From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Kathryn Porter’s new report on electricity prices has already garnered a lot of attention:
This evening my latest report: The true affordability of net zero, was launched at an event hosted by The Lord Offord of Garvel, Shadow Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero in the House of Lords. The event was attended by MPs, Peers and members of the energy community as well as the press. It’s the first time a report of mine has received quite so much attention. Ahead of the launch it was covered by UnHerd and the Telegraph.
My report reviews in depth the costs of renewable generation and their impact on our bills, driving British industrial electricity costs to the highest in the developed world, and our domestic costs to fourth highest. We’re told this is due to the cost of gas, yet our gas bills are only 15th highest in the world. According to international energy price statistics published by the UK Government, as of June 2024 (the last month included in the dataset), large British firms were paying 27.91 p /kWh for electricity while those in the EU paid just 10.80 p /kWh. But this was not always the case. Back in July 2011 there was almost no difference between the price paid by industrial consumers in the UK versus those in the €7.48 p /kWh compared with 7.04 p /kWh.
My report sets out all of the additional costs applied to bills as a result of net zero policies which in 2023-24 amounted to over £17 billion, and are projected to increase to over £20 billion per year in 2029-30. My analysis indicates that had Britain continued with its legacy gas-based power system in the period since 2006, consumers would have been almost £220 billion better off (2025 money) even taking into account the impact of the gas crisis.
Read the full report here.
I would highlight two graphs, the first of which disproves the lie that our electricity prices are high because of high gas prices:
The second shows the full cost of policy costs:
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This is brilliant as far as it goes, but the end point surely is to call off the whole silly net zero game as a waste of time and money and get back to conventional power on the grid uncluttered and destabilized by intermittent wind and solar inputs. Not to mention severe wind droughts, dunkelflautes, that guarantee that it was never going to work.
Katherine, among others, was signalling the dire straits of the US grids years ago, certainly in 2023. Since then it has only gotten worse but still the analysis continues. Paralysis by analysis?
https://open.substack.com/pub/rafechampion/p/start-planning-to-exit-net-zero
Read her whole report. She calls for an end to renewables and net zero. She advocates nuclear.
This report made the TV news yesterday along with te usual renewable apologist spouting that ‘it was all down to gas prices’ and suggesting that since Kathryn is not part of a ‘government review’ the report was ‘mere opinion’.
Disgusting.
Well anyone who buys oil or gas knows that it is something like one third the cost of electricity, at consumer retail prices, so where is all the rest of the money going?
Re
That’s not renewable apologist talk, that’s a reflection on GB energy pricing policy which is absolutely rubbish and massively biased towards giving money to the generators. All of them, not just the most effective ones.
Here is a quote from NESO
And that means the price of gas generation which is most expensive, determines the whole wholesale price. The gas generation is very important as it manages the fluctuations in supply and demand but the cost ought to be limited to those specialist generators and it’s just not.
The UK public are being shafted by energy market pricing policy, not renewable policy.
That was funny. You believe that, I take it.
We could utilise our own cheap gas quite easily. They don’t want to do that. They’d rather someone else got their hands ‘dirty’ and then shipped it over.
Its a fact the gas bids are the highest.
Here is a data analysis
And the most expensive bidder is gas. Here’s how the price of the gas itself has impacted that
Do you think regulatory restrictions on natural gas drilling and production might affect the price of gas? What would happen if natural gas became unregulated?
Probably. Maybe. It doesn’t matter. What would happen is that the highest priced generator would still be setting the energy price and that’s a fundamentally bad policy.
Stop digging, Tim.
You obviously missed the point on where the gas comes from and why. Quite deliberately, in my opinion.
“Former prime minister Rishi Sunak said he would award at least 100 new licences last year and also kick-started a process that would have seen new licences. awarded annually.
But Miliband has confirmed the regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, will not to approve any new licences. A spokesperson said: “We will not issue new licences to explore new fields.
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,ed-miliband-orders-immediate-ban-on-new-north-sea-drilling
In addition to shale rich areas like Sussex and Lancashire…
“A giant gas field thought to be worth £112 billion has been discovered under Lincolnshire. The fuel could theoretically power the UK for a decade and create thousands of jobs if it is tapped, according to the Telegraph.”
But no, that can’t be used. It must remain in the ground.
“Two more huge solar farms ‘a slap in the face’ for Lincolnshire
”https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/news/article/2220/two-more-huge-solar-farms-a-slap-in-the-face-for-lincolnshire
It is policy, end of.
Nope. You obviously missed the point that its the pricing policy that matters and not specifically the price of the gas generation.
The point is that its the most expensive generation that sets the price and that’s where the high UK energy prices ultimately come from.
You are funny. Gas extraction is the issue, not generation.
Do you think it is cheaper coming from Norway? Or the US, Qatar etc etc
It isn’t.
Not gas extraction. Not generation either. Its bidding in the market.
Lol. Talk about obtuse.
The monicker definitely fits. I congratulate you on that.
Well since we’re doing insults, the fact you’ve not even attempted to discuss the actual issue with the market pricing policy speaks volumes about your own understanding.
since we’re doing insults
I didn’t name you; you did that all by yourself. Something for you to ponder on, possibly even to correct.
There is an extremely simple solution to the problem as described by you: make renewables bid to supply all of demand instead of just part of it. That way the high gas prices would not get a look in.
And then, of course, you would see why your argument is wrong: they can’t and never can. (Although maybe only others would see it???).
That’s just silly. In Australia the generators that look after the fluctuations in supply/demand are handled separately in the market. They’re expensive but at least they dont drive the entire cost of energy up like the policy in the UK does.
The UK policy gives the renewable energy generators more money than they “deserve” despite the fact they’re not dispatchable energy sources.
It should be that the gas generators get more money because they’re providing more value in terms of overall supply and stability of supply but they dont, they get the same as the wind generators.
And meanwhile the UK public pay too much.
Wrong. Renewables get paid large subsidies for their output. Gas gets to pay for UKA carbon allowances that push up its costs. The effect is a backdoor subsidy to renewables subsidised generously by ROCs or selling on a merchant basis (mainly contracted on CFDs that they have yet to commence because either they’re not fully commissioned or they are evading a low strike price).
Wrong. The most expensive generation is tidal stream. It gets a subsidy worth about £375/MWh on everything it produces, on top of what it sells its output for. 5 ROCs per MWh. Consumers pay that. It’s part of the huge gap between gas cost and whaypt consumers pay highlighted by the chart that heads the article.
Its not about subsidies. Its purely about the price the generators bid into the market. The article I linked above goes on to say
Consumers pay a subsidy inclusive price. In the case of CFDs and FiTs that is quite regardless of any of the rest of the market. It is quite wrong to pretend that there is only one price in the market. There is compulsory purchase of renewables at very fancy prices.
No doubt as a line item on their bill. But consumer pricing is after the market has set the base price. And I do agree that energy trading doesn’t work with the spot price but that’s an entirely different discussion.
It is not itemised on bills – it is simply included. If it were itemised people would object violently to being charged so much. That’s why it isn’t mentioned. OFGEM do their best to obfuscate how the real costs arise.
One of the things that OFGEM requires under its cap is that retailers purchase hedges in forward markets. Their previous guidance was that these should accumulate over 12-18 months ahead of delivery. That was no longer possible during the energy crisis particularly because of the Grand Carenage in France and the shortage of nuclear. Now the cap us reset every quarter, it still includes advance hedging.
So what we have established is that you don’t know how the UK market works, and you refuse to learn about it.
My experience is with the AU market but why claim I’m refusing to learn about the UK market?
Because every time I explain it to you you try to deny what I said. I have to repeat myself.
The study is hopelessly out of date, and fails to acknowledge that the system price only applies to a tiny fraction of total output handled via the Balancing Mechanism.
You can see those prices and imbalance volumes here
https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/system-prices
What the study us really saying is that because CCGT is flexible it gets used to adjust supply in the Balancing Mechanism. But even that is less and less true now that NESO are better placed to dispatch batteries for balancing actions – something that has been a huge change since 2021.
I find it difficult to believe its out of date. Here is its title.
The impact of higher energy costs on UK businesses: 2021 to 2024
Are you suggesting the energy price only applies to the balancing market? That’s a huge factor that I’ve not seen. Did you see a quote to reference that?
I provided you with a link to System Prices and the volumes to which they apply. They are solely concerned with the prices for imbalances in the Balancing Mechanism. If you want the legal details see Section T here:
https://bscdocs.elexon.co.uk/bsc
Then, while interesting, as far as I can see it doesn’t change that the energy price (for the bulk energy now) is set by the highest (accepted) bidder.
As I have explained we do not operate a pool system for supply. Power is bought in advance on bilateral contracts between dispatchable generators and retailers. Forward trading is either for baseload – a constant supply 24×7, a month, quarter or season at a time – or peakload, a constant supply 7a.m.-7p.m. Monday-Friday to give an approximate match to demand patterns. That sets the bulk of retailer cost.
The Day Ahead market is concerned mostly with swaps of supply in one period for another so it matches likely real demand more closely rather than the box shapes of forward trading, and with swaps allowing renewables to replace flexible dispatchable generation already purchased via forward hedges. There is an added cost for buying rush hour supply and selling excess hedge from the middle of the night that depends on the difference in prices.
The renewables swaps take place because retailers are obligated by law to buy renewables supply and ROCs or pay a fine under the ROC scheme that still dominates volumes. Renewables on CFDs are guaranteed a route to market via a nominal auction that pays on a marginal bid basis. But the price has no effect in them (unless it is negative), because their CFD guarantees it will be topped up to their CFD strike price, which is what consumers will pay. Dispatchable generators (mainly CCGT) are typically buyers in the auction with the renewables supply used to fulfill their earlier hedge sales. They trim their operations accordingly, and sell gas they no longer need at the same time in transactions that will improve their profit (or at least not give rise to losses). Profit is improved by bidding low for renewables but only attained if the bid is not too low, when no cheap purchase is awarded. The level of bids thus depends heavily on the volume of renewables generation on offer and the effects of competition.
How many more times do I have to explain this to you?
You’re explaining nothing thats needed. Trading isn’t bidding at least not in my Australian experience. Most of what you’re posting is irrelevant to my point.
You say
but you do seem to have missed explaining how the clearing price works if not as described as being the highest accepted bid.
Are you saying that’s no longer the case?
How may times do I have to tell you? There is no clearing price.
‘But no, that can’t be used. It must remain in the ground.’
It is too small to affect the price of gas we pay and so big that using it would destroy the planet. /sarc
You do realize that unreliable solar and wind need a backup? Also, when they bid it’s not for a specific timeframe, instead it is only when they can deliver.
That is a recipe for higher energy prices for consumers.
Please read my post that details what really happens, not this propaganda nonsense. We haven’t has a pool clearing price system since 2001.
That simply isn’t true. If you look at the Balancing Mechanism it pays (or sometimes gets paid if generation is reduced) on an as-bid basis. The net imbalance volume is within plus/minus a few hundred MW in any half hour on average. The weighted average value of all the balancing actions sets the system price, which at the level of the market only applies to the net imbalance volume – not the entire market. Individual generators and retailers are assessed on any metered shortfall or excess against their previously declared purchases or sales and invoiced or paid for the difference at the system price. These imbalances are mostly fairly small, save for an unexpected plant breakdown.
The major element in price setting is via bilateral contracts for hedges that are negotiated over a span of months ahead of delivery: these deals are priced individually and the cost depends on trading strategies and trader skills, which is a major reason why all retailers are not equally profitable.
The other major elements relate to the guaranteed prices offered under CFDs and FiTs which are billed to consumers regardless of the state of the rest of the market, and the guaranteed ROC subsidies paid for most other renewables generation.
The Day Ahead market has two main functions. Block hedge trades for baseload (constant 24×7 for a month, quarter, season..) and peakload (constant 12×5 for 7a.m. to7p.m. Monday-Friday) have to be shaped by retailers to match likely actual demand by selling part of the hedge for periods where slightly lower demand is expected and buying extra for peak rush hour demand, or for differences between weekdays and weekends. What matters for these swap transactions is the difference in price, not the price level. There may be additional marginal trade to handle variations due to weather etc. which A large chunk of this trade is handled via OTC markets because they offer certainty to buyers and sellers.
The other main function of the DAM is to ensure that renewables output is taken up. Since renewables output is hard to forecast it only makes firm nominations or final sales once weather forecasts allow a more robust picture. For CFDs the price at which they are compensated is set by Day Ahead auctions. They do not care what the price is, since they will be exactly topped up to their strike price if they place their volume via these auctions (at least so long as prices don’t go negative when incentives may vary).
When renewables output is low the volume offered at auction is also low, and supply is dominated by the forward hedge sales of nuclear, biomass and CCGT and some interconnector supply (Norwegian hydro and French nuclear). Only the shaping trades (which also include batteries and pumped storage) add a layer of cost. So long as supply isn’t really tight the flex is easily provided by CCGT mainly in a competitive market, but it only applies to the shaped volumes – not the whole supply. When supply is tight interconnector supply often cuts back, as other countries are similarly short of renewables. Prices can then escalate sharply and are set by demand destruction either domestically or via interconnectors to provide incremental supply.
When renewables supply is healthier or even in surplus it is mainly the flexible CCGT output (and sometimes less flexible biomass) that cuts back. There are various net equivalent trades that can allow this to happen. A retailer may purchase the renewables directly and resell a CCGT hedge it had bought back, while the CCGT station sells back the gas it had bought to supply its sale to a supplier who can bank it for another day (e.g. by reducing LNG regasification). Or the contract with the retailer remains in place, but the CCGT generator buys in renewables supply to fulfill it, cutting its output and reselling the gas in the same way. CCGT will cut back when it is more profitable to make the trades than proceed with its locked in margin. The gas supplier will gauge whether he can resell for later delivery at a better price. The prices for these trades are lower the greater the renewables supply: it is renewables that are setting the gas price. Since renewables only care about ensuring they get their subsidies they can drive out gas by making it uneconomic. Only must run for inertia and transmission constraints volumes remain.
From the point of view of the retailer it’s just a swap on a back to back basis, although they may also look to bolster their purchases of ROCs against their forecast obligation. From the point of view of tge consumer, it locks in expensive subsidies that are far more costly than gas, now the energy crisis has subsided.
Yes, you’re right about that. I hadn’t seen the UK balancing market. My experience is in the Australian market. Anyway NESO says this
However that still doesn’t apply to the bulk of the energy which still looks to be set by the highest price.
re: Hedging. Australian markets have similar but it tends to apply mainly to the major industrials and not to residential.
You say
How do you figure this? According to ONS, Gas was responsible for 43% of the generation. That’s not exactly a position of being driven by renewables, especially when you factor in nuclear too.
Wrong. Please see my detailed explanation. Retailers only pay for high priced renewables because they are forced to by law.
In any event the cost to the consumer of power at the export meter is only part of the cost that consumers pay. Renewables have added greatly to grid costs to connect them from remote locations and to provide all the extra stabilisation kit they need. Their unpredictability adds hugely to balancing costs. Now we have to pay capacity market costs to keep backup available. The widening gap between the cost of gas generation and what consumers pay is down to renewables.
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/energy-price-comparison.-APR-25.webp
NESO operates the BM on the basis of submitted bids and offers for curtailment, reduction in generation, battery charging/pumped storage pumping, increase in generation, battery discharge, changes in interconnector flows etc. They take account of the geographic location and ensure that any actions they attempt are not going to result in grid constraints (or will reduce the constraint against which they have to issue orders to cut generation somewhere), and also the notice period and ramping rate for the various options. It isn’t just a cheapest price optimisation. At times the control room will select more expensive options because they are more robust for grid stability. The BM costs are passed to consumers, and have risen substantially with renewables. NESO are not required to consider the full cost to consumers in deciding their balancing actions, so in practice the costliest renewables get to carry on generating while the cheapest ones get curtailed. That is the precise reverse of a true merit order. It happens because the renewables with the lowest (or no) subsidies have least to lose by curtailing, since subsidies are only paid out against actual generation.
You might try reading Kathryn’s report, which does explain a lot about how the system works, instead of pretending that you know when you plainly haven’t a clue.
Thank you for trying! Its a fairly hopeless task on an individual basis, but it is worth doing because of its impact on exposing the real situation to other readers.
Keep on keeping on!
I freely admit I’m not an expert in the UK energy market. Please describe how clearing price works. Because as far as I can see, when market bids are considered, it’s the maximum price used that then gets paid to the generators.
Replying to myself, I can see that this year the UK has introduced some sort of overall price cap based on average residential energy use. But from what I can see, that doesn’t alter the market bidding strategy of choosing the highest (accepted) bid.
The price cap has been in operation since 2019, and was effective before that because politicians kept threatening to implement it. It calculates an allowed maximum price for households (but it does not apply to businesses) based on the costs that retailers face for transmission, balancing, distribution, installing smart meters, providing green subsidies for insulation, administration, etc. The wholesale costs include all the renewables subsidies, and an assumption that retailers will buy forward hedges. Because that is the basis for the cap, which only allows a very slim profit margin above costs, retailers follow the hedging programme by buying hedge volumes over time. There is no requirement to buy hedges from any particular source, and the allowance depends on reported prices. It is a competitive bilateral market. There is no clearing price arrangement. Each retailer must hedge for themselves.
Hedging has tended to push cost above what it otherwise would have been. The partial exception is the energy crisis, but hedging broke down at that time because the cost was very high for a variety of reasons, including massive collateral margin requirements and the lack of offering from nuclear.
You’ve not described how the clearing price works. That is the main, and really only, point that matters.
THERE IS NO CLEARING PRICE
Get that into your head.
FOr the Nth time: THERE IS NO CLEARING PRICE
Here’s how it works from the specifications for normal buy/sell actions. I’m going to skip exceptions for simplicity but this represents the bulk energy in the market and its complicated so I may have missed something
We start with deriving ranked sets of bids
Ranking them involves ordering the bids by lowest first
We’re interested in understanding the System Buy Actions and specifically the derivation of the System Buy Price
Its determined as SBPj in the following and is derived primarily from imbalance prices
And while the calculation is reasonably involved, it looks to be an adjusted average rather than a maximum.
So I agree that despite many references that suggest the maximum price is used, it looks like an “average” price is used. But I will also add that your analysis was worthless to me as it didn’t actually attempt to address the claim.
And furthermore there is actually a single price used for settlement.
I’m willing to be corrected if I’ve misinterpreted something but you’re going to have to do a lot better than simply shouting it because that’s what people are doing when they claim maximum prices are used.
I gave you the link to Section T. As I explained, the System Price (the buy and sell price are now the same) are only used to price imbalances in the Balancing Mechanism. They do not apply to the bulk of generation at all. I linked the page that shows the recent System Prices and volumes, with a chart that shows volumes swing between positive (the market generation had to be supplemented) and negative (market generation had to be cut back) by a few hundred MW.
I explained to you that the Control Room takes actions at the margin in order to correct imbalances that aren’t always a strict optimum, and that those costs are charged to consumers, and that costs can be positive (e.g. renewables paid curtailment) or negative (e.g. because CCGT saves fuel when it turns down). I explained to you that the actual actions that the Control Room chooses are paid as bid, and not on some average basis at all. I explained to you that the total costs of the actions are the basis for charging. I explained to you that parties that fail to meet their contracted supply or offtake are charged for any difference at the System Price. The sum of all the individual imbalances will be the net system imbalance volume. I explained to you that a plant breakdown can prove expensive because the cost of alternative supply is charged for failing to meet contracted generation.
But it seems that it still all goes over your head that the System Price is only used to price imbalances, and that the Control Room only dictates changes in generation necessary for balancing (including geographic balancing due to grid constraints): it does not change what has been contracted at all otherwise – that has been decided by the market, with actual sales perhaps many months in advance of actual delivery where they were made as forward hedges at a price that can turn out to be radically higher or lower than the Day Ahead market price or the Balancing Mechanism System Price. The market is “self dispatch”, and so long as it is balanced the Control Room need do nothing at all. It does not decide which get to generate in a balanced market. It only decides what additional generation or nominal supply to call on or curtail to achieve balance, based on the bids and offers and reaction times and ramp rates advised by the various parties for marginal changes in their generation or demand, and its own judgement to ensure grid stability.
You did, thanks. Following the pricing through, it looks like it was used. Can you point to the part of the algorithm that defines the actual price then?
…because…thats exactly the point. Its a single price. The only question I’m interested in is precisely how that price is calculated.
You see from here…
I dont care. I’m only interested in the base price and how its calculated. There are lots of additional charges along the way, that’s fine and a completely different discussion.
Then show me where the “non balancing” price is actually calculated because it doesn’t look like that to me.
And to clarify, the price that applies when there is no imbalance uses the “Market Price” which is another calculation.
But how often will there be no imbalance? Pretty much never and even less so with renewables increasing.
Every eventuality has to be covered. A net imbalance of zero doesn’t preclude that one retailer bought too much while another bought the same amount too little, or likewise one generator didn’t quite fulfil its contracted output while another oversupplied by the same amount.
Yes, but that implies the calculation I quoted is the calculation used as the market price. So it looks to me like the System Buy Price is the price paid to the generators at settlement. But you dont think so…
Further clarification so you dont feel you need to reiterate the other charges…
So it looks to me like the System Buy Price is the [base] price paid to the generators at settlement [with whatever additional payments that apply]
And that base price is some sort of average calculation rather than a maximum.
Generators are paid the prices they agreed in their sale contracts to retailers or other electricity traders. If they provide additional supply in the Balancing Mechanism then they are paid for that at the prices they offered for balancing generation (they might offer the first 5oMW at one price and the next 50MW at a different price). If they agree to cut generation then a wind farm will be paid to curtail at the price it bid for curtailment. A generator will bid to cut generation at a price that reflects its fuel savings. If a generator doesn’t provide its contracted volume then any difference is invoiced at the Balancing Mechanism System Price. Because that is usually disadvantageous, they strive to generate their contracted sales quantity.
How many times do I have to explain? Are you thick?
I have explained to you countless times that there is no single price for supply. There are lots of separate prices on individual contracts between suppliers of power and buyers of power. The contracts are agreed on varying timescales from many months ahead for hedges sold by dispatchable generators (also used to make price fix offers to consumers) through to an hour ahead of actual generation which is the last moment for registration of contracts. Any adjustments after that fall to the Balancing Mechanism with the System Operator as the instructor and counterparty, with its costs charged back on imbalance volumes.
Let me try and explain for the benefit of an Aussie. Imagine you are planning a barbie for next month. You go into Bunnings and they have a special offer on tinnies, so you buy a case on their 1 case per customer deal. Later, you go to buy another case, but Bunnings is sold out, so you go to Woolies and buy another case at the higher price they charge. During the barbie you run out of tinnies, so you go to the corner store which charges a premium price and only sells single tins or 4 packs, not cases. You pay different prices on all your purchases. There is no regulator that says you should pay the corner store price on all your purchases.
Then show me where that applies in the calculation. I think you’re confusing a contract price with the spot price.
Let me be more clear
The wholesale market price is the basis for creating the contracts. Yes, I know there are many factors including demand but I’m talking about the base price that is high for the UK.
Many of the contracts are directly impacted by differences between contacted price and market price, you’ve mentioned this many times.
So the important starting point is how the wholesale market price is calculated and that’s what I’m trying to understand in detail.
If its true that the wholesale price is actually set by the balancing calculation then I now see why there is a claim the “maximum” price is used. The claim doesn’t literally mean maximum, it means its created from the gas turbine bids which are the highest.
However, I’m open to be proved wrong if you can show me where in the calculation a different price is calculated and used for the wholesale energy price.
You have been proved wrong. End of.
I’ve shown the part of the algorithm that I believe calculates the market price. If it doesn’t and I’m mistaken, then prove that.
Also when say, a swap or option is executed, what do you think its executed against? Its the market price. You seem to think market price isn’t relevant but my opinion is that it not only underlies, but defines the high prices in the UK.
So understanding it in detail is the starting point.
I dont doubt the renewable subsidies and associated regulations play a part but without understanding the fundamentals, I cant understand their actual impact.
Please read about the tinnies. The Balancing Mechanism System Price applies to about 1% of total supply on average (~300MW out of 30GW).
I’ve seen your example. I’ve heard you make the claim. And if you can show it in the actual specifications which is definitive then I’ll believe you.
In terms of the calculation of the thing called Market Price which I referenced above and should have paid more attention to… we have
Where
The QXPsj is the volume.
The Market Index Data Providers provide the data
And to understand that, we need to know who the Market Index Data Providers actually are. But I cant find that.
Its definitely fair to say the Market Price is most likely what I need so I need to know who the data providers are.
Why do you think it is important? It’s about intra day trading at the half hourly level to adjust hourly positions. It’s a tweak to avoid being the wrong side of the Balancing Mechanism prices.
I really don’t need to prove anything to you. Here’s a lecture or two.
Electricity Markets in Great Britain – The Energy Academy (Series Three)
Read
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/decision/betta-user-guide-summary-new-british-electricity-trading-and-transmission-arrangements-betta-and-high-level-guide-key-activities-required-implement-new-arrangements-and-run-pre-betta-arrangements
Energy market pricing policy, yes, but actually both.
Was that the BBC? I bet they didn’t dare interview her. She told me she only did 1 TV slot yesterday.
But there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science. Hence net zero is of no benefit.
According to Guido Fawkes: “UK Would Be £220 Billion Better Off Without Net Zero Policies” Based on that report.
That’s a lot of money. And the trouble is it just gets worse. Two-Tier is very busy indeed getting Brexit undone. And he’s abandoned our lower Carbon (dioxide emissions) tax rates for alignment with those higher taxes of the EU; so bills will be going up again.
“Carbon Taxes in Europe, 2024”
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/carbon-taxes-europe-2024/
One look at that map tells you all you need to know about yet another wholly unnecessary threat to the livelihoods and jobs of ordinary folk. It isn’t good. But we are not dealing with a rational politician where Ed Miliband is concerned. He is the true believer’s true believer; a complete fanatic in every sense of the word.
“Ed Miliband has torn into Nigel Farage and the Tories for peddling dangerous “nonsense and lies” by suggesting the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.
…
With an eye on the local and mayoral elections in England on 1 May in which Reform hopes to turn its recent national poll leads into council seats, Miliband says Farage’s party and the Tories “make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda”.”.
…
Miliband adds in his Observer column that if the anti-net zero agenda were followed, it would not only risk “climate breakdown” but also “forfeit the clean energy jobs of the future” in this country, and with them a great opportunity for economic renewal.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/19/miliband-in-blistering-attack-on-farages-uk-net-zero-nonsense-and-lies
Ed was right to be worried about the elections. They got hammered by Reform.
“Starmer’s charm offensive to Reform voters hasn’t panned out too well. YouGov has just dropped a poll showing that only 4% of 2024 Reform voters are likely to consider voting for Labour. Despite 56% of Reform voters recognising Labour is trying to appeal to them, 79% say they would never vote for Labour. That’s up from 50% in July….” – Guido Fawkes.
People do not want net zero, the elites do. And they have the whip hand.
Talk about CLASSIC PROJECTION!
The tier 1 tactic for deflecting attention from one’s lies and malfeasance is to point fingers at others and accuse them of doing exactly what you are trying to hide.
The £220bn figure was independently calculated by John Constable at REF. That makes it pretty robust.
https://ref.org.uk/ref-blog/390-uk-renewable-electricity-subsidy-totals-2002-to-the-present-day
That’s interesting as I had just finished reading an article from The Carbon Brief which “fact checked” why the UK’s energy prices are so high and according to them it’s not renewables but gas.
There were a few things that they glossed over namely that France is cheaper but didn’t equate this to more nuclear than renewables, also that gas needs to be on standby because of unreliable renewables and the cost of balancing supply and demand. Of course there was nothing regarding domestic fracking.
Basically I found the article biasd and didn’t explore all the facts. Please don’t shoot the messenger.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-expensive-gas-not-net-zero-is-keeping-uk-electricity-prices-so-high/
The Carbon Grief is not a source of information but rather propaganda.
Yes, but it was how propaganda can used “fact check” to forward their agenda that I found interesting.
It would be great if someone who has a more technical grasp on the energy sector could fact check their fact check.
Increased dependence on intermittent, low energy density, and geographically dispersed wind and solar increases your system costs. More capacity is needed to meet expected demand, making gas power stations intermittent pushes up their costs and you need a more extensive grid to connect all the disparate parts. That’s why the UK now has electricity prices that are higher even than Germany’s.
Carbon Brief have long forgotten the truth.
Read Kathryn’s report. Add in John Constable’s that I linked above. They contain pretty much all the rebuttal you need.
So these idiots have spent £200 billion of OUR money for zero benefit. The sooner Millibrian et al are in the dock, the better.
I dare say someone – say, like Dale Vince – has even managed to buy up a football team…
“Since saving Forest Green from bankruptcy in 2010, the East Anglia-born West Country resident has transformed his local football club into the world’s first vegan and carbon-neutral team”
It must be a real barrel of laughs.
Do the players wear CO2 collection masks on the pitch? 🙂
Iron man and friends, perhaps?
Carbon footprint reduction news…
Manchester United and Tottenham fans clash before Europa League showdown
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/05/21/man-utd-tottenham-fans-clash-europa-league-final/
Where?
Bilbao in Spain, of course.
Remember, the wind and the sun are free.
This means that on cold winter nights with little wind, you can’t buy any wind power or solar energy.
Well, you can, that is until the supply is depleted.
/h
I don’t have detailed knowledge of the UK system, but my understanding is that wind and solar have grid priority and are paid fairly high prices based on feed in tariffs. It is very clear that neither of these can respond to load demand and mostly produce when not needed. Especially in the UK due to weather. This leads to negative pricing when the energy has to be disposed of.
The customers are going to have to pay both the cost of buying the energy and its disposal.
This also makes dispatch-able generation much more costly.
There is no magical way around this.
Enthusiast are always crowing about negative spot pricing as a virtue, but it is actually an additional cost that has to be paid by the consumer who cannot use it.
The Sea Green offshore wind farm in the North Sea is the table leader in the UK constraints payment league. It had it’s output curtailed 71% of the time in 2024. That is 3.3TWhs of its 4.7TWhs output was discarded at a cost to electricity consumers of £65m.
In total in its short life it has been paid £104m for generating and £ 262m to curtail and switch off
A crude oversimplified summary of UK energy policy right now, which though oversimplified gets to the heart of it, would be this:
First pay operators to put up wind or solar farms in places where there is no electricity demand. Then pay these operators not to produce electricity from them.
Then load the cost for this onto the consumer electricity bill for power delivered by operators who are supplying it to places where there is demand.
This will make Britain independent of foreign gas suppliers, create jobs, lower prices, and lead the world in its fight against climate change.
That’s the fight you read about every day, the one China is leading at the moment.
Yes, and it will lower prices too, did I say that already?
So the useful output of 1.4TWh cost £366m, or £261/MWh, not £74/MWh. Not exactly cheap – but these are the economics of the future of renewables as capacity is added. Most of it will be in hours that are already in surplus. It will add little to output in hours where other renewables are suffering from lack of wind or sun.
You just can’t get away from it, government screws up everything it touches.
It’s London to a brick-on that blackouts will soon arrive.
Most importantly Net Zero will do nothing to change the climate
NET ZERO FOLLY
As most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. It is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including hydro-electric, nuclear power and fracking to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. It was not warm in the Ordovician ice age when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than the 420 ppm it is now, which is also the level around which it is becoming “saturated”. Any increase leads to little heat control. Also there was no industrial revolution then to be the cause. The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases. Man has no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. This always varies a little in cycles as the earth’s axis of rotation varies. Most importantly, the Net-Zero (carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change the climate. Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21/2030, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.