EDF Electricity price - why the increase?

jelv

All the tariff information from EDF says the electricity is 100% nuclear.

If it is 100% nuclear, why is the price increasing by so much? Surely the wholesale price of gas has negligible (if any) affect on the cost of generating nuclear electricity.

The only reason I can think of for the increase is "because they can".

MattMattMattUK

jelv said:

All the tariff information from EDF says the electricity is 100% nuclear.

If it is 100% nuclear, why is the price increasing by so much? Surely the wholesale price of gas has negligible (if any) affect on the cost of generating nuclear electricity.

The only reason I can think of for the increase is "because they can".

Energy is a global market. 

Verdigris

What Matt says, plus nuclear is the most expensive source of electricity. Strike price for nuclear is over £90/MWh, offshore wind is less than £30/MWh. The price we pay is a combination of prices from different sources of generation. Our largest proportion of electricity comes from gas and world gas prices are extremely high at the moment.

coffeehound

France does still have an appetite for gas even with the nuclear arsenal (presumably due to industries such as glass, metals?).  I don't know if that gas usage is in some way tied into the nationalised nuclear electricity price

Verdigris

A lot of French nukes are shut down because of corrosion problems. Anyway, the maximum that can come over from France via the inter-connector is less than 2GW, which would not cover EDF's customer needs. EDF do run Hinckley & Sizewell nukes over here, though.

At the end of the day it is the overall wholesale cost that matters, whatever the source.

[Deleted User]

It's comes down to supply and demand as well. The more people need electric the more they have to generate and the more it costs. There are considerably more properties in the country now than there were 10 years ago. I live in Lincolnshire and new builds are going up all over the place and they will all need electric. 

QrizB

Deleted_User said:

It's comes down to supply and demand as well. The more people need electric the more they have to generate and the more it costs. There are considerably more properties in the country now than there were 10 years ago.

Yet as a nation we're using less electricity (see Chart 5.1 in this document). All those energy-saving measures work.

[Deleted User]

Crazy isn't it. Costs always seem to go up but never down.

MWT

[Deleted User] said:

Crazy isn't it. Costs always seem to go up but never down.

If it was true it would be crazy, but of course it isn't...