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What if we used more of Scotland’s wind power instead of paying wind farms to switch off?

One of the most frustrating features of today’s electricity system is that, at times of high renewable generation in Scotland, we pay Scottish wind farms to reduce their output whilst simultaneously turning up generation elsewhere in Great Britain. And we do that when there are opportunities to make good use of that power in Scotland. […]

What is the Strategy for the SSEP?

Last month’s publication of the UK Government’s Reformed National Pricing Delivery Plan is an important step in the long-awaited evolution of electricity market reform. Alongside recent publications from Ofgem and NESO, many of the key building blocks needed for a more strategically planned system are emerging. But despite that progress, there remains a huge amount

Economic curtailment: understanding its scale and impact

As part of today’s reformed national pricing process, there is an acute focus on reducing network curtailment, the renewable generation we have to switch off due to grid constraints, and the cost of replacing it with non-renewable generation elsewhere. In this working paper, I look at a different type of curtailment: oversupply of renewables, when

How far does the power need to go? The impact of GB-wide transmission network capacity on wind curtailment and access to low carbon electricity

This project explores the question of how much capacity on the national, main transmission network is economically efficient given the likely capacity, type and spatial distribution of generation and the magnitude and location of demand in a decarbonised electricity system.