Energy news in general

Mstty

BBC News - Extended life for two UK nuclear power stations

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64906179

markin

Scot_39 said:

markin said:

Yes E10 is great for people, But terrible for the Grid now that it has no coal burning all nigh 365 days a year.

Out of date re generation characteristics and just wrong on so many levels.  Apart from the bit about no coal.

E10 users actually have less time off peak overnight than e7 - 5 hours rather than 7.

So by that - completely false - argument - it would arguably actually be a better tariff than e7 - the one still supported by Ofgem to some extent - and most suppliers.

And for those with conventional NSH - they can charge them far less during that period - as can top them up mid afternoon and mid evening - when people actually need the heat. 

So again better by that false rational.

E10 actively and regularly "and importantly consistently (as fixed hours)" encourages users to avoid day time peak consumption - I would never use my washing machine at 6pm - but before 4 or after 8. It would simply cost twice as much on my day rate.  Which would be true even for 20m gas grid homes.
Added "Most people dont want to be watching their tariff every 30m to make these decisions - and most devices aren't linked to tariff rates yet.  Although I did see that dimplex are now linking there rf range to some special deal at ovo via net and their local rf hub. - maybe that's flexible time of use tariff based."

It actually is probably the best "current" tariff for smoothing grid demand right now for most homes.

For both those reasons.

But Ofgem's glorious history of failure rules the day.

And do you even realise how high UK demand is overnight - it doesn't fall to zero just because majority are in bed. 

Overnight, this mornings low was c27GW at c530am - more than half yesterday's c44.5 GW peak demand at tea time.
My E10 wasn't using any of that for hot water or heating - others E7 might have been. 
And of course you seem to assume domestic is the only loading.

And then there's the complete lack of understanding of generation plant characteristics - coal plants are load reactive - even modern nuclear - even more so for the design for Hinkley, Sizewell etc - if and when they eventually come on line.

And remqining nuclear - nowhere near enough to meet overnight demand - 27GW - 4GW nuclear = 15% - and gas still double that at c8.5GW.

So like on Tuesday - you could see the output from the 2 coal plants ramp up from c4am, from near enough zero to c1GW and fluctuate 1-1.5 GW to a peak c2GW to match demand spike by say  6pm during the day - just as grid wholesale price spiked at £1950 - as demand peaked and wind dropped from c4pm - failing to match our actual need yet again. 

So even then there was no coal for most of both Mon and Tues nights - but there was still that 2GW - about 5% of demand - to help reduce the £1950 peak price at 630pm Tuesday. 

And then when it ramped down late evening.  Replaced by gas - and its emissions instead.  Not renewables, not nuclear but gas.

Its all been planned out before 1998, Smart meters, smart devices and TOU, E10 as it is simply isn't part of the plan, The night time energy use is expected to rise to near day time levels with EV charging and heat pumps, Octopus are simply implementing tariffs that were planed out 25+ years ago.

Everything was meant to be smart and talking to the Grid by now but its fallen behind, but it will become the norm within 10 years.

michaels

Scot_39 said:

nekr0mantik said:

if the electric prices are linked to gas then why is there a big difference in prices? 

The cost of power stations to burn it.

Just as likes of BG will charge £3000+ for even a small combi boiler every 10-20 years and £100s to service and maintain it annually - generators have costs (loans on buildings, maintenance, wages etc etc.)

Those differences may seem low at current high energy prices  - but when gas 4p a unit  - a massive overhead.

We pay one ourselves directly - or via rent as the landlords do if renting - and the other via our unit rates.

It makes the xxp vs yyp arguments difficult.

The real scandal is the grid pricing system - which CfD is trying to mitigate over time - that sees everyone on old contracts charge through at "highest" rate - old nuclear, old renewables etc - at that higher - gas rate (c45p wholesale last summer - now ?)

Recognising there is a windfall profit, a tax has been applied which goes to help pay for the EPG.  Hardly rocket science.

doodling

Hi,

Scot_39 said:

Suspect 400MW might have been the average over the day for coal, but from 4:00 am it was ramping up to over 1GW - and at 6pm crunch period peaked at 2GW - on the grid.iamkate monitoring site trends.

To be clear, 400MW is what the NG-ESO's reserve coal plants (specifically the two units at West Burton) delivered.  I'm pretty certain that they will be decommissioned this summer as they've already decommissioned the other two units there.

Three of the units at Ratcliffe on Soar are in the normal market (the last coal units to be so) and delivered a further 1400MW but I didn't include those as the post I responded to was about the NG-ESO's contracted reserve units.

The fourth unit at Ratcliffe is one of NG-ESO's reserve plants but wasn't asked to warm and didn't run.  That unit was slated for closure in 2022 (hence why it became a NG-ESO funded unit) but will be back in the normal market next year.  Ratcliffe will therefore be a normal market participant with all four units in 2024 rather than having one of its units specially funded by NG-ESO.  Unless things change then Ratcliffe is expected to close in summer 2024 (when it will be the last coal plant standing).

The other units which were asked to warm were the two remaining coal units at Drax which are NG-ESO funded.  There are no plans for these to remain available past spring this year.

The news that the current scheme only saves a 1/10th of that generating capacity - and an even tinier fraction of peak demand c40GW) at 200MW is quite telling in its usefulness - but at £3/kWh ? that's still a lot of money (£600,000?) per session.

The current DFS is more an indication of what might be possible in the future rather than a significant tool at present.  A higher smart meter penetration together with a significantly higher engagement by domestic customers would be required to turn it into something more useful.

doodling

Hi,

Scot_39 said:

nekr0mantik said:

if the electric prices are linked to gas then why is there a big difference in prices? 

The cost of power stations to burn it.

Just as likes of BG will charge £3000+ for even a small combi boiler every 10-20 years and £100s to service and maintain it annually - generators have costs (loans on buildings, maintenance, wages etc etc.)

No, it is much simpler than that.  Gas power stations turn about half of the energy in the gas into electricity and the other half disappears out of the cooling towers and flues as heat.  Gas generated electricity is therefore, per unit of energy, a minimum of twice the price of gas.  Once all the other factors (like plant cost and the various other things that are paid out of the electricity unit cost) then we end up with a factor of around 3.

[...]

The real scandal is the grid pricing system - which CfD is trying to mitigate over time - that sees everyone on old contracts charge through at "highest" rate - old nuclear, old renewables etc - at that higher - gas rate (c45p wholesale last summer - now ?)

To be fair, that pricing system is not a scandal, it is a way of ensuring that producers are paid what the electricity they supply is worth.  The scandal arises where subsidised producers don't share that bounty with the government who is subsidising them and that is what the contracts for difference are trying to achieve.

The fundamental problem is that electricity is expensive because it is scarce, fixing that requires significant capital expenditure which UK governments are reluctant to make, or even underwrite.

Scot_39

Mstty said:

BBC News - Extended life for two UK nuclear power stations

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64906179

This move good for those years.

At rated MWe - those 2 are 40% of our remaining nuclear core generating capacity.

And about 5% of our nominal peak loading in winter of c45 GW.

Worryingly that Mar 2026 date still say 15m before Hinkley C comes on stream - current date June 2027.

And a welcome change from their last review of AGR program (*)

From Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom

(*) And their footnotes on the remaining sites

"On 15 December 2021 EDF announced that the closure dates for Heysham 2 and Torness were to be brought forward from 2030 to March 2028."

Still gives us a few more years to install x GW of wind and solar. Even if we cannot rely on it.

When it may deliver lows below 5% of rated power (1.3GW of 28+) for wind and 0 for solar - as existing installations did on Tuesday night - as temps across the UK dropped below 0.

Scot_39

doodling said:

Hi,

Scot_39 said:

nekr0mantik said:

if the electric prices are linked to gas then why is there a big difference in prices? 

The cost of power stations to burn it.

Just as likes of BG will charge £3000+ for even a small combi boiler every 10-20 years and £100s to service and maintain it annually - generators have costs (loans on buildings, maintenance, wages etc etc.)

No, it is much simpler than that.  Gas power stations turn about half of the energy in the gas into electricity and the other half disappears out of the cooling towers and flues as heat.  Gas generated electricity is therefore, per unit of energy, a minimum of twice the price of gas.  Once all the other factors (like plant cost and the various other things that are paid out of the electricity unit cost) then we end up with a factor of around 3.

[...]

The real scandal is the grid pricing system - which CfD is trying to mitigate over time - that sees everyone on old contracts charge through at "highest" rate - old nuclear, old renewables etc - at that higher - gas rate (c45p wholesale last summer - now ?)

To be fair, that pricing system is not a scandal, it is a way of ensuring that producers are paid what the electricity they supply is worth.  The scandal arises where subsidised producers don't share that bounty with the government who is subsidising them and that is what the contracts for difference are trying to achieve.

The fundamental problem is that electricity is expensive because it is scarce, fixing that requires significant capital expenditure which UK governments are reluctant to make, or even underwrite.

Thanks seen old coal efficiency numers - but didn't think of looking for gas - didn't realise a modern gas plant would be the same. 

(Old home gas boilers used to be poorer than current decades ago - I guess I expected similar progress.)

I would suggest that a system that was forcing the UK public to pay say that 45p wholesale in July for other sources - regardless of reasonable cost and profit - so allowing firms generating excessive profit from it - is a scandal.  It it wasn't - why are we then happy to have a windfall tax - not on total profit - but on the excess above a fair market price level instead.

Even some industry insiders accepted the pricing and profits were too high - and deserved to be taxed.

Essentials really shouldn't be traded quite as freely as other commodities.

If someone is happy to pay £100 or more for a bottle of perfume - that someone can make for a few pennies - that's their decision - that's a non essential, luxury product.

If the producing companies effectively did the same themselves (if they sat in a room and looked at demand and said collectively we want £200/MWh or £2000/MWh right now) - it would very much look like price fixing.

Expecting any company - to voluntarily hand back profits - even excessive ones - seems a bit fanciful.

Especially as proven in the case of the renewables producers on non CfD terms - who were suposedly offered CfD.  Truss then campaigned and elected on the basis of a whoesale price cap for that energy instead. It died at some point.

The result even the Cons had to give in - and apply the current in place 45% windfall tax. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/17/chancellor-extends-energy-windfall-tax-low-carbon-generators

45% on profits above £75/MWh wholesale

In other countries they may well have received their lower price - and still been very happy with their profit margins.

The EU has imposed a cap - which is what LTruss proposed - so take that as you will.

michaels

Won't a cap result in shortages?  Why would a marginal high cost supplier turn on their capacity if they could not charge enough per unit to cover the cots of generation?

MattMattMattUK

michaels said:

Won't a cap result in shortages?  Why would a marginal high cost supplier turn on their capacity if they could not charge enough per unit to cover the cots of generation?

The proposal is a cap that varies by production method, in theory a profit cap, not a cap per kWh.

Scot_39

michaels said:

Scot_39 said:

nekr0mantik said:

if the electric prices are linked to gas then why is there a big difference in prices? 

The cost of power stations to burn it.

Just as likes of BG will charge £3000+ for even a small combi boiler every 10-20 years and £100s to service and maintain it annually - generators have costs (loans on buildings, maintenance, wages etc etc.)

Those differences may seem low at current high energy prices  - but when gas 4p a unit  - a massive overhead.

We pay one ourselves directly - or via rent as the landlords do if renting - and the other via our unit rates.

It makes the xxp vs yyp arguments difficult.

The real scandal is the grid pricing system - which CfD is trying to mitigate over time - that sees everyone on old contracts charge through at "highest" rate - old nuclear, old renewables etc - at that higher - gas rate (c45p wholesale last summer - now ?)

Recognising there is a windfall profit, a tax has been applied which goes to help pay for the EPG.  Hardly rocket science.

It's not retrospective, so the uk based producers only paid normal corporation tax all of last year, so keeping 81% of that periods record profit.

And the windfall tax is only 45% on that sold above a price (75/MWh ).  Even when add normal corp tax - their still keeping 36% - over a third of that. 

I don't know if that's above or below their actual costs - but it's still significantly more - 2/3rds more - than the 3.7p /( 4.4p 2022 indexed / kWh indexed) CfD pricing in 2022 auction.

When we via our bills and the state via EPG subsidies - so we via taxes, or rather via debt and future taxes - are paying all of it.