Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

zeupater said:

michaels said:

zeupater said:

Hi

The issue at the moment is that due to the way the electricity market works, however cheap the strike price is, the consumer doesn't benefit .... we either pay a subsidy through general taxation, or the 'negative subsidy' is wasted by the government through fund reallocation ....

It's high time that the electricity market is uncoupled from the inherent volatility of fossil fuel pricing .... it'd be easy to do, just base wholesale pricing on supply bid average pricing for a given period and the cfd system works as designed thus reducing consumer prices ... it's really down to Ofgem to pull up their socks and start doing the job they're paid to do, it's not that there aren't enough of them to allow their cumulative IQ to equal that of some nobody on the internet,  so why can't they come up with a such a fundamentally simple solution ... ?? ... Vested Interests?

HTH-Z

Every other market the consumer pays marginal cost for the last unit produced not average cost, average cost pricing how do you force the producers whose cost of production is higher than average cost to produce?  Some sort of transfer from low cost producers to high cost ones?  That is really going to encourage efficient production - not....

Hi

The underlying issue is that the supply auction establishes a single price based on the highest included successful bid .... effectively, although the way that the marginality of wind against a strike price works for wind power producers and how the wind subsidy works for each tranche of generation allocation, the money paid for that energy on a wholesale basis which is ultimately passed through to consumers is based on gas generation, therefore directly influenced by gas market pricing because the market deems that gas should/must always be in the mix for 'commercial' reasons (ie profitability) ..... THIS IS NOT MARGINAL PRICING ... this is a form of marketplace fixing which is obviously & unfairly fully supported by the sector regulator, Ofgem, despite their underlying legislative requirement to prevent such things ....

You ask how high cost producers are encouraged to produce, well that's in your likely misreading and/or misunderstanding of what was written .... instead of paying all bidders based on highest successful bid, they could easily be paid according to their own successful bid thus setting an average wholesale price for the supply mix to each particular auction period, therefore immediately reducing supply pricing & allowing a more competitive market to develop organically ...

Of course, this would open up the ability to differentiate between spot pricing and forward buying in the market .... consider that supply to consumers by companies using forward contracting could easily bypass the averaging process and be dealt with directly .... wouldn't this act as a market force to encourage both lower consumer prices & investment in low cost generating sources, ultimately leading to lower fossil fuel price volatility ....

It's not that it costs more to produce gas when demand is high, it's simply a global supply & demand issue for which there are two possible UK specific major solutions ... develop UK gas reserves & decouple pricing for UK generation from world market pricing ..or.. reduce demand for gas generation to a purely 'standby' level and allow generators to operate on a well regulated truly marginal pricing basis ....

HTH-Z

Hiya Z, not wishing to put words in your mouth, but I get the feeling that you think reform is needed, not just the Government, but Ofgem, and all senior parties too.

So, this article may interest you, focusing on the delays that the UK is now experiencing, and suggesting a major overhaul is needed (not before time), to help better manage the huge shift the UK leccy system needs.

[Good news though, is that there is a lot of demand for green projects, if the obstacles can be overcome.]

‘Lack of vision’: UK green energy projects in limbo as grid struggles to keep pace

Clean electricity plans stuck for years because of ‘negligence’ by governments over modernising network, say renewable energy developers

“If the government had a consistent well-thought-through vision, this would have been absolutely obvious,” says Harald Överholm.

The chief executive of the Swedish solar firm Alight is one of many frustrated renewable energy developers hoping to build green energy projects to power Britain’s homes and businesses with affordable, clean electricity. The catch? These projects could be forced to wait more than a decade for a chance to connect to the UK’s electricity grid, as Britain suffers the longest backlog in Europe.

Windfarms, solar arrays, and battery projects are stuck in gridlock for up to 15 years as the UK’s electricity grid struggles to keep pace with the appetite for more clean energy – including a car factory being forced to wait until 2037.

The delays threaten to undermine decades of work to attract the investment needed to support the UK’s clean energy ambitions, and risks derailing Britain’s progress towards legally binding climate targets.

David Kipling, the chief executive of On-Site Energy, which develops renewable energy projects for big companies, said demand on the grid was “growing exponentially” with each new corporate sustainability pledge.

“The grid just isn’t ready for it. You could argue that it’s negligence,” he says. “[The government has] been speaking about climate action for over a decade now, so you would have to assume that they knew what would be required.”

The UK has the longest queue to connect to the electricity grid of any country in Europe. There are about 200 gigawatts worth of electricity projects waiting for a grid connection, according to research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, or enough to power 150m UK homes. Many are speculative applications from projects that are unlikely to move ahead. But the “first come first served” rules of grid connection mean many viable projects that could move ahead at speed are stuck.

National Grid said it agreed that “significant reform is needed across policy, regulation, and the energy industry to speed up the connections process across all networks.

“Collaboration between Ofgem, government and the industry is critical to drive the necessary reform at the pace needed to deliver net zero.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said ministers and officials “recognise the challenge of connection delays, and we want to go further and faster”. It has promised an action for grid connections this summer.

It can’t come soon enough for renewable energy developers. “No one can hold a project for even two or three years – let alone a decade,” Kipling says.

Martyn1981

What a lovely milestone.

British wind outperforms gas in Q1 2023

Britain’s wind turbines generated more electricity than gas-fired power stations for the first time in Q1 2023, new data released by Drax Electric Insights has found.

Almost a third (32.4%) of Britain’s electricity was supplied from wind power during the first quarter of 2023, outpacing gas which delivered 31.7%.

It is the first-time wind has provided the largest share of power in any quarter in the history of the country’s electricity grid, Drax said.

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

zeupater said:

michaels said:

zeupater said:

Hi

The issue at the moment is that due to the way the electricity market works, however cheap the strike price is, the consumer doesn't benefit .... we either pay a subsidy through general taxation, or the 'negative subsidy' is wasted by the government through fund reallocation ....

It's high time that the electricity market is uncoupled from the inherent volatility of fossil fuel pricing .... it'd be easy to do, just base wholesale pricing on supply bid average pricing for a given period and the cfd system works as designed thus reducing consumer prices ... it's really down to Ofgem to pull up their socks and start doing the job they're paid to do, it's not that there aren't enough of them to allow their cumulative IQ to equal that of some nobody on the internet,  so why can't they come up with a such a fundamentally simple solution ... ?? ... Vested Interests?

HTH-Z

Every other market the consumer pays marginal cost for the last unit produced not average cost, average cost pricing how do you force the producers whose cost of production is higher than average cost to produce?  Some sort of transfer from low cost producers to high cost ones?  That is really going to encourage efficient production - not....

Hi

The underlying issue is that the supply auction establishes a single price based on the highest included successful bid .... effectively, although the way that the marginality of wind against a strike price works for wind power producers and how the wind subsidy works for each tranche of generation allocation, the money paid for that energy on a wholesale basis which is ultimately passed through to consumers is based on gas generation, therefore directly influenced by gas market pricing because the market deems that gas should/must always be in the mix for 'commercial' reasons (ie profitability) ..... THIS IS NOT MARGINAL PRICING ... this is a form of marketplace fixing which is obviously & unfairly fully supported by the sector regulator, Ofgem, despite their underlying legislative requirement to prevent such things ....

You ask how high cost producers are encouraged to produce, well that's in your likely misreading and/or misunderstanding of what was written .... instead of paying all bidders based on highest successful bid, they could easily be paid according to their own successful bid thus setting an average wholesale price for the supply mix to each particular auction period, therefore immediately reducing supply pricing & allowing a more competitive market to develop organically ...

Of course, this would open up the ability to differentiate between spot pricing and forward buying in the market .... consider that supply to consumers by companies using forward contracting could easily bypass the averaging process and be dealt with directly .... wouldn't this act as a market force to encourage both lower consumer prices & investment in low cost generating sources, ultimately leading to lower fossil fuel price volatility ....

It's not that it costs more to produce gas when demand is high, it's simply a global supply & demand issue for which there are two possible UK specific major solutions ... develop UK gas reserves & decouple pricing for UK generation from world market pricing ..or.. reduce demand for gas generation to a purely 'standby' level and allow generators to operate on a well regulated truly marginal pricing basis ....

HTH-Z

Hiya Z, not wishing to put words in your mouth, but I get the feeling that you think reform is needed, not just the Government, but Ofgem, and all senior parties too.

So, this article may interest you, focusing on the delays that the UK is now experiencing, and suggesting a major overhaul is needed (not before time), to help better manage the huge shift the UK leccy system needs.

[Good news though, is that there is a lot of demand for green projects, if the obstacles can be overcome.]

‘Lack of vision’: UK green energy projects in limbo as grid struggles to keep pace

Clean electricity plans stuck for years because of ‘negligence’ by governments over modernising network, say renewable energy developers

“If the government had a consistent well-thought-through vision, this would have been absolutely obvious,” says Harald Överholm.

The chief executive of the Swedish solar firm Alight is one of many frustrated renewable energy developers hoping to build green energy projects to power Britain’s homes and businesses with affordable, clean electricity. The catch? These projects could be forced to wait more than a decade for a chance to connect to the UK’s electricity grid, as Britain suffers the longest backlog in Europe.

Windfarms, solar arrays, and battery projects are stuck in gridlock for up to 15 years as the UK’s electricity grid struggles to keep pace with the appetite for more clean energy – including a car factory being forced to wait until 2037.

The delays threaten to undermine decades of work to attract the investment needed to support the UK’s clean energy ambitions, and risks derailing Britain’s progress towards legally binding climate targets.

David Kipling, the chief executive of On-Site Energy, which develops renewable energy projects for big companies, said demand on the grid was “growing exponentially” with each new corporate sustainability pledge.

“The grid just isn’t ready for it. You could argue that it’s negligence,” he says. “[The government has] been speaking about climate action for over a decade now, so you would have to assume that they knew what would be required.”

The UK has the longest queue to connect to the electricity grid of any country in Europe. There are about 200 gigawatts worth of electricity projects waiting for a grid connection, according to research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, or enough to power 150m UK homes. Many are speculative applications from projects that are unlikely to move ahead. But the “first come first served” rules of grid connection mean many viable projects that could move ahead at speed are stuck.

National Grid said it agreed that “significant reform is needed across policy, regulation, and the energy industry to speed up the connections process across all networks.

“Collaboration between Ofgem, government and the industry is critical to drive the necessary reform at the pace needed to deliver net zero.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said ministers and officials “recognise the challenge of connection delays, and we want to go further and faster”. It has promised an action for grid connections this summer.

It can’t come soon enough for renewable energy developers. “No one can hold a project for even two or three years – let alone a decade,” Kipling says.

Hi

The issue here is that the government lost the plot ... it isn't that they intentionally decided to do so alone - they were obviously led down the path by vested party interests, this being channelled through HM Treasury .... after all, you can't levy sales & corporate taxes on a product which isn't created by corporate entities and isn't exchanged for financial consideration ....

Once upon a time there was a realisation that embedded microgeneration was a workable solution ... but more recently the whole energy sector is considered to be an additional profit centre .... why else would the likes of corporate grid-scale storage be subject to large subsidisation through capital investment relief, yet small scale domestic installations not even being considered for energy savings VAT relief/exemption .... 'short sighted greedy chancellor' (that's the clean version!) comes to mind, but then again, what they thought they'd gain in tax take (and more!) from listening to corporate lobbyists will logically flow back to the same grouping of corporations to reinforce infrastructure to accommodate the grid scale renewable energy projects backlog mentioned ...

HTH - Z

NigeWick

zeupater said:

The issue here is that the government lost the plot ... 

Well said Z.

Martyn1981

Found a number of small items that might be of interest, if not huge news.


First, another wave energy device to be tested in Scotland:

Irish wave developer signs up for EMEC trials

Irish wave energy developer OceanEnergy has signed up to demonstrate its OE35 floating wave energy converter at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland.

OceanEnergy intends to demonstrate the OE35 over two winter periods from 2024 at EMEC’s Billia Croo wave energy test site off the west coast of Orkney, Scotland.

The 1MW OE35 wave energy converter floats on the ocean’s surface, with the lower part of the machine open to the sea.

Waves cause a water column within the device to rise and fall, creating pressurised air to rotate a turbine.

This generates electricity which will be fed into the UK grid via EMEC’s subsea cable and onshore substation.

Second, local wind generation with benefits:

London proposes onshore wind community benefits

The UK government has launched a consultation that includes proposing new types of community benefits that developers of onshore wind farms can offer.

New and improved reward schemes, including the potential of lower bills, could be offered by developers to communities in England who want to support onshore wind farms in their area, under proposals announced by London.

The proposals build on benefits already offered by developers to areas that agree to have onshore wind farms.
These include holding a stake in a turbine, which gives them the potential to receive profits from the site’s operation, or funding for new community facilities, such as charging points for electric cars or new sports and recreation facilities.

The exact package of schemes and benefits would be agreed between developers and communities on a case-by-case basis.

And lastly, 'bubble power' to help reduce environmental harm when installing offshore wind:

Vineyard Wind to trial secondary bubble curtain

CIP and Avangrid JV Vineyard Wind is to deploy and test a secondary bubble curtain during foundation installation for the 800MW offshore wind project.

The pilot programme is in partnership with ThayerMahan, a specialist in seabed surveys, acoustic mitigation and monitoring, and other maritime related services, with facilities in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

A bubble curtain, which is comprised of large, perforated hoses and specialised air compressors, is designed to absorb and dampen sound during foundation installation. 

The hoses are placed on the seafloor around the monopile before being filled by compress air. 
Once the hoses are inflated, the air escapes through the perforations and creates a barrier of bubbles that reduce noise.

Martyn1981

This article interested me, as it reminds me of the article posted by Andrew Smith 11yrs ago (who also produces the Energy Numbers website), using the term 'Saudi Arabia of wind energy', which many years later Boris borrowed (or it was a genuine co-incidence). In Andrew Smith's article he suggests that off shore wind alone could provide 10x to 100x the UK's higher future leccy demand. 



The article has a couple of 'bugs', one being a pic of solar panels, whilst I assume(?) the UK's advantage is that of vast off shore wind potential. The second is the mix of £70bn and £17bn, so I'll keep an eye out for amendments (haven't been able to find the report yet).

UK could unlock £70bn a year in renewable energy, report claims

The UK could unlock £70bn every year by generating enough clean electricity to become a major exporter of energy to mainland Europe, according to a former government economist.

A new report has found that by increasing Britain’s clean electricity generation 50% above its current projections for 2050 it could become a clean energy superpower capable of exporting £17bn of green electricity to Europe a year.

The ambition to generate more green electricity than needed to meet the UK’s climate targets could also create an additional 279,000 British jobs, and support a total of 654,000 British jobs, across the UK’s clean energy industries, according to the report.

The analysis by former government economist Chris Walker for the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development found that it was “plausible” that the UK could transform from a net importer of energy to an exporter of green electricity by taking a lead in the global race to “net zero”.

Boring bit, and my speculation on how this could work, to answer any thoughts, concerns and ideas, is that the UK is swiftly building out our interconnectors to mainland Europe. We began this decade with ~5GW, are now at about 10GW, and plan for ~16GW by 2025, possibly 20GW by 2030. Also suggestions (in a previous article I posted) that we could reach 20GW of batteries (no info on energy yet) by early 2030's. The UK looks to be planning more battery storage (proportionately to most European countries) as a way to manage RE.

So between these, and increased interconnectors within the UK, we will hopefully be able to manage, move, export and import a lot of RE leccy. In fact, we already can, so maybe these various factors will grow in line with each other, or at least, not be too out of balance as they all increase significantly in the near future.

silverwhistle

It's worth noting that during the crisis last year and whilst the French nuclear fleet was throwing a wobbly the UK was at full throttle importing LNG, burning gas and then exporting 5MW to help out. Substituting that 5MW by RE would be a good start.

michaels

silverwhistle said:

It's worth noting that during the crisis last year and whilst the French nuclear fleet was throwing a wobbly the UK was at full throttle importing LNG, burning gas and then exporting 5MW to help out. Substituting that 5MW by RE would be a good start.

WE seem to have had the import taps switched on recently.  I note that we always keep a min level of gas on stream even if we are curtailing wind - does this result in our price always being driven by the cost of gas generated electricity and thus means that we always then import cheaper EU electricity even if we are also curtailing wind?!

Exiled_Tyke

michaels said:

silverwhistle said:

It's worth noting that during the crisis last year and whilst the French nuclear fleet was throwing a wobbly the UK was at full throttle importing LNG, burning gas and then exporting 5MW to help out. Substituting that 5MW by RE would be a good start.

WE seem to have had the import taps switched on recently.  I note that we always keep a min level of gas on stream even if we are curtailing wind - does this result in our price always being driven by the cost of gas generated electricity and thus means that we always then import cheaper EU electricity even if we are also curtailing wind?!

Are we curtailing wind because of a need to balance the grid? If this is the case then would the answer be: improve the grid infrastucture, get a more even spread of RE production across the whole of the UK, better storage and more interconnectors?

zeupater

michaels said:

silverwhistle said:

It's worth noting that during the crisis last year and whilst the French nuclear fleet was throwing a wobbly the UK was at full throttle importing LNG, burning gas and then exporting 5MW to help out. Substituting that 5MW by RE would be a good start.

WE seem to have had the import taps switched on recently.  I note that we always keep a min level of gas on stream even if we are curtailing wind - does this result in our price always being driven by the cost of gas generated electricity and thus means that we always then import cheaper EU electricity even if we are also curtailing wind?!

Hi

That's exactly what I've been raising for some time ... keeping even a minimum level of gas generation in the successful bidding mix raises the price for all generation - the market is easily manipulated by those participating in the bidding process for self interest, as such the market is broken ... what's even worse is that the sector regulator allows this to happen even though it is both against their core mandate and obviously bends competition legislation by effectively creating a cartel operated by energy market participants ....

Market reform is long overdue ...

HTH-Z