Energy news in general

QrizB

markin said:

The problem on the 20th seems to be that we are exporting 2gw to France

That isn't what any of the articles say. The articles say there was a specific problem with the UK grid getting enough electricity into the corner of the SE that includes Richborough Energy Park (the UK end of NEMO) and the best way to address the problem was to bring electricity back into the UK via NEMO.

There's a suggestion that the UK grid problem was weather-related, although no details are given.

markin

So a very localised problem that a big battery will fix

https://www.pacificgreen-group.com/articles/pacific-green-reaches-financial-close-ps2825-million-us3490-million-funding-its-9998mw

"June 21, 2022 / Pacific Green is pleased to announce that it has reached financial close (“Financial Close”) for £28.25 million (US$34.90 million) of senior debt for the Company’s 99.98MW battery energy storage system (“BESS”) at Richborough Energy Park.
The senior debt, in conjunction with the equity investment by Green Power Reserves Limited, will provide the Company with the funding to bring the battery park to commercial operations in June 2023."

Effician

Further cuts to Nord stream 1 , down from 40% to 20%    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62291458

JohnPo

Effician said:

Further cuts to Nord stream 1 , down from 40% to 20%    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62291458

I see that gas futures for both August and Winter 22 jumped on the news !!

August 22 gas futures https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5253322

Winter 22 Gas futures https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5351157

Not good for the October 22 / Jan 23 price cap calculations.

Uxb1

Large distances between generators and the usage area creates a problem.
The general public think of electric like an extension lead - you stuff power in one end and out comes the same at the other end. sure long leads have resistance so you loose a bit on the way - but you never see the other effects as they are not noticeable
Unfortunately when transmission line lengths start to run in 100's of Km the transmission line itself becomes an complex electrical component when transmitting AC current.  At that point it starts to get a lot more complicated in getting power to where you want it.  You cannot simply stuff more and more power down the line.
The Russians and Canadians are experts in this field where their transmission lines are in the 1000km plus lengths.
So yes I can see why it was cheaper and easier to buy from Belgium even with the excess generation available in Scotland.
For long interconnections it is often cheaper to use DC(direct current)  transmission rather than AC (alternating current) as DC has fewer unwanted problems on long lines - but you need to build expensive convertor stations are either end AC to DC and DC back to AC again.

gazapc

Sea_Shell said:

Xbigman said:

Sea_Shell said:

Xbigman said:

MattMattMattUK said:

They should have probably let the power go out, essential services would have backups, large businesses have backups and a couple of hours of the power going out might wake people up to the fact that we are all going to have to economise, on top of a reasonable probability of power cuts this winter. 

I totally agree. Its time we stopped covering problems up and let people know what the issues are. 


Darren

It does beg the question as to where exactly is the "line in the sand" above which we will just not pay?

Its not about the cost its about the fact that the problem existed in the first place. People need to be made aware we have a grid that is operating on such thin margins the lights could go out at any time. Oh yeah, and its summer. 


Darren 

I've read the full article now. 

Crazy that we don't have the (enough) capacity to move power around the country as and when needed.

And there was me thinking it was the "National Grid"....silly me😉

Massive investment is needed it would seem....meaning higher standing charges I assume? 

To be fair, the National Grid was set up pretty well for the top down, few dozen large power station type operation we had for most of the 20th century. Now though we're installing hundreds or thousands of smaller generators further down the transmission/distribution chain and that means upgrades are (or were) needed.

What_time_is_it

JohnPo said:

Effician said:

Further cuts to Nord stream 1 , down from 40% to 20%    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62291458

I see that gas futures for both August and Winter 22 jumped on the news !!

August 22 gas futures https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5253322

Winter 22 Gas futures https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5351157

Not good for the October 22 / Jan 23 price cap calculations.

Forgive my ignorance, but how does this affect the Oct/Jan price cap predictions?
Does it mean that the rates will now likely be even higher than was predicted a few weeks ago (around £3,200 average?)

agentcain

pochase said:

Bloomberg link was also working fine for without a paywall.

Bigger question for me is the second part of the article that was saying  that we will need upgrades to the grid costing billions to avoid problems like the above, that we were overproducing electricity in Scotland at the same time that we were buying from Belgium and the issue is that the grid could not handle it.

Would that fall under maintenance, thus covered by standing charges, or who is going to pay for the required upgrades?

We are already paying over the top with increased standing charges, which should cover this exact issue; improving the network.

Instead, these are abused to the point of covering the credit of failed energy suppliers, credit that went to private pockets, credit that accumulated via questionable DD practices that only recently were investigated by ofgem (to basically justify their existence)

Spies

Should never have been allowed to happen, he's got off scot-free as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/26/how-ex-footballers-energy-gamble-ended-up-costing-bill-payers-700m-avro

"Despite having no apparent background in the complex energy industry, Avro’s founder, Jake Brown, a former non-league footballer, set up the company with a family loan in 2016. Within a few years of the company’s entry into the market, Avro had amassed half a million customers while enriching Brown and his family along the way."

pochase

agentcain said:

pochase said:

Bloomberg link was also working fine for without a paywall.

Bigger question for me is the second part of the article that was saying  that we will need upgrades to the grid costing billions to avoid problems like the above, that we were overproducing electricity in Scotland at the same time that we were buying from Belgium and the issue is that the grid could not handle it.

Would that fall under maintenance, thus covered by standing charges, or who is going to pay for the required upgrades?

We are already paying over the top with increased standing charges, which should cover this exact issue; improving the network.

Instead, these are abused to the point of covering the credit of failed energy suppliers, credit that went to private pockets, credit that accumulated via questionable DD practices that only recently were investigated by ofgem (to basically justify their existence)

28 million households = 14 million standing charge per day (@50p assuming everything is going into upgrades

Total of standing charges per year = £5.110 billion for electricity

So if the total standing charges were used to finance the upgrade plan @qrizb mentioned it would take more than 10 years to finance it, but only a small part of the current standing charges goes into the maintenance of the network.