Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables • Hacker News Board

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#81

Post by skippyboxedhero » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

jordand wrote: post #51

traceroute66 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or actually brcause gas is expensive. Gas in the UK is expensive because the Tories spent decades selling off the storage so developers could turn them into real estate. This continued well into the 2000's when, for example the lettuce (Truss) closed the Rough storage facility in 2017. Gas in the UK is expensive because of 1980's privitisation. Another one of the Tory's great ideas. The UK privitisation model is de…

Exactly, and the Tories banned onshore wind, and refused to really invest in offshore wind. We've got the North Sea and its perfect for wind farms we should have had for decades

They didn't refuse to invest in offshore wind. Tories were the ones who started this ball rolling in the mid-2010s by breaknecking the removal of non-renewable energy production without any clear plan.

The issue with offshore wind is that it isn't always windy. If you look at modelling with energy system with a high proportion of offshore wind, you need other sources of energy which often isn't factored into the economic return of the original investment.

We are doing this because, for some reason, we have decided there is political capital in paying out these huge subsidies to large companies to produce expensive energy. I would think that would be obvious when the UK has extremely high electricity prices and renewable production is very high...where do you think the money is going? It is going to subsidise inefficient and expensive supply.

Also, one of the primary issues with the UK is that the political system heavily incentivizes people to blame "the other side" for these issues. The Tories were extremely aggressive in moving towards green energy but people who vote for Labour, because they support green energy, will have to believe the opposite. There are other posts on this chain that also blame the Tories for things that didn't happen. In this system, it is very hard for anything good to happen and is how you end up with someone like Starmer who appears to have almost no opinions on anything other than staying in power and keeping the gravy train going for the lads. Not serious. Expect things to get significantly worse.

Our electricity prices are much higher than anywhere else. I remember reading research last year that the cost of government intervention in so high that if gas prices tapered to zero, electricity prices would not fall. It is going to get much, much, much worse.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#82

Post by collinmcnulty » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

ghighi7878 wrote: post #4

nickslaughter02 wrote: post #3

> Britain paying highest electricity prices in the world for second year running > Ed Miliband’s net zero targets are facing fresh scrutiny after Britain was found to be paying the highest electricity prices in the developed world. > New data published on Tuesday showed the price paid by UK industry for power was 63pc higher than in France and 27pc higher than in Germany. > Britain is also the second-most expensive c…

Yes. But these things can be orthogonal. Or actually brcause gas is expensive. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro The price for wholesale electricity is set by a bidding process, with each generating company saying what it would be willing to accept to produce a unit of electricity. Once built, the cost of generating power from renewables is very low, so these typically come in with the cheapest bid. Nucl…

Which, importantly, drives more renewables and storage development because it makes the renewables fantastically profitable to run: near zero cost for you, but paid the price set by gas.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#83

Post by HPsquared » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

danw1979 wrote: post #74

goldenarm wrote: post #46

These titles are misleading, they always omit the rest of the grid and the final carbon footprint. In March, the UK emitted 161g CO2/kWh. France did 6 times less CO2/kWh with 2x less renewables ! https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/12mo/monthly

Because nuclear. Which is a great 20th century French achievement ! If the EPR2 doesn’t spiral into costing £17.5bn per unit as the UK-PWR has, perhaps we can get them in to “rustle me up a nuclear power station” or two, in the words of Tony Blair.

https://youtu.be/Gq-l07XmQVc

Just needs a bit of "4be2be4be2be", we can do that!

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#84

Post by roenxi » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

ghighi7878 wrote: post #4

nickslaughter02 wrote: post #3

> Britain paying highest electricity prices in the world for second year running > Ed Miliband’s net zero targets are facing fresh scrutiny after Britain was found to be paying the highest electricity prices in the developed world. > New data published on Tuesday showed the price paid by UK industry for power was 63pc higher than in France and 27pc higher than in Germany. > Britain is also the second-most expensive c…

Yes. But these things can be orthogonal. Or actually brcause gas is expensive. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro The price for wholesale electricity is set by a bidding process, with each generating company saying what it would be willing to accept to produce a unit of electricity. Once built, the cost of generating power from renewables is very low, so these typically come in with the cheapest bid. Nucl…

They aren't orthogonal - the reason that gas is being used is because renewable can't reliably power the grid! If you look at something like https://grid.iamkate.com/ you can see that in the last 24 hours the gas peak is when the wind dies down and the sun isn't shining, around 6-8pm. Happens to be a real price peak at that time. This isn't some weird and unexpected outcome, we've had at least a decade of evidence with this sort of low-wholesale-high-retail price dynamic.

That isn't gas is expensive, it is simply policy that the UK, rather naively, is trying to run their grid 24/7 based on processes that are not available 24/7. That is an expensive trick to try and pull off. Poor people need a way to signal that they won't use electricity in the evening if they want to be able to afford power is my read on the situation. Not very civilised but if that is how the UK approaches reliable cheap energy as a target then it seems the most reasonable outcome.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#85

Post by dotancohen » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

eliben wrote: post #5

ghighi7878 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But these things can be orthogonal. Or actually brcause gas is expensive. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro The price for wholesale electricity is set by a bidding process, with each generating company saying what it would be willing to accept to produce a unit of electricity. Once built, the cost of generating power from renewables is very low, so these typically come in with the cheapest bid. Nucl…

California is a great example; highest electricity prices in the US (not counting Hawaii, which makes sense) despite significant hydro and fantastic solar capacity. In the last few years California runs 100% renewable on many days (and growing) every year. Economics 101: prices are not set by what goods cost to create + markup. Prices are set by how much people are willing to pay.

I know nothing about California so please correct me if I'm wrong.

You mention significant hydro and solar capacity in California. So minimal carbon externality: lung disease and climate change. If you consider that externalised cost into the cost of electricity elsewhere, does not California and other renewable-rich electric grids fare more competitive on price?

E.g. the problem is not the expensive renewables in California, rather, the problem is that the cost of declining human and animal health and climate change is externalised for the fossil fuel.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#86

Post by Havoc » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

This is great. Yes, plenty of challenges around this remain but the direction of travel is hugely positive.

Bit more advances in grid scale storage, bit more interconnects and this looks real good

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#87

Post by traceroute66 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #72

traceroute66 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or actually brcause gas is expensive. Gas in the UK is expensive because the Tories spent decades selling off the storage so developers could turn them into real estate. This continued well into the 2000's when, for example the lettuce (Truss) closed the Rough storage facility in 2017. Gas in the UK is expensive because of 1980's privitisation. Another one of the Tory's great ideas. The UK privitisation model is de…

The study you have linked is completely wrong. There is no international market for gas because export/import is physically complex. This is why gas is priced very differently despite it being chemically similar (unlike oil). Anyone who says anything different should be immediately disregarded as someone who should not have an opinion. This is technically true for oil but there are two other factors. One, importing o…

> paying huge amounts of carbon to import from the Middle East is a good idea

You are wrong here.

UK oil has a very high carbon footprint.

British North Sea oil is sour (high in sulphur). It is the "wrong" type of oil for UK refineries. So it gets sent to other countries around the world for refining.

UK oil is viscous, waxy, crude which needs to be heated to pipe it. This means it takes a lot of energy to pipe (hello carbon footprint !) and it is not compatible with UK refineries anyway, so it has to be moved overseas (hello carbon footprint !!).

UK crude is nothing like Norwegian crude and massively different from the stuff drilled in the Middle East which requires barely any refining in comparison.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#88

Post by sega_sai » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

nickslaughter02 wrote: post #3

> Britain paying highest electricity prices in the world for second year running > Ed Miliband’s net zero targets are facing fresh scrutiny after Britain was found to be paying the highest electricity prices in the developed world. > New data published on Tuesday showed the price paid by UK industry for power was 63pc higher than in France and 27pc higher than in Germany. > Britain is also the second-most expensive c…

This is Telegraph for you. The cost of electricity is not driven by green levies or net zero targets, but by gas prices, as gas is a backstop when all other sources are exhausted. Therefore electricity prices are pretty much tied to gas.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#89

Post by teamonkey » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

rlpb wrote: post #38

hvb2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read this before and I don't understand how this doesn't become/is untenable. Doesn't this mean that solar/wind are insanely lucrative? Also, this would mean that in order to really bring the price down, gas needs to be taken out as a source. But gas is typically the source that balances the grid because its output can be changed quickly. So price wise, you might get a drop but you would lose your ability to rea…

> Doesn't this mean that solar/wind are insanely lucrative? This is how markets are supposed to work. It provides an economic incentive for production to increase, which is what we want. Consider what happens if you develop a farming method to produce potatoes for a fraction of the usual cost, but you can only meet 10% of total demand at your local market. What price are you going to sell your potatoes for when you s…

Yes, but here’s the thing: you don’t have a monopoly over your potato farming method. Lots of new farms are built, and the more that do, the more the average price of a potato drops. Your expected return starts to drop. Yours - and everyone else’s - profit margins get squeezed.

Investors begin to refuse to build new potato farms because a return on their investment gets worse whenever anyone decides to build a new farm.

But the people need potatoes and more potato farms! The government issues an incentive scheme to guarantee a minimum price for each potato sold. Potential farm owners bid against each other for the lowest price, but it means they can build a farm and expect to break even.

Re: Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

#90

Post by callamdelaney » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

mono442 wrote: post #50

thebruce87m wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow? It’s a well established and publicised fact that it’s due to the price of gas. It’s so well established that anyone posting a comment here about the high price of electricity without mentioning it has an ulterior motive.

It's not only the price of gas but also the price of the co2 emissions. I'm really surprised the uk didn't get rid of it when they left the eu. It's one of the most stupid things possible. It only makes everything more expensive.

That would make British people less poor for once so they decided against it. Managed economic decline and mass immigration go hand in hand with globalism and ‘global warming’ extremists.