Renewable's overtake gas in the UK supply for last winter

[Moxi]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/r ... 80ba&ei=10

[AE-NMidlands]

Agreed, but I noticed

“The price of gas is set by international markets, so the choice for the UK is stark: Boost British renewables and achieve clean power or import more gas at a price we can’t control.”

How long will it be before UK electricity prices are detatched from international gas prices? I suspect never, as it pays too well for the usual suspects.

[dan_b]

when we finally stop burning the stuff I guess?

Agreed, but I noticed

“The price of gas is set by international markets, so the choice for the UK is stark: Boost British renewables and achieve clean power or import more gas at a price we can’t control.”

How long will it be before UK electricity prices are detatched from international gas prices? I suspect never, as it pays too well for the usual suspects.

[Moxi]

The reality will probably be that as the market for spinning reserve from gas gets smaller the capitol investment of new plant will skew the economics making private investment less attractive which in turn will force the government to intervene OR opening the door for alternative forms of spinning reserve to be implemented.

I think it will be much clearer, within the decade, as to what the "new" UK grid will be comprised of but I foresee much more green generation playing its part.

As I tend to bang on many times - we can and should invest in the grid and regional manufacturing hubs to dispense with curtailment of generation when we have surplus. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to stop generating energy when its freely available.

Building factories and services that can be instantly ramped up and down in the MW range adjacent to grid power nodes would offer a means to manage grid load and convert low price electrical energy in to high value goods for export. It would need a degree of flexibility and would benefit highly automated process lines but the benefits are clear, grid stability and a globally competitive manufacturing base.

Moxi

[AE-NMidlands]

Agreed, but I noticed

“The price of gas is set by international markets, so the choice for the UK is stark: Boost British renewables and achieve clean power or import more gas at a price we can’t control.”

How long will it be before UK electricity prices are detatched from international gas prices? I suspect never, as it pays too well for the usual suspects.

when we finally stop burning the stuff I guess?

So that's not for the forseeable future, then. Aren't they deliberately keeping gas generation available for peaks of demand? And tying the retail price to the last-to-cut-in / highest-price generator?

[Countrypaul]

Agreed, but I noticed

How long will it be before UK electricity prices are detatched from international gas prices? I suspect never, as it pays too well for the usual suspects.

when we finally stop burning the stuff I guess?

So that's not for the forseeable future, then. Aren't they deliberately keeping gas generation available for peaks of demand? And tying the retail price to the last-to-cut-in / highest-price generator?

Presumably as we move away from gas, the gas generation will become more expensive as the plant still needs maintaining but is generating less so the price of the elecric will become disproportionately high resulting in a windfall for some - goverment due to the CfDs?

[Mart]

At least Europe is trying to reduce gas consumption, but I assume until demand has dropped to a level below the need for any Russian gas (and the LNG imports we are relying on a lot at the moment), it will remain high?

I seem to recall a figure of 30%-40% of European consumption, coming from Russia, so presumably we need to cut consumption/demand by 30%-40% to 'normalise' prices again?

At least the acceleration of shifting away from FF's, will bring some benefits in the medium/long term, but it's a very painful short term.

[dan_b]

Thought gas imports from Russia basically collapsed when the Nordstream pipeline mysteriously blew up?
Although I imagine there are other pipelines?

[Mart]

Thought gas imports from Russia basically collapsed when the Nordstream pipeline mysteriously blew up?
Although I imagine there are other pipelines?

Yep, what I meant was that there's a shortage of supply, pushing up the price. If Europe drops its consumption by 30-40%, then that negates the loss of Russian gas, and prices should go back to where they were before. And better still each year after, as gas is pushed off the European grid.

[nowty]

Gas prices are back where they were before, as cheap as a decade ago, and if inflation adjusted, it would be even cheaper.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas