Energy news in general

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82068493#Comment_82068493

Yep. And whilst folk complain about any support, costs or subsidies being paid to RE, they miss the point that these are actually due to FF's.

If burning FF's, and the status quo was the simpler, easier and cheaper solution, then I doubt any governments would fail to take the easy route. But when you add in the externalities of burning FF's, primarily AGW, then RE is the better and cheaper solution.

Ideally, it would look better if instead of supporting RE, we simply added all of the externalities of FF burning to their costs. But that would still push up energy prices and bills, and lead to lots of folk complaining. So damned if you do, damned if you don't.

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067238#Comment_82067238

As I am sure you are aware gas generation bought by NESO to resolve an immediate system constraint is much higher than the price that would have been paid if that gas generation had been scheduled. NESO have no alternative but to accept the best price they can get from power plants that are ready and able to ramp up immediately. That is not the most efficient way to operate a gas plant and that inefficiency has to be paid for and the cost goes on our bills.

Edit: for the record the emergency gas generation purchased works out at £143/MWh. For comparison the average price paid for batteries discharging under the balancing mechanism is £105/MWh.

The_Green_Hornet

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/13/lawyers-to-investigate-claims-of-gb-power-grid-cover-up-over-blackout-risk

Scot_39

Yeah what we need while the uk is in yet another heat wave is more people pushing for burning fossil fuels

Get used to 4 simple facts

1 - that it is global warming

2 - UK per capita emissions officially at least (ignoring as they do flight emissions - so I presume others do too) are already less than the global average.

3- the world population is growing by roughly the same as the UK popn every year.

4 - wind and grid solar - is not the only way to generate without emissions.

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82068802#Comment_82068802

Its not the first time we have come close to partial collapse in recent years - when wind failed.

Time the green lobby was removed from making decisions about our generation mix.

Let them concentrate on some of the far bigger emissions sources in UK - like domestic and office / shop gas heating emissions - or cutting flights (just the MTCO2e from UK fuel bunkers for commercial flights matches total from UK electricity generation)

We face £100s on essential electricity costs - whilst in WM they plan 2 new airport runways.

And cost and grid stability prioritized.

And it was left to grid engineers to properly balance demand and generation capacity.

debitcardmayhem

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82068493#Comment_82068493

Naivety sound bites at its best …this is how much emissions generated in 2025 Electicity is 100/80/60/40/20 %

Nope 10%

Scot_39

And then you have to have those expensive batteries - available at real scale.

Most battery farms will last 1-2 hrs at rated output.

There meant to take care of say a supper time or breakfast rush - not a longer term wind failure.

Atmospheric blocks across UK and Europe - are not uncommon short term - but can and do last 7-10 days.

Last Aug iirc - we lost about 8GW of wind generation (against average capacity factor) for a fortnight - 8*24*7*2 = 2.7TWh of battery would be needed - we have around 13 GWh - 0.5% of that - hence we have to go to gas.

And yes the gas generators know that - and can game their prices accordingly.

The real problem is people all too often ignore the lows of renewables - the effectively 0 GW from solar for 17 hrs a day in deep winter, for the now c15GW that creates a glut on sunny summer afternoons - and the days - sorry weeks - of low output from wind - and fail to maintain the background generation capacity to replace it.

The longer the green lobby is allowed to believes it's own hype - to focus only on the averages or the highs - the closer one day we will be to having a serious grid failure.

We have prematurely shut our coal - despite having had grid near misses in the past - we have not been maintaining our nuclear and gas generation plant - at the scale required - so all too often become reliant on interconnects.

From other nations who are potentially in the same problem - facing the same solar and wind generation problems - a fall back in planned core generation - hence another summer price spike of £9742 - that one in 2022 - to keep the grid in SE England / London up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62296443

Not helped by NE Europe wide shortages at time in large part due French core nuclear dipping - with extended post covid EDF maintenance and delays on new plant like Flamanville 3 (the first build of EDF EPR design at Hinkley/Sizewell).

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82068993#Comment_82068993

And what is missing from that breakdown is international transport.

With UK fuel depot airline supplies roughly equal with electricity generation in terms of MTCO2e.

Suspect if add ferries - probably over.

And If I was a betting man - I'd say you could near double that for the emissions from return flights.

It's certainly up there with domestic gas use and its 16% vs electricity generation 10%.