Energy Pricing
Energy prices have been in the news again, with price increases from many suppliers and the publication of the intended level of the retail price cap. There are a number of drivers of energy prices, with network and policy costs making an increasing impact [...]
On Friday, Mr Justice Lavender handed down his Judgement on the application by a number of small electricity generators for a judicial review into Ofgem’s decision last year to limit the amount of so-called "embedded benefits" available to such generators. The Claimants had been [...]
A couple of weeks ago Donald Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran, and I wrote that this added to the bullish trend in oil prices. Since then oil prices have fallen from their highs and a divergence is [...]
There are two main pillars to European energy policy: the internal energy market (“IEM”) and the Climate Change Package. The IEM was the result of extending the Single Market into energy, and involved the unbundling of networks from generation and supply with regulated rather [...]
Oil prices have been in the doldrums since the collapse from record highs of over US$110 /barrel in June 2014, broadly trading sideways in a US$ 40-60 range until late last year, when prices broke out, and passed US$70 for the first time in [...]
Last week Ofgem has published its consultation for the next round of price controls for energy networks, known as RIIO-2. RIIO-1 had been strongly criticised for allowing network companies to generate above average levels of returns on businesses that are seen to be less risky [...]
Power Purchase Agreements (or “PPAs”) have been around for a long time, as agreements between market participants for the offtake of electricity from generating facilities. However, the past few years have seen the rise of the so-called “Corporate PPA” where companies whose business is [...]
One of my readers drew my attention to this article about recent Australian electricity price spikes. The combination of a heatwave and an unplanned outage at the 1,050 MW Loy Yang B coal-fired power station were widely reported as causing the shortages leading to [...]
In December, National Grid published a new roadmap for its frequency control and reserve markets, setting out the principles which are to govern the development of balancing services products with a view to providing greater clarity and investor certainty. Described in more detail below, [...]
In my previous post, I described the findings of Dieter Helm's review into electricity pricing. Here I will explore in more detail the section on supply costs and his recommendation that a default electricity tariff be implemented, which is particularly relevant in light of [...]