When the wind does not blow and sun ....

[Ken]

If we use only 5% of the gas does this mean the price of leccy will go up 20X . Much of the cost is in the plants etc not the gas. We will need to keep nearly all the plants to get the capacity. Does not sound like a vote winner.

[Moxi]

Nothing wrong with Magnox, it did the job it was designed to do perfectly well ! Its just that the primary job wasn't actually to produce electricity thats all ............... In fact its fair to say that we still have a stockpile of Magnox primary output sat somewhere to in secure storage, they were so good at it that we have more than enough for ourselves and to fulfil our obligations to some other countries.

Why does Tidal need to be a money pit ? the UK has excellent credentials working in the marine environment ? Needs some reasoned arguments to discuss rather than throw away comments ?

Moxi

[Swwils]

Haha yes very true.

[dan_b]

Yeah and look at the energy price, we are very lucky we don't make anything here"

You know full well the reason why the UK's average wholesale electricity cost is higher than in Europe and it's to do with how our electricity "market" is currently designed.

If you went to the supermarket and bought 3 things - a Twix for £1, a sandwich for £2.50 and a bottle of Whiskey for £25, you'd be livid if they charged you £75 at the checkout wouldn't you? And yet that's basically how our electricity system works. Change that, and suddenly our wholesale electricity prices will be much closer to the rest of our neighbours.

[Swwils]

We have both the highest industrial and domestic energy prices out there.

It's not exclusively because of how our market is designed.

Building out intermittent source with "free" peaking is wot has done it in.

If they did nodal pricing you'd quickly cripple any new wind project. Which just goes to show how physically valueless that generation is.

Offshore wind strike prices are set at auction; not by the price of gas.

FYI Balancing Mechanism was £2.46bn last year and Capacity Market was £793m. That's about £500 per home for weather mismatching, curtailment and backup payments. So your own inflationary effects on energy are your justification for your energy? It's expensive as.

[dan_b]

And your solution then is what? Let's hear it.

[Swwils]

We could just drop a large ice cube in the ocean every year, slightly bigger each time hence solving the problem once and for all.

[dan_b]

Right ok.

[Swwils]

Once and for all!

[resybaby]

Well despite all the PV on my roof, very low leccy usage, ive never seen my battery stack so low after seemingly days of grey skys.
If it could cry, im sure id be awash with tears.

Didnt Joeboy say leccy in Turkey was 3p a unit the other day?

Me thinks we get well and truly stiffed by the 'market'.