Energy price rises

Dalby26

Just a question , I am with EDF for both gas and electric . I can understand the huge increase in the gas element due to global price rises but not the electricity because EDF say that 62% of the electric is nuclear and 29% renewable leaving just 7% by gas fired power stations.cannot see why nuclear and renewable have become massively dearer to Warant these rises.

chris1973

Most of the UK's Electricity is generated by Gas. regardless of all of the Green indulgences you seem to have been sold.

See for yourself in real time, any time.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Renewables rarely deliver, unless you have a Sunny, Windy Day in Mid Summer. But who needs their heating on then eh?.

On a windy day you may see the Wind gauge on Gridwatch hit 10GW for an hour or two, provided its not TOO windy. On the flip side, when high pressure is centred over the UK bringing calm days, you could see it at as little as 1GW or 2GW for several weeks.

MOST of the time you'll see CCGT (GAS) being used to produce anything from 45% - 60% of our requirements - hence your bills are going to rocket as we closed all of the Coal Fired power stations in order to score points in the green afterlife.

Our energy policies are a mess, a shambles with plans and policies we can ill afford and look just like they have been designed by a gobby obnoxious teenager who cry's a lot when she doesn't get her own way.........

We closed our coal fired power stations a decade early, and invested in renewables instead of Nuclear. That has left us energy bereft, at the mercy of burning gas to generate the bulk of our Electricity, Gas which is only going to increase in price.

Burning one expensive fuel to produce another fuel - of course its going to be expensive.

Electricity prices are increasing, better get used to it because its now going to happen more and more.

[Deleted User]

I find DraxInsights easier to interpret. As I post, 45% of our electricity is being produced from gas.

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/homepage?&_k=hn5a9l

Merlin139

This will show you how the Energy is being made

https://grid.iamkate.com/

QrizB

Dalby26 said:

Just a question , I am with EDF for both gas and electric . I can understand the huge increase in the gas element due to global price rises but not the electricity because EDF say that 62% of the electric is nuclear and 29% renewable leaving just 7% by gas fired power stations.cannot see why nuclear and renewable have become massively dearer to Warant these rises.

Nuclear and renewables sell into the energy market at the same prices as every other generator.

• If a nuclear station can generate for £60/MWh and sells at £200/MWh they make £140/MWh profit. It's as simple as that.
• Renewables are different, mostly they receive a fixed price for their energy regardless of the market price. The difference is made up by (or refunded to) customers via the green levies.
  

Ectophile

Most of the UK's Electricity is generated by Gas. regardless of all of the Green indulgences you seem to have been sold.

See for yourself in real time, any time.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Renewables rarely deliver, unless you have a Sunny, Windy Day in Mid Summer. But who needs their heating on then eh?.

I looked, and slightly less than half of the electricity was generated by gas at that time (19:43 05/01/2022).  Definitely not "most".

QrizB

Ectophile said:

Most of the UK's Electricity is generated by Gas. regardless of all of the Green indulgences you seem to have been sold.

See for yourself in real time, any time.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Renewables rarely deliver, unless you have a Sunny, Windy Day in Mid Summer. But who needs their heating on then eh?.

I looked, and slightly less than half of the electricity was generated by gas at that time (19:43 05/01/2022).  Definitely not "most".

... and acording to Electric Insights, over the past 12 months only 37% of the UK's electricity has been generated by gas. In comparison 22% has come from wind and 15% from nuclear.

markin

But apparently the last 6 months have been lower than average wind, in December we had weeks with almost no wind, I've seen news saying Germany say they had poor wind also. A week of gas use at 57% in peak hrs is expensive.

As to the original post, EDF will happily sell the power for profit on the open market not cheaply to 'EDF UK' customers, the plants are probably owned by different EDF companies, 'EDF UK'  probably break even or a small profit with the real profit going to the parent company in france.

.................................................

18% June to October as the gas price started rising, Cant pick 6 months on Drax electricinsights  https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?period=3-months&start=2021-10-06&&_k=6ps5ju

 

 

doodling

Hi,

I think the point that many people are missing is that the price of electricity (on a spot basis at least) is set by the price of the most expensive form of generation you need to make enough electricity to supply everyone.  That makes perfect sense because that is the value of the electricity.

At the moment, that is gas (and it is likely to be throughout this Winter and the next 10 Winters to come).

It doesn't matter if, for example, wind farms can make electricity a lot more cheaply than gas because the key requirement is not that some electricity is made, but that exactly enough electricity is made for everyone.  If the wind farm owners decided to turn them off then the shortfall would be made up by gas, so the value of electricity from wind farms is the cost of replacing it with gas.

There are a number of things which could mitigate against this:

1. You could force electricity generators to sell at some notional cost price.  That would work, but it might require nationalisation (expensive!) and will almost certainly reduce private investment in electricity generation (also expensive!).
2. You could make it so that the amount of electricity required varies according to price.  That way, if prices rise then demand falls to act as a limit on the price rise.  That agile pricing is almost certainly the way pricing for industry will go (if it isn't already there), but there are social issues in taking the same approach for consumers who don't have as much choice in when they use energy.
3. You could encourage suppliers to agree fixed prices with suppliers (generators) either directly (buying ahead) or by the use of financial instruments (hedging).  This already happens a lot, but the recent turmoil in the consumer market has broken that in various ways.

savers_united

All electric generation goes into the same pool, and the price is then set. What EDF are likely saying is that your usage is covered by the amount they produce via Green generation.

[Deleted User]

savers_united said:

All electric generation goes into the same pool, and the price is then set. What EDF are likely saying is that your usage is covered by the amount they produce via Green generation.

Aah - but is it truly green?  Many suppliers use REGOs to offset the non green energy that they purchase. They are only 3 suppliers in the UK that are exempt from the Ofgem Cap because they purchase all their energy from renewable sources. EDF isn’t on the list.