It's almost certainly just arbitrage. If there's a profit to be made by buying electricity from Europe at a lower price than re-selling it to France then that's what will happen. Just like the big battery not far from us. That earns revenue in the same way, it buys cheap rate electricity to charge and doesn't start to discharge to the grid until such time as there is enough profit from doing so to make it worthwhile.Mart wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:43 amCould it be that demand and generation in the UK and the ability to move it internally, isn't matching exactly at the moment. So import in some areas, and export elsewhere. But not necessarily the same leccy (so to speak) using the UK as a way to get to France?Oldgreybeard wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:32 am Doesn't explain the simultaneous import from Europe and almost equal magnitude export to France, though. If anything that makes the system slightly less stable, because over 3GW is flowing into the UK and then back out again after having passed through our own distribution network.
Obviously I'm totally guessing, and I'm ignoring the Irish imports, as that's probably down to high wind at the same time, so the UK can take advantage or transfer it (for arbitrage) to mainland Europe.
As I said a few days ago, I find this stuff so, so interesting. I also said France would want the leccy, but yesterday we were importing it, so clearly I can't work out the whys.
My guess is that France finds it cheaper to buy via the UK interconnects than it does to buy from elsewhere in Europe, and that's most probably down to the capacity of interconnections within Europe, amongst other things.
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