Energy news in general

Reed_Richards

Also, an obligation to send an agent to read non-communicating smart meters would give electricity suppliers an incentive to try to fix the non-communication problem.

gt94sss2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011105#Comment_82011105

There are also the older comms units that will need to be upgraded to support 4/5G signals

QrizB

A fascinating article about Spanish electricity and how a big increase in wind and solar means gas now only sets the wholesale price occasionally:

https://janrosenow.substack.com/p/spain-just-became-one-of-europes?triedRedirect=true

I would suggest the UK isn't very far from a similar tipping point, albeit with more wind and less solar.

payless

My guess news in 3 months will be price cap back below £1700

….

Of course. In the Ofgem press release the gem is there..

“Typical Domestic Consumption Values (TDCV) are used to set the energy price cap and help show what an average home spends on gas and electricity. Ofgem updates these every few years to make sure they still reflect how much energy people actually use. 

Under our existing TDCV, the typical household bill from July is £1,862 (up from £1,641). 

From 1 July, the figures will be updated to reflect the fact that households are using less energy than before - around 7% less electricity and 17% less gas compared to the last review. 

As a result, the price cap level from 1 July will be £1,663 per year - reflective of these updated values.  “

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82012751#Comment_82012751

I found a couple of interesting paragraphs in the report.

Despite having Europe’s cheapest wholesale electricity, Spanish households pay above the EU average €0.265/kWh in 2025, ranking 16th out of 25 countries. That puts Spain more expensive than France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and most of Central and Eastern Europe. Some of this is to do with the amount of taxes and levies put on electricity

Other system costs are rising. The flip side of getting energy cheap is paying more elsewhere to keep the system stable. Spain is procuring more balancing services, more reactive power and voltage support, and ultimately more transmission to move wind and solar from where the resources are good to where the demand is. Those costs land on consumers through network and policy charges rather than the wholesale price. They are not yet large enough to offset the wholesale gains, but they are climbing.

Scot_39

So Spain like the UK in fact suffering from some of the same inevitable renewables overheads UK is.

Does anyone know if they are also forecast to pay now over £3bn in grid curtailment by 2030/1 ( higher and a year later in NESOs late 2025 graphs than old NGESO £3bn by 2030 from 2024 iirc)

But at least in Spain there is likely far more demand for solar PV in summer - to run air conditioning and to meet demand from its massive tourist influx (bars, hotels, restaurants).

Rather than the further distortion it places on UK's grid system balance - summer solar generation highs vs demand lows vs winter solar generation lows vs higher (evening and nightime for folk like me with all electric NSH heating or those with EVs etc) demands.

QrizB

The problems Germany is having with their smart meter network seem quite familiar.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/VZBV-Users-should-receive-compensation-for-smart-meter-problems-11304236.html

(German article machine-translated to English.)

Chrysalis

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82013764#Comment_82013764

It is but the article states compensation should be paid if it results in a higher cost tariff. I would like to see that here.

JKenH

Despite massive increases in solar generation capacity, fossil fuel generation in China actually increased by 4% in the first quarter of 2026 according to CarbonBrief. Just adding more and more renewables capacity does not in itself guarantee that emissions will fall. The more renewables generation that is rolled out the lower the capacity factor will be - one cannot avoid the law of diminishing returns. Maybe there is a lesson here for the UK.

China’s CO2 climbs 2% in early 2026 due to ‘wasted’ wind and solar

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026, after a rise in the amount of “wasted” wind and solar power.

The country used more coal and gas to generate electricity than in the same quarter a year earlier, despite a record amount of new wind and solar capacity being built.

After falling in 2025, power generation from coal and gas increased by 4% in the first quarter of the year.

Power demand grew at 5.2% and hydropower generation increased 9%. Under these circumstances, the recordgrowth in solar and wind power capacity in 2025 should have covered demand growth and pushed fossil-power generation down.

The trend was accentuated in March, as power demand grew just 3.5%, hydropower output increased 9% and yet fossil-power generation increased 4.2%.

The reason for fossil-power generation growth was a sharp drop in the electricity output per unit of installed capacity for both solar and wind power, known as the “capacity factor”.

If capacity factors were stable, the increased solar and wind capacity would have been expected to result in 160 terawatt hours (TWh) of additional clean-power generation during the first quarter, compared with the same time last year, with nuclear and hydro bringing the total to 170TWh. This would have comfortably exceeded the 120TWh increase in power demand.

However, the actual increase in clean-power generation was just 60TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.

While wind power capacity grew by 23% from the first quarter of 2025 to the same period in 2026, an increase of 120GW, the average capacity factor fell from 27% to 22%, a reduction of 18%. This implies that power generation from wind only grew 1% year-on-year. In the case of solar, capacity grew by 33%, but the average capacity factor fell by 11%, resulting in 18% growth in solar-power generation.

It is normal for solar and especially wind capacity factors to vary year-to-year due to weather conditions, but the fall this year was an extension of a longer trend. The average capacity factors of solar and wind have fallen by 19% and 10%, respectively, from 2022 to 2025.

Analysis: China’s CO2 climbs 2% in early 2026 due to ‘wasted’ wind and solar - Carbon Brief

I was unsure where the best place to post this was, so I have also posted a copy on the Green and Ethical board.

Scot_39

Didnt the UK also have 2% increased emissions for generation due to more fossil last year too - as a result or a poor Q1 for wind and lower nuclear due to extended maintenance - depending on reports - likely a mix of both. That despite several GW more theoretical capacity - intermittent (i.e. unreliable) renewables in the form of solar and wind - being added at great expense - every year.