Supporting the whole energy system - Simon Gill
Supporting the whole energy system - Simon Gill
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. […]
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
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
The Administrative Strike Price (ASP) for wind has risen sharply this round. The main driver? It appears to be lower assumed load factors in DESNZ’s modelling — a change that appears to add between £19/MWh and £33/MWh. Several changes complicate AR6 vs AR7 comparisons: AR6 assumed a very high offshore wind net load factor of
I have updated my open-source analysis of Scottish Onshore wind carried out with Regen! … The positive news is that the analysis shows onshore wind farms in north Scotland remain investable in our base case. But this relies on optimistic assumptions about future policy and regulation, particularly locational costs.
Is an onshore wind farm in Scotland investable in early 2025? It is an important question. Clean Power 2030 needs 13 GW of new onshore wind by 2030, potentially 10 GW in Scotland. Full details, the report and the open source spreadsheet are available via Regen’s website. My answer, in this ‘open-source’ paper produced with
The objective of this paper is to review a wide range of options that could be incorporated into a reformed national market and help the government make a well-informed decision on which market structure to take forward.