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Britain today generating 90%+ of electricity from renewables

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

#51

Post by jordand »

traceroute66 wrote: post #31
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…

> 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

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

#52

Post by sam345 »

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.

Meaning it's supply. Overall dupply low because fossil fuels discouraged and penalized, demand high, price high.

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

#53

Post by teamonkey »

jackpeterfletch wrote: post #40
AlexandrB wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who's working on fixing it? It's not like "the price is fixed to the price of gas" is some iron law of nature. Meanwhile you have folks seeing these three things together: - England is 90% renewables - Renewables are a really cheap source of energy. - England has very high energy prices. And the obvious conclusion is that someone is lying. It's eroding support for renewables among those that don't have time to inv…

My understanding is that legislation is in the works to fix that. But we’ll see.

Yesterday it was announced that a trial would take place so that regions near wind farms can receive free energy from them in periods of curtailment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodNewsUK/s/jG5OCSWTTy

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

#54

Post by traceroute66 »

nicoburns wrote: post #45
RobinL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would additional storage make a significant difference to the price of gas?

Presumably because the price is a volatile, and storage gives you more flexibility around when you buy.

> Presumably because the price is a volatile, and storage gives you more flexibility around when you buy.

I will give credit to the person who got there before me. :)

Smoothing out price volatility is a big one.

But also it gives you options:

You can buy it "today" when its cheap and store it for when you need it (e.g. winter months).

You can also trade on that basis too. For example you can make a future-dated commitment to buy gas (knowing you have the storage available to take delivery). But if the situation changes and you later find you don't need it, you can sell that contract to someone else (or you can still take delivery and re-sell it). But you can't do any of that without having the ability to take delivery, because the person who sold you that future-dated contract will want both your money and to get the gas they sold you off their hands.

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

#55

Post by mytailorisrich »

pydry wrote: post #48
mytailorisrich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK (and Europe) could produce much more gas and consequently control prices if they wanted. It is easy to always blame the previous government(s) but the current situation is policy across Western Europe. Edit: puzzled by the blunt downvotes for stating a noncontroversial fact. Over the last 15 years the US has invested in shale gas while the UK and EU have banned it. Even today the UK refuses expension of North…

It takes time though and it's hard to anticipate geopolitical shocks like the war in Ukraine and Iran.

No, this has nothing to do with either. It is policy in the UK and EU not to produce gas on environmental and decarbonisation grounds, and so in fact high priced are policy.

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

#56

Post by hvb2 »

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…

Sure, but those same free markets will happily see those expensive producers go out of business. In the electricity scenario, that would mean blackouts.

If you triple the price, you don't have a new gas plant appear out of thin air. And the result won't really be lower consumption either, because most people would have fixed rate contracts (not in the UK so don't know specifically, but this is very common elsewhere)

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

rurounijones wrote: post #10
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…

Electricity pricing in the UK is dictated largely by the price of Gas. This is a good video that goes into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEnFmrgEbWo

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by indubioprorubik »

stingraycharles wrote: post #34
indubioprorubik wrote: post #22

And thats not how good renewables are- thats how deindustrialized britain has become. And deindustrialization leads to debt slavery - and debt slavery either leads to passing on that bitter chalice to others (empire) or to becoming a colony.

> deindustrialization leads to debt slavery Ok I’ll bite — how? Surely not because manufacturing is the only way to create value?

As you denindustrialize, your normal working class population rebells - demanding its lifestyle to remain untouched- thus subsidized by the state. So the state either prints money costing the world (us-model) or it prints money- costing the future. As this happens and future generations get poorer- the idea to lend from foreign "investors" which then take over your country becomes the default solution - until you are a debt colony, owned by those lending you money.

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

#59

Post by mytailorisrich »

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

The current government is banning wind turbines factories and billions of Pounds in investments because "China". It is too easy to blame the previous government(s) when the current one has no strategic thinking or plan, either.
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