increased non-commodity costs could no longer be absorbed by the supplier. Last week also saw [...]
The early capacity auction designed to secure security of supply for 2017/18 has entered its fourth day, with the price having dropped to £15 /kW by the end of yesterday’s round, some way below the expected clearing level of around £20 / kW and [...]
Germany’s Energiewende and the resulting rapid expansion of renewable energy in Germany has been held out as the model for other nations to follow, but there are growing doubts as to its effectiveness. As I have noted before, the decision to exit nuclear power [...]
Last summer the House of Commons Energy and Climate Committee raised questions about the conflicts of interest inherent in National Grid’s role as the electricity system operator and recommended that the government should create an independent SO to mitigate these concerns (described in my [...]