Electricity prices worldwide

QrizB

This thread would benefit from the injection of a few facts.

• UK annual electricity consumption peaked in 2005 at about 350TWh. By 2021 it had fallen below 300TWh, a fall of roughly 15%.
  
• UK generation capacity is around 76GW; some of this (eg. the nuclear plants) runs for >90% of the time, some (eg. OCGTs) runs for much less.
• More than half of current UK electricity generation is either renewable (40%) or nuclear (15%).
  
• We currently have about 6GW of green generation capacity funded via CfDs. This is due to increase over the next five years to about 18GW, and that excludes the AR4 capacity which will add another 11GW in a similar timescale. AR5 is planned for next year, AR6 for the year after that, and so on.
  
• CfD funded generation is, and will continue to be, much cheaper than the current wholesale energy price. The current average price of CfD electricity is around 12p/kWh; this is expected to fall below 10p/kWh over the next five years. This also excludes AR4 where most of the additional capacity is expected to generate for less than 5p/kWh.
• The 11GW of capacity from AR4 alone will produce more than the 30TWh of electricity needed for 10M EVs.
  

What does this mean?

• Green electricity is reducing energy prices today, and will continue to do so while gas prices remain high.
• The UKs current high electricity prices are due to the high price of natural gas. As we build and commission more renewables over the next 5 years, the price of electricity will fall even if gas prices don't.
  
• There will be sufficient capacity to support EVs and heat pumps.
  

michaels

Just to explain the CfDs for renewables:

If the market price is below the CfD price then we all pay a bill supplement to top up the green generator earnings to the CfD price
If (as now) the market price is higher than the CfD price then we get a reduction on our bills so that the green generators do not receive more than the CfD price

So when people talk about 'all that green carp' pushing up bills, actually it is currently reducing them so if it was 'scrapped' then bills would be higher.

greyteam1959

And just to chuck in a curve ball.
Why of the 8000 house that have been built within 10 miles of my house have only about 100 houses had solar panels / solar water heating on their roofs ??

in_my_wellies

greyteam1959 said:

And just to chuck in a curve ball.
Why of the 8000 house that have been built within 10 miles of my house have only about 100 houses had solar panels / solar water heating on their roofs ??

^^^This. I've long believed every new house should include solar panels, after all it is no longer a new technology. Even if not fitted then every house should have the roof orientated so that maximum panels can be retro-fitted. If that had happened for the last 15 years that would be quite a percentage of the housing stock solar ready. 

QrizB

greyteam1959 said:

Why of the 8000 house that have been built within 10 miles of my house have only about 100 houses had solar panels / solar water heating on their roofs ??

Because the Cameron government removed the requirement for builders to fit it in 2015, and most new home buyers won't pay the extra voluntarily.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/uk-scraps-zero-carbon-home-target

Today’s announcement was made as part of a government report, Fixing the foundations: Creating a more prosperous nation. It said the scrapping of the two regulations was designed to “reduce net regulations on housebuilders”.

Who on earth could have predicted that removing regulations on housebuilders would result in lower housing standards?

See also, for more details of what could have been:
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Allowable_solutions_for_zero_carbon_buildings

From the bottom of that article:

... the move was welcomed by the Home Builders Federation who suggested that zero-carbon standards would have cost purchasers in the order of £2,500 per home.

Spending an extra £2500 on a new home to achieve much better energy performance doesn't seem too bad, in hindsight.

Lastonestanding

QrizB said

Because the Cameron government removed the requirement for builders to fit it in 2015, and most new home buyers won't pay the extra voluntarily.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/uk-scraps-zero-carbon-home-target

Because they believed that requiring solar panels would mean fewer houses were built.
In which case they should have been subsidised, paid for by the government, as the ones on social housing are.

markin

michaels said:

MouldyOldDough said:

MattMattMattUK said:

MouldyOldDough said:

QrizB said:

MouldyOldDough said:

markin said:

Uk are competing for the 30% from norway and for the lng. Now if the energy companies had got 2 year contracts when it was still cheap we would all be good.

But we have our own supply 

Only 50% of the gas used in the UK comes from domestic spources, the other 50% is imported.

So the UK is not even self sufficient in domestic supplies as it stands 

We have not been for some time, I think around two decades now.

MouldyOldDough said:
with Gas boilers being banned from 2025 on new properties - how many more GW of electrical power are going to be required to heat homes and that's wthout all the extra electrical power required by the EVs that are going to be required due to the increasing cost of petrol..

We have installed capacity of around 76GW, however we are due to lose about 8GW of that over the next two years (coal and nuclear plants being shut down). Gas boilers are not being banned, the installation of them in new properties is being banned which is somewhat different. New builds will be built with good insulation and heat pumps, older buildings will still be allowed boilers, with the potential solution being insulation and heat pumps, or insulation. That being said we will need greater generation capacity going forward even with increasingly efficient technology, this will come from a combination of new nuclear and renewables. Due to the generation patterns of renewables we will also need large amounts of storage and also to build over capacity.

MouldyOldDough said:

I have said it before and will no doubt say it again - but things just do not add up - the UK is going to have serious energy problems in a few years

The problem is the public, they want short termism rather than long term planning, so governments keep kicking the an down the road. We will likely miss the emissions reductions targets as well as the net-zero commitment by some significant way, as well as facing issues with supply. Things add up very well, the UK will have a capacity shortage, as well as relying on fossil fuels too much for energy, it just does not add up in the way people think it will. 

But heat pumps still use a lot of electrical power and most/many houses do not have enough land for ground source heat pumps (as well as the cost - £15k-£20k)

Peak demand of UK is around 170GW (2020)  - What do you expect it to rise to by 2030 ?

I thought peak UK demand was 40GW or does your number include Gas as well as electricity?

Electric hits 45GW every year, It's been 3+ years since it hit 49GW

MouldyOldDough

BBC gets it wrong again :

BBC News - Cost of living: Keir Starmer set to call for energy price cap freeze

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62537011

"The cap - the maximum amount suppliers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales - is £1,971 a year."
Now changed to "average" 

Martico

It's also worth pointing out that over the last half century or so, the UK has effectively outsourced much of its manufacturing to Asia, so lower energy demand here has been offset by increased energy demand elsewhere.
If the total carbon cost of products that we consume were taken into account instead of just emissions produced purely in the UK, the UK/Asia "green" balance would shift a bit.
We do need to do our bit. It's the moral thing to do (for both historic and contemporary reasons), plus for purely pragmatic reasons, we would never be able to bring the rest of the world on-board if we weren't prepared to reshape our own economy.

Section62

MouldyOldDough said:

"The cap - the maximum amount suppliers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales - is £1,971 a year."

They have used the same/similar incorrect description several times over the last few weeks.