Networks
The UK electricity system was designed to transport electricity produced in a relatively cheap and predictable way from centralised power stations, to users whose patterns of consumption are similarly stable and predictable. Variations around these patterns of production and consumption were typically small, and [...]
The German electricity system has been celebrating record levels of renewable generation, with 85% of the electricity consumed in the country on 30 April coming from renewable sources. However, this high level of renewable energy is not without cost in terms of grid stability, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Last month I wrote about the IFA outage and suggested that the historic trend of exporting in periods of high UK demand might mean the outage is positive for UK capacity margins. So far 2017 has seen some significant system tightness, with a number [...]
In my last post I commented on the impact low nuclear output in France could have on the UK electricity market, noting that if the interconnector switches to export mode, there would be a 4 GW net effect on UK capacity margins. Since then [...]
The Capacity Market went live on 1 October. This marks the start of a 12-month transition period, and covers only about 1-2% of the system (0.4-0.8 GW this year and 54 GW expected in 2017/18), mostly small generators up to 20 MW and DSR [...]
Calls are growing for the UK electricity system to be managed by an independent system operator ("ISO") whose activities are separate from the ownership of the wires themselves. Such a change would require nationalisation of the system operation activities of National Grid, and the creation [...]
The first auction for enhanced frequency response (“EFR”) in the UK closed at the end of August, with just over 200 MW being secured by National Grid under 4-year contracts, at unexpectedly low prices. All of the winning sites were as yet un-built battery [...]
Transmission systems are key to delivering security of supply and yet tend to be treated as an afterthought - note for example Germany's massive deployment of renewables in the north of the country without a corresponding investment in the necessary transmission capacity to deliver it [...]