We're already at 70%+ of our energy coming from non-fossil-fuel sources, much higher than I expected: https://grid.iamkate.com/
Just to be picky… electricity…
We've still got a lot to do to decarbonise the rest of our energy usage EVs, heat pumps, improving housing stock, electric trains etc
9,000kWh for electricity vs 16,000kWh for gas
That’s with charging an EV too.
Assuming 2/3 of residential heat demand transitions to heat pumps, and assuming an optimistic COP of 3 in the worst weather (highest flow temperatures, lowest air temperatures ... perhaps more like 2.5), then the power required to heat this fraction of houses is 2/3 / 3 = 2/9 of the mean gas demand. [0] linked report figure 1 shows a (smoothed by eyeball) demand of around 140GW "local gas demand" during the Beast from the East. This implies heat pumps would take over 31GW to power, which is more like 60% of the current UK electricity supply.
[0] https://ukerc.ac.uk/publications/local-gas-demand-vs-electri...
If we can drop the price of electricity enough it will naturally become the favoured choice for heating and transportation too.
Is it actually the case on an annualised basis? Or was it just the case when you looked at the live grid data? (There is also the issue with "biomass", which is wood imported from abroad to be burnt)
Those for it say it is cheaper electricity, those against it say it is more expensive electricity. The cult members of each side say these are indisputable facts.
All I know is that when the wind blows and the sun shines my electricity costs £0.00 (or less) - I expect this comes at some kind of cost however.
The median range is 15p-20p (60% of the time in December) and the UK "price cap" is about 26.35p.
With a tariff like that, shifting usage outside of 4pm-7pm can lead to massive savings. With our usage from the Octopus API, I can see from OctopusCompare that in the past month my effective average unit cost would be 19.24p/kWh, and we don't do any specific load shifting.
£0.00 and complete submission to china which produces 75% of solar panels, windmills and batteries to store their production
I am also not sure what you mean by "the Conservatives"...they started this about ten years ago. The issue was, something that was pointed out at the time, that they went into as a primarily political decision without any regard for the costs or trade-offs. The result has been much higher electricity prices. The position that Labour are taking is almost identical: anyone who disagrees with us a loon, pressers that are simultaneously obviously misleading and bombastic in the claims made (the presser for this has the head of a quango saying what a "stonking" job he is doing), and massive lobbyist intervention because of the need for subsidies (subsidies are now 4x the size of industry profits, almost all of the people quoted in the presser for this are lobbyists). Unfortunately, the reality of cult members is that they believe their cult is unique and special, and every other cult is wrong. This happened with the Tories ten years ago, it is happening with Labour now, in ten years it will be another party doing the same thing...it is how cults work.
This is not a matter of policy, but of physics. Producers are far from consumers, in both time and space. Wind turbines are dispersed and far from cities, wind doesn't blow when there is high demand. And yet, these sources are being plugged into a grid that was built over decades under completely different assumptions.
No wonder the energy prices are high.
Edit:
Since some people don't believe that this matters, I'm attaching some basic sources about current state of UK power grid and necessary upgrades.
https://electricalreview.co.uk/2024/09/20/survey-grid-connec...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp84yymxpjno
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68601354
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ofgem-approves-37-bi...
Even in the linked article:
>The 8.4GW secured at this latest auction just about keeps the offshore wind target in reach, several analysts have told the BBC. But all those projects will still need connecting to the grid to generate electricity.
>"Getting that amount of capacity online by 2030 [will be] extremely challenging," said Nick Civetta, project leader at the Aurora Energy Research think tank.
> Producers are far from consumers
Distance from London to the biggest windfarms are 350 km [1]
This is the same distance as from Miami to Orlando (in Florida). Do you really think it is a problem transmitting electricity this distance.
You should try look at the international connections in Europe. Some are longer than this.
The Viking link between UK and Denmark is 765 km.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in...
Existing grid has been built up with several high density sources, often very close to urban and industrial areas. Wind farms are, by their nature, neither of those.
There is enough material online about this issue. I'll gladly direct you to it.
https://electricalreview.co.uk/2024/09/20/survey-grid-connec...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp84yymxpjno
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68601354
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ofgem-approves-37-bi...
As you can see, this isn't a new concern, and it isn't something I made up. Then something about delays:
https://www.thetimes.com/static/green-energy-net-zero-nation...
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-cou...
Worked out very well in Germany, which is inspirational. Next up, get rid of the 5 remaining nuclear power plants.
They are also building a heap of new energy transmission infrastructure here, which for now is bringing a fair few new jobs to the area - and going forwards there will continue be jobs in ongoing maintenance.
Coupled with the cheaper energy they provide, it all feels like wins for me - I hope we see much more generation planned, and I agree - if this means we need less (or none) nuclear power in the future, that feels like another win.
pjc50•1h ago
No discussion of what grid upgrades are required, although increasing production near England should reduce that.
(by comparison, ongoing nuclear project Hinkley Point C is currently scheduled to come online some time around 2030, assuming no further delays)
beejiu•1h ago
kypro•1h ago
Wind farms can only generate electricity when it's windy. While you might be able to get cheaper energy from wind when it's windy, but unlike other technologies such as gas or nuclear with wind you still need to build out and maintain infrastructure for base power load when it's not windy.
Surely you need to factor that double build cost in with wind and solar since it's not required if you were to build out say nuclear power plants with similar output?
Or am I wrong?
ViewTrick1002•1h ago
The problem with for example new built nuclear power is that it is essentially only fixed costs. Therefore it does not complement renewables at all.
Why should someone buy expensive grid based nuclear power when renewables deliver?
We've seen people starting to muse on the "unraveling of the grid monopoly" now when renewables allow consumers to vote with their wallets rather than accepting whatever is provided.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Quiet-Unravel...
beejiu•1h ago
AndrewDucker•1h ago
tlb•1h ago
But it does happen, so you need backups. The good news is that natural gas backup generators are fairly cheap per peak megawatt. Most of the cost is drilling wells, liquifying gas, shipping it, unloading it, etc. All those other costs are much lower because the generators only run a small fraction of the time.
If you go to https://winderful.uk and set the date range to a year, you can get a sense of how many long dips there are.
littlestymaar•11m ago
The expected load factor for offshore wind power is around 50%. Much better than onshore wind (~35%) but still far from perfect. You can compensate some part of it by installing more power than what you need, but then you must pay for the unused capacity (£1.5B paid last year).
> And it's negatively correlated with solar: a day that's both cloudy and low-wind is very rare.
A day maybe, but in winter night last up to 16 hours. And wind droughts can last more than two weeks.
> But it does happen, so you need backups. The good news is that natural gas backup generators are fairly cheap per peak megawatt
But they have limited flexibility: you can't turn it on and off easily and there's limited power modulation you can do. That's why France keeps its gas output relatively constant in winter and do the modulation with nuclear despite its marginal cost being lower than gas.
youngtaff•1h ago
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/our-schemes/contracts-for-...