Energy news in general

Netexporter

Boohoo said:

Now that Trump has "borrowed another country" do you think this will have an effect on oil and wholesale gas prices?

Unlikely. The Venezuelan oil is very expensive to extract and the oil price is on the floor. Chinese demand is declining, as they rapidly convert to becoming an electrostate. The self-styled world's greatest businessman is [insert synonyms of your choice, that the mods won't like, for not very good at it].

Scot_39

I can think of approx 4.48 bn good reasons why prepayment meters should be fitted - and fitted far quicker in many situations - as a matter of course.  

Every £ of unpaid bills on our suppliers books.

As that debt continues to grow - another c £630m (£3.85 to £4.48bn) in the first 3 quarters of 2025.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data/debt-and-arrears-indicators

Debt that now adds £50 to the cap - and a current consultation looks to add another upto 10% on top of that - for phase 1 of DRS next year (write offs for those on benefits - yet another use of energy bills instead of taxes to help those on benefits) - and phase 1 will be dwarfed by phase 2 (up to over 4 times larger depending on final level agreed for phase 1 iirc)

michaels

Scot_39 said:

I can think of approx 4.48 bn good reasons why prepayment meters should be fitted - and fitted far quicker in many situations - as a matter of course.  

Every £ of unpaid bills on our suppliers books.

As that debt continues to grow - another c £630m (£3.85 to £4.48bn) in the first 3 quarters of 2025.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data/debt-and-arrears-indicators

Debt that now adds £50 to the cap - and a current consultation looks to add another upto 10% on top of that - for phase 1 of DRS next year (write offs for those on benefits - yet another use of energy bills instead of taxes to help those on benefits) - and phase 1 will be dwarfed by phase 2 (up to over 4 times larger depending on final level agreed for phase 1 iirc)

Basically free energy for those on benefits funded by those who do pay their bills to keep it out of tax numbers.  Of course it is very green to give a large minority of the population free energy, it will really encourage them to think about their usage.....

Scot_39

Ar7 Offshore Prices in

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-breaking-auction-for-offshore-wind-secured-to-take-back-control-of-britains-energy

AVE £90.91 per MWh .

And remember thats before literally £bns in grid connnection and curtailment extras that get added onto our costs.

And even that wholesale figure higher then Ofgems wholesale market rates for most of last year  the latest Nov price here £75.76 - over 15%  cheaper.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news-and-insight/data/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

Ar7 Offshore Prices in

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-breaking-auction-for-offshore-wind-secured-to-take-back-control-of-britains-energy

AVE £90.91 per MWh .

40% cheaper than the LCOE for new gas, though, and similarly cheaper than new nuclear.

Scot_39

Except those are far more reliable sources of power we can rely on - whether sunny or not, whether windy or not.

And the inconvenient truth for such simplistic greenwashed comparisons from a blinkered DESNZ  is to a large extent we are going to have to build the nuclear and the gas anyway - to guarantee generation can meet demand.

As in fact we are already building both.

To have reliable power we can depend on - when solar doesnt generate at night and maybe as little as 10% in short dull winter days - when energy most needed.  Or when wind hits one of its lows - lows as low as 5-10% rated - 3% about the lowest 1/2 hr figure I can remember from last 2 years. Just c1GW from c30 GW theoretical that was a Jan figure iirc..

8.4GW sounds impressive but in reality may only deliver 0.4 GW or occassionally even less. 

Renewables lows will determine our inability to keep houses warm, evs charged and our businesses operational at full production unless we do keep nuclear and gas in parallel.

JKenH

Scot_39 said:

Except those are far more reliable sources of power we can rely on - whether sunny or not, whether windy or not.

And the inconvenient truth for such simplistic greenwashed comparisons from a blinkered DESNZ  is to a large extent we are going to have to build the nuclear and the gas anyway - to guarantee generation can meet demand.

As in fact we are already building both.

To have reliable power we can depend on - when solar doesnt generate at night and maybe as little as 10% in short dull winter days - when energy most needed.  Or when wind hits one of its lows - lows as low as 5-10% rated - 3% about the lowest 1/2 hr figure I can remember from last 2 years. Just c1GW from c30 GW theoretical that was a Jan figure iirc..

8.4GW sounds impressive but in reality may only deliver 0.4 GW or occassionally even less. 

Renewables lows will determine our inability to keep houses warm, evs charged and our businesses operational at full production unless we do keep nuclear and gas in parallel.

You are being too generous. At times wind generation can be less than 1% of installed capacity - on 22 Jan last year it was below 1% (around 0.25-0.3GW) for several hours. With all the new contracted capacity (which won’t happen much before around 2029} it might make it over 0.3GW. Who needs gas? Actually, we do it seems. Last year gas generation actually increased by 5%. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-renewables-enjoy-record-year-in-2025-but-gas-power-still-rises/ 

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2025-01-22&&_k=udf9rx

Scot_39

Yes - I didnt bother to add I only look casually at statistics - like on grid iamkate - rather than some of the more forensic deep dive data archives.

Theres actually a 0.27GW in that data set for that day at c5am and rolls through to your 0.25GW at 8am.  So yes sub 1% theoretical.

Much lower than the c1GW I quoted.

I wonder what other data sets / sites say for that day / time ?

northernstar007

bit of a spike on gas prices past few days

JKenH

The announcement of the results of AR7 made reference to how much cheaper offshore wind was than gas generation. However what is rarely mentioned is the impact of carbon costs on gas generation. This is explained here:

Carbon costs comprise two elements. The first is the Carbon Price support mechanism, where prices have been held at £18/t since 2018. The second part is the carbon cost arising from the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and these costs fluctuate quite a lot.

The total carbon costs fluctuated in a £35-40/MWh range from the beginning of 2022 to March 2023 before falling steadily to under £20/MWh in February 2024. Carbon costs then fluctuated in the £20-25/MWh range until April 2025 and then began to rise to £29.35/MWh in December.

Carbon costs made up 37.5% of the wholesale price of electricity in December 2025. The daily data from Ember suggests that carbon costs have continued rising in January this year too. If carbon costs were removed, wholesale prices would fall from December’s £78.45/MWh to just under £49/MWh.

https://davidturver.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-driving-up-electricity-prices