That's a relief. So Ofgem will be raising the price cap for '100% Green tariffs' in January and April by more than that for all other tariffs I imagine, considering the spiralling extra costs for companies having to purchase REGOs. My dirty 'brown' tariff won't be going up by nearly as much!
Price cap may drop as OFGEM use forward mkt pricing and thats currently has minimal movement over the measuring period so far.
Also with several new LNG plants commencing deliveries from 26/27 onwards gas is expected to drop back which would lower energy price cap and no doubt Millibrain will claim its because of his NZ plans. The other side to this is how long can the energy price cap be based on gas when unrelaibles are the dominant form of generation?
The cap is not based on gas. It includes all the extra costs from renewables in subsidies, balancing costs and extra grid costs, and other green spending such as smart meters and Ecohomes insulation. Only the gas element of a dual fuel bill is really based on gas (though that may change if they opt to make gas pricier to encourage heat pumps), and it's much cheaper.
As always a good analysis although one thing didn't seem quite right. You say:
'On Thursday morning, gas was producing two thirds of our electricity, but by 2030 Miliband wants gas to provide no more than 5% of our electricity over the course of a year.'
That's true, but isn't it comparing apples with pears? It would I suggest be more useful to compare Miliband's 5% with the 27% of gas actually provided over the course of the past 12 months. I think he (Miliband) would argue that much of that 27% will be replaced by new turbines and his reserve gas plants will be able to cover the inevitable and usually short periods when the wind is slack - in so doing generating no more than 5% over a year.
Low wind periods may usually be short but the system has to be able to handle the worst cases which long longer periods with little or no wind, like the current spell and others that run to weeks. Sailor and millers knew about wind droughts for centuries, even if they didn't realise they had continental extent. It is criminal that wind facilities were subsidised and mandate without checking wind supply. What is the reason? Is there any excuse? Paul
Britain and Germany bet the farm on wind power and lost.
By keeping gas as a backup and Millibrain openly acknowledges this by saying this on R4 on friday
“That’s why you have a strategic reserve of gas-fired power stations, why you have, for example, long-duration energy storage, why you have batteries, why you have nuclear,”
At least he gets that his hallowed NZ goal is NOT achievable but is being utterly deceptive to consumers in telling them he will save them £300/yr!!
This where journalists are failing across all the MSM not to challenge any of this. As for politicians none are interested with only Richard Tice doing something about it in HoC but Reforms credibility is shot with the majority of the public still so it wont be heard.
Anyhow i take solace in that at least the lights can be kept on as they will be retaining CCGTs as to how much that is going to cost hasn't been factored in looking the Clean Power report.
The 5% gas supply in 2030 is a pipe dream. According to DUKES 2024, renewables supplied 42% of UK electricity demand in 2023. Even if Miliband managed to achieve logistical impossibilities such as quadrupling offshore wind supply by 2030, it wouldn’t surprise me if, to avoid regular power cuts, CCGT gas supply had to rise pro rata with expanded wind and solar to perform grid balancing and backup on these intermittent renewables. Hence the grid share of renewables by 2030 might be not much different from what it is at present.
Yes, the gas back up – idle for most of the year – would have to be very substantial (rising pro rata with expanded wind) and would be hugely expensive. Worse still, it seems Miliband expects all these gas plants to be fitted with as yet unproven carbon capture and storage systems. It’s all quite mad and, as you say, logistically impossible. But, were it possible, at least the 5% reference could still be accurate.
Not quite but they expect any new gas generating unit underpinned by a 15yr Capacity Market agreement to be CCUS compatible from next years T-4 (29/30 delivery year). So i doubt anyone will be bidding for a 15yr contract yet with CCUS unproven. Thus they will have to keep rolling the 1 year contracts on existing CCGTs to get sufficient standby capacity and those owners are going to want a decent rate/MW to stay available given the declining running hours they will be experiencing. The baked in costs for 27/28 delivery year are already over 3.4B and with the T-1 top up yet to be added will likely exceed 4B its 1.3B this delivery year. So i can see by 2030 this exceeding 5B and all this is going on the bills so where on earth Millibrain is getting his £300 from is beyond me although that wasn't mention in Clean Power 2030 report!!
What Miliband is not disclosing is the plan to replace normal CCGT with untried and untested CCUS and even H2P hydrogen. Anything produced by these will be deemed green, even though the CCUS will consume 30% more methane and likely will fail, capturing just 40% of the CO2, leaving real emissions at 60%of 130%, or 78% of unabated generation. Only a remaining tranche of unabated OCGT will count as part of the 5%. The H2P will be excruciatingly costly. The recent DESNZ consultation were told that the plant would need a capacity payment on the order of £120/kW a year, on top of a basic marginal cost of over £500/MWh taking subsidised hydrogen paid £240/MWh as input. Suggestions included raising carbon taxes accordingly.
The other way to make it happen is using energy flexibly, Albert! (As Angela Rippon now advises in adverts). Already the talk is of upwards of 10GW of "flexibility" - basically power cuts because the supply is inadequate.
My intention here was simply to note that David Turver was comparing apples with pears: the 5% should be compared with the 27% actually achieved over the past 12 months and not with the huge percentages experienced last week.
But of course you’re right: in Mad Ed’s dreamworld (vastly more wind turbines backed up by more gas fired power incorporating practical CCUS systems) 5% is doubtless achievable, but in the real world his plans are hopelessly expensive and logistically unachievable.
You were quite right to draw attention to the discrepancy between an annual average and a spot reading. I thought it was useful to add some explanation of Miliband's legerdemain.
Thank you so much for that information. I've been wondering, especially this past high pressure week, how companies can claim 100% renewables when there is not enough to go round. Basically, whatever the price per gwh paid or offered, they can't.
For years the Dutch were buying pieces of paper from the Norwegians and saying they were green.
There was one significant event that increased pressure on the system on Thursday/Friday. The US allowed Ukraine to attack Russia with ATACMS, which resulted in Russia taking out most of what was left of the Ukrainian power system, including 5 out of 9 nuclear turbine output. As a consequence Ukraine called for emergency supplies from an already strained EU system with the resultant problems.
Demonstrating that there is no security of supply in the EU or UK. Trying the get out of a hole with a spade!
They were also firing up MPP3 with coal at Maasvlakte Rotterdam to feed the BritNed interconnector, which we pretended was supplying us with groene stroom. Put on the subtitles and have a laugh
Thank you David! I'd been dipping into gridwatch.co.uk this week with interest and seeing Dunkelflaute in action (or inaction). It showed very clearly that UK energy policy is now a belief system: between them, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy will somehow contrive to keep the lights on.
The fundamental requirement for a wind power system is reliable wind. I imagine that people planning irrigation schemes will check the water supply very carefully, including historical rainfall or snowfall records in the catchment area.
Meteorologists have long known that high pressure systems cause low winds.
Mariners at sea and millers on land must have known about prolonged low wind periods for centuriesl
Coal miners knew about them over a hundred years ago.
HG Wells wrote in 1901 ‘Wind was extremely inconvenient for the purpose of pumping [water from mines] because in these latitudes it is inconstant: it was costly, too, because “at any time the labourers might be obliged to sit at the pit’s mouth for weeks together whistling for a gale”.
So why did the recent Dunkelflautes come as a surprise?
The REGOs con meant that previously, energy suppliers could very cheaply offer '100% Green electricity' tariffs and not bother about how the electricity they were selling was actually generated. Now, with the rise in number of these tariffs, combined with the current worrying increase in winter wind droughts, the cost of REGOs has spiralled astronomically. It was £25 at the end of October. It must be even higher now, perhaps a lot higher. Supposedly, this extra cost will only be charged to customers currently on 100% renewables contracts. If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you. We're all going to be paying for this scam, basically driven by dishonest energy companies eager to parade their fake 'Green' credentials, plus idiotic, virtue-signalling customers also eager to parade their fake Green credentials no doubt by telling their fake Green soy latte sipping friends over dinner how clean, green and vegan their electricity is. Just like the Agile Octopus 'free energy' boasters who are now paying extortionate half hourly tariffs. Yes, they're paying for their stupidity, but pretty soon, all of us will be paying for their stupidity.
They went back to around £7 or £8 per MWh after spiking at £25, but they haven't crashed to 20p, which is what they started out at, just a few years ago. We have yet to see what they will be at the end of the latest Compliance Period (31/03/25).
A quick calculation on an assumed 100TWh total of domestic supply per annum to 27 million households shows an average load (8760h/annum) of around 400W (3500kWh/annum) so for any dip below 11GW in renewables output the 100% supply isn’t possible and that would be even more impossible at peak times.
A trawl through DESNZ DUKES & OFGEM typical domestic consumption values would give a more accurate picture, and the half hour periods where renewables supply was below the threshold can’t be hard to crunch.
This ability to supply 100% renewable electricity at all times to iirc close to 7 million consumers is yet another issue where Greg Jackson of Octopus has been questioned on many occasions. The 11GW mentioned above would be somewhere around 2.8GW for 7 million octopus customers.
While ‘chatty Greg’ loves to talk about purple and pink heat pumps & locational pricing that reduces ‘energy costs for all’ neither he in a personal capacity, nor Octopus themselves has never yet had the decency to reply on this 100% renewables all of the time point.
Sales to the domestic market aren't the end of the story. Companies and public bodies must all publish their emissions in their accounts. Those will depend on what their suppliers claim, adjusted by any extra greenwashing they buy.
It looks like the Advertising Standards Authority has received 3 complaints about Octopus Energy. However these were informally resolved and no rulings were published.
I don't think there's much evidence that wind and solar are getting cheaper. What we actually pay for generation increases because of index linking, which has outweighed any other factor. The costs for new Offshore Wind farms have not declined for several years, remains at about £2.75m per MW installed according to company accounts.
On the other hand adding more renewables to the system has increased many other costs. We have to invest extensively in pylons, interconnectors, substations, batteries and other grid stabilisation aids: more if these are needed the higher the proportion of renewables on the system. Wind has effectively driven out low cost nuclear which cannot tolerate being flexed up and down with the wind or sun. The flex is provided by gas, which gets to operate less efficiently in consequence.
We are now at the point where renewables output exceeds demand on windy nights or sunny summer Sundays. The excess production has no value, and yet renewables need to maintain their income by either increasing prices and subsidies for what they do sell or being paid a full price for curtailment.
The result of all this is that our prices are increasing. The curtailment factor will become increasingly important as capacity is expanded, driving up the effective cost of extra renewables to a multiple of uncurtailed cost.
Agreed ... I was only looking at capability…production acquisition costs… which as you say are overridden by install and application costs let alone all the costs to support reliability and flexibility shortfall. We have people that just look at production acquisition reducing and have no clue how bad the other 2 factors are in the whole picture.
Bottom line… W&S certainly on the grid is a disaster and only mildly useful in off grid non strategic situations…. Then if we look at how much CO2 is used to make them it will make you cry.
I'm confused about the way the REGO system works. It says that the REGOs are produced when there is a surplus of renewables but surely there isn't ever any excess electricity because what is generated is always used. The system has to be balanced at all times. So how can it happen that there is a surplus of renewable electricity?
Generators report their monthly metered output to OFGEM who check it with Elexon (the outfit that handles all the metering records ). OFGEM then records this in a database of certificates. After registration, certificates can be traded with the new ownership recorded by OFGEM. Traders may take a speculative position, or even buy as private individuals.
The only legal obligation relates to Fuel Mix Disclosure, which operates in arrears. REGOs issued in a financial year can be traded up to July to secure the annual greenwash volume that is then included in the FMD published by October. All retailers must publish their historic FMD. It is supposed to be consistent with the total supply they claimed to their customers to be backed by renewables over the year. Note that companies now also have an interest because they are required to report on their emissions in annual reports: these depend on what their supplier claimed, and on any extra REGOs they bought for greenwashing.
The OFGEM database of REGOs and ROCs is publicly accessible, and is a relatively easy way to find out what your local wind or solar farm generated in the past.
Thanks, sorry to be so dim. Doesn't it mean that there's a discrepancy in the totals at the end of the year. If octopus has to buy 100 MWH/gas but buys the equivalent of 100 MWH in REGO so that he can claim that it was really renewable. Doesn't it mean that someone who has actually bought 100MWH/renewable must actually say it was really gas otherwise the totals generated and sold won't tie up.
It means they can only claim for the REGOs they have bought, and any bought implicitly through a traded purchase of electricity (rather than directly from a generator). The full regulations are here
Your explanation isn't helping me understand anything about how there can be a surplus of electricity because if it doesn't get used, it disappears and is lost forever (unless stored in batteries, which you don't mention.)
Supply and demand have to remain closely matched at all times, otherwise the grid frequency will stray too far from its 50Hz target: that can cause serious damage to generators, grid equipment any many user appliances and result in blackouts.
However, when it's windy or very sunny we can now end up with more potential supply than demand. The extra must be curtailed.
“Curtailed” means it’s lost or wasted unless stored in batteries, right?
I have a little off grid solar system. When the battery is fully charged, any more sunshine gets stuck in my pv panels somehow - I’ve never quite understood why the panels don’t blow up or something when they’re getting a full dose of sunshine but the battery is already full and I’m not drawing any juice.
On sample selection of offshore windmills they are only reporting ROC certificates issued not REGO. So does this mean those sites don't have any REGO surplus to trade?
All renewables generators are entitled to REGOs once accredited. Some retailers are looking even at aggregating domestic outputs - but bear in mind that certificates are only issued in units of 1 MWh, and are not worth a lot so small domestic outputs are not worth the admin cost: a 4KWp set of panels will produce less than 4MWh per year.
REGOs may be handled by an appointed agent, so may not show against a specific generator. Also, where a wind farm is owned by a retailer group who intends to simply keep the REGOs for their own FMD there is no financial reason to register the REGOs until the end of the financial year and trading deadline. for inclusion in FMD. You need to look at an historic year to see what was finally registered.
I'm with you, Steve. It makes no sense to me. It seems to me that any"surplus" electricity is imaginary, since, as you say, what is generated has to be used. Electricity that is generated but not used (or stored in batteries) disappears into thin air. It ceases to exist, since electricity cannot be saved or stored (except in batteries, which weren't mentioned in this discussion.) The REGOs have to be a magician's trick to try to fool us.
Back in the summer Drax commented that REGOs were trading around £10-15/MWh, so that would imply current prices of around £5.50-8.00/MWh. Bear in mind that REGOs trade over a so called Compliance Period of a year to give plenty of elasticity in allocating them to supplied demand.
These prices are still way in excess of the EU equivalent GoO prices which have collapsed back to eurocents per MWh. Here's a recent EPEX auction
The UK disallowed the use of GoOs to meet REGO needs after Brexit (and vice versa). The question is will consumers demand a separate tariff that is REGO free if prices are adding significantly to bills? Would that come with security of supply when the wind doesn't blow, and would the REGO tariff include power cuts when renewables can't deliver? Would REGOs be made compulsory in much the same way as ROCs? (You get to pay whether you wanted them or not). Additional subsidy per MWh may not really be helpful when competition is eroding curtailment payments that are growing rapidly in volume: the new Clean Industry Bonus for AR7 is a backdoor Capacity Market payment, made regardless of generation.
I live in Oregon, USA. For about a year I've been trying to figure out how your system works and I still don't really understand it. It seems very complicated to me, and very like a con game.
To be clear for your readers, REGO cost is only added to a bill if it’s a green tariff. They are entirely optional, consumer choice in action!
That's a relief. So Ofgem will be raising the price cap for '100% Green tariffs' in January and April by more than that for all other tariffs I imagine, considering the spiralling extra costs for companies having to purchase REGOs. My dirty 'brown' tariff won't be going up by nearly as much!
Price cap may drop as OFGEM use forward mkt pricing and thats currently has minimal movement over the measuring period so far.
Also with several new LNG plants commencing deliveries from 26/27 onwards gas is expected to drop back which would lower energy price cap and no doubt Millibrain will claim its because of his NZ plans. The other side to this is how long can the energy price cap be based on gas when unrelaibles are the dominant form of generation?
The cap is not based on gas. It includes all the extra costs from renewables in subsidies, balancing costs and extra grid costs, and other green spending such as smart meters and Ecohomes insulation. Only the gas element of a dual fuel bill is really based on gas (though that may change if they opt to make gas pricier to encourage heat pumps), and it's much cheaper.
As always a good analysis although one thing didn't seem quite right. You say:
'On Thursday morning, gas was producing two thirds of our electricity, but by 2030 Miliband wants gas to provide no more than 5% of our electricity over the course of a year.'
That's true, but isn't it comparing apples with pears? It would I suggest be more useful to compare Miliband's 5% with the 27% of gas actually provided over the course of the past 12 months. I think he (Miliband) would argue that much of that 27% will be replaced by new turbines and his reserve gas plants will be able to cover the inevitable and usually short periods when the wind is slack - in so doing generating no more than 5% over a year.
Low wind periods may usually be short but the system has to be able to handle the worst cases which long longer periods with little or no wind, like the current spell and others that run to weeks. Sailor and millers knew about wind droughts for centuries, even if they didn't realise they had continental extent. It is criminal that wind facilities were subsidised and mandate without checking wind supply. What is the reason? Is there any excuse? Paul
Britain and Germany bet the farm on wind power and lost.
How are they going to recover?
All Not by building more windmills.
By keeping gas as a backup and Millibrain openly acknowledges this by saying this on R4 on friday
“That’s why you have a strategic reserve of gas-fired power stations, why you have, for example, long-duration energy storage, why you have batteries, why you have nuclear,”
At least he gets that his hallowed NZ goal is NOT achievable but is being utterly deceptive to consumers in telling them he will save them £300/yr!!
This where journalists are failing across all the MSM not to challenge any of this. As for politicians none are interested with only Richard Tice doing something about it in HoC but Reforms credibility is shot with the majority of the public still so it wont be heard.
Anyhow i take solace in that at least the lights can be kept on as they will be retaining CCGTs as to how much that is going to cost hasn't been factored in looking the Clean Power report.
Maybe so but, even if one swallows all the dubious Net Zero justifications, cost-benefit must surely be part of the argument?
The 5% gas supply in 2030 is a pipe dream. According to DUKES 2024, renewables supplied 42% of UK electricity demand in 2023. Even if Miliband managed to achieve logistical impossibilities such as quadrupling offshore wind supply by 2030, it wouldn’t surprise me if, to avoid regular power cuts, CCGT gas supply had to rise pro rata with expanded wind and solar to perform grid balancing and backup on these intermittent renewables. Hence the grid share of renewables by 2030 might be not much different from what it is at present.
Yes, the gas back up – idle for most of the year – would have to be very substantial (rising pro rata with expanded wind) and would be hugely expensive. Worse still, it seems Miliband expects all these gas plants to be fitted with as yet unproven carbon capture and storage systems. It’s all quite mad and, as you say, logistically impossible. But, were it possible, at least the 5% reference could still be accurate.
Not quite but they expect any new gas generating unit underpinned by a 15yr Capacity Market agreement to be CCUS compatible from next years T-4 (29/30 delivery year). So i doubt anyone will be bidding for a 15yr contract yet with CCUS unproven. Thus they will have to keep rolling the 1 year contracts on existing CCGTs to get sufficient standby capacity and those owners are going to want a decent rate/MW to stay available given the declining running hours they will be experiencing. The baked in costs for 27/28 delivery year are already over 3.4B and with the T-1 top up yet to be added will likely exceed 4B its 1.3B this delivery year. So i can see by 2030 this exceeding 5B and all this is going on the bills so where on earth Millibrain is getting his £300 from is beyond me although that wasn't mention in Clean Power 2030 report!!
What Miliband is not disclosing is the plan to replace normal CCGT with untried and untested CCUS and even H2P hydrogen. Anything produced by these will be deemed green, even though the CCUS will consume 30% more methane and likely will fail, capturing just 40% of the CO2, leaving real emissions at 60%of 130%, or 78% of unabated generation. Only a remaining tranche of unabated OCGT will count as part of the 5%. The H2P will be excruciatingly costly. The recent DESNZ consultation were told that the plant would need a capacity payment on the order of £120/kW a year, on top of a basic marginal cost of over £500/MWh taking subsidised hydrogen paid £240/MWh as input. Suggestions included raising carbon taxes accordingly.
The other way to make it happen is using energy flexibly, Albert! (As Angela Rippon now advises in adverts). Already the talk is of upwards of 10GW of "flexibility" - basically power cuts because the supply is inadequate.
My intention here was simply to note that David Turver was comparing apples with pears: the 5% should be compared with the 27% actually achieved over the past 12 months and not with the huge percentages experienced last week.
But of course you’re right: in Mad Ed’s dreamworld (vastly more wind turbines backed up by more gas fired power incorporating practical CCUS systems) 5% is doubtless achievable, but in the real world his plans are hopelessly expensive and logistically unachievable.
You were quite right to draw attention to the discrepancy between an annual average and a spot reading. I thought it was useful to add some explanation of Miliband's legerdemain.
Thank you so much for that information. I've been wondering, especially this past high pressure week, how companies can claim 100% renewables when there is not enough to go round. Basically, whatever the price per gwh paid or offered, they can't.
As for Ecotricity and Dale Vince,
I dont know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."
Yep, Lewis Carroll nailed this. We are living in Alice in Wonderland...
For years the Dutch were buying pieces of paper from the Norwegians and saying they were green.
There was one significant event that increased pressure on the system on Thursday/Friday. The US allowed Ukraine to attack Russia with ATACMS, which resulted in Russia taking out most of what was left of the Ukrainian power system, including 5 out of 9 nuclear turbine output. As a consequence Ukraine called for emergency supplies from an already strained EU system with the resultant problems.
Demonstrating that there is no security of supply in the EU or UK. Trying the get out of a hole with a spade!
They were also firing up MPP3 with coal at Maasvlakte Rotterdam to feed the BritNed interconnector, which we pretended was supplying us with groene stroom. Put on the subtitles and have a laugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW-VLPyxqAM
Zondag met Lubach - Groene Stroom
Thank you David! I'd been dipping into gridwatch.co.uk this week with interest and seeing Dunkelflaute in action (or inaction). It showed very clearly that UK energy policy is now a belief system: between them, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy will somehow contrive to keep the lights on.
With Ed Miliband as Tinkerbell.....
The fundamental requirement for a wind power system is reliable wind. I imagine that people planning irrigation schemes will check the water supply very carefully, including historical rainfall or snowfall records in the catchment area.
Meteorologists have long known that high pressure systems cause low winds.
Mariners at sea and millers on land must have known about prolonged low wind periods for centuriesl
https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf
Coal miners knew about them over a hundred years ago.
HG Wells wrote in 1901 ‘Wind was extremely inconvenient for the purpose of pumping [water from mines] because in these latitudes it is inconstant: it was costly, too, because “at any time the labourers might be obliged to sit at the pit’s mouth for weeks together whistling for a gale”.
So why did the recent Dunkelflautes come as a surprise?
The REGOs con meant that previously, energy suppliers could very cheaply offer '100% Green electricity' tariffs and not bother about how the electricity they were selling was actually generated. Now, with the rise in number of these tariffs, combined with the current worrying increase in winter wind droughts, the cost of REGOs has spiralled astronomically. It was £25 at the end of October. It must be even higher now, perhaps a lot higher. Supposedly, this extra cost will only be charged to customers currently on 100% renewables contracts. If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you. We're all going to be paying for this scam, basically driven by dishonest energy companies eager to parade their fake 'Green' credentials, plus idiotic, virtue-signalling customers also eager to parade their fake Green credentials no doubt by telling their fake Green soy latte sipping friends over dinner how clean, green and vegan their electricity is. Just like the Agile Octopus 'free energy' boasters who are now paying extortionate half hourly tariffs. Yes, they're paying for their stupidity, but pretty soon, all of us will be paying for their stupidity.
Not me, my electricity is 100% Buddhist.
Ohm Mani Padmi Ohm.
I chant it every time I plug something in.
Try to resist cheap humour
The October was 2023. Prices have crashed since.
They went back to around £7 or £8 per MWh after spiking at £25, but they haven't crashed to 20p, which is what they started out at, just a few years ago. We have yet to see what they will be at the end of the latest Compliance Period (31/03/25).
A quick calculation on an assumed 100TWh total of domestic supply per annum to 27 million households shows an average load (8760h/annum) of around 400W (3500kWh/annum) so for any dip below 11GW in renewables output the 100% supply isn’t possible and that would be even more impossible at peak times.
A trawl through DESNZ DUKES & OFGEM typical domestic consumption values would give a more accurate picture, and the half hour periods where renewables supply was below the threshold can’t be hard to crunch.
This ability to supply 100% renewable electricity at all times to iirc close to 7 million consumers is yet another issue where Greg Jackson of Octopus has been questioned on many occasions. The 11GW mentioned above would be somewhere around 2.8GW for 7 million octopus customers.
While ‘chatty Greg’ loves to talk about purple and pink heat pumps & locational pricing that reduces ‘energy costs for all’ neither he in a personal capacity, nor Octopus themselves has never yet had the decency to reply on this 100% renewables all of the time point.
Correction, 2023 total demand was 316.8TWh, domestic consumption was 92.6TWh so a little bit lower than I stated above.
Sales to the domestic market aren't the end of the story. Companies and public bodies must all publish their emissions in their accounts. Those will depend on what their suppliers claim, adjusted by any extra greenwashing they buy.
It looks like the Advertising Standards Authority has received 3 complaints about Octopus Energy. However these were informally resolved and no rulings were published.
https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html?q=Octopus#informally-resolved
It amazes me that we are still talking about and experiencing the disaster of W&S.
It’s the definition of insanity. …. doing the same things and expecting better results.
Process performance theory says you need 3 things for a high-performance process (to do anything.)
Capability, Flexibility and Reliability
Here is the W&S score card..
High capability… OK…W&S has got less expensive per unit of full load output.
High Flexibility…. Poor… Has no controllable relationship to real demand
High reliability…. Very Poor … only when the wind blows and the sun shines.
So 2 out of these 3 factors will never improve.. forget this technology other than very narrow uses.
Think…There are solid reasons why we went from sailing ships to steam and from washing tubs and lines to washing machines and dryers!
I don't think there's much evidence that wind and solar are getting cheaper. What we actually pay for generation increases because of index linking, which has outweighed any other factor. The costs for new Offshore Wind farms have not declined for several years, remains at about £2.75m per MW installed according to company accounts.
On the other hand adding more renewables to the system has increased many other costs. We have to invest extensively in pylons, interconnectors, substations, batteries and other grid stabilisation aids: more if these are needed the higher the proportion of renewables on the system. Wind has effectively driven out low cost nuclear which cannot tolerate being flexed up and down with the wind or sun. The flex is provided by gas, which gets to operate less efficiently in consequence.
We are now at the point where renewables output exceeds demand on windy nights or sunny summer Sundays. The excess production has no value, and yet renewables need to maintain their income by either increasing prices and subsidies for what they do sell or being paid a full price for curtailment.
The result of all this is that our prices are increasing. The curtailment factor will become increasingly important as capacity is expanded, driving up the effective cost of extra renewables to a multiple of uncurtailed cost.
Agreed ... I was only looking at capability…production acquisition costs… which as you say are overridden by install and application costs let alone all the costs to support reliability and flexibility shortfall. We have people that just look at production acquisition reducing and have no clue how bad the other 2 factors are in the whole picture.
Bottom line… W&S certainly on the grid is a disaster and only mildly useful in off grid non strategic situations…. Then if we look at how much CO2 is used to make them it will make you cry.
I'm confused about the way the REGO system works. It says that the REGOs are produced when there is a surplus of renewables but surely there isn't ever any excess electricity because what is generated is always used. The system has to be balanced at all times. So how can it happen that there is a surplus of renewable electricity?
Generators report their monthly metered output to OFGEM who check it with Elexon (the outfit that handles all the metering records ). OFGEM then records this in a database of certificates. After registration, certificates can be traded with the new ownership recorded by OFGEM. Traders may take a speculative position, or even buy as private individuals.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-and-social-schemes/renewable-energy-guarantees-origin-rego
The only legal obligation relates to Fuel Mix Disclosure, which operates in arrears. REGOs issued in a financial year can be traded up to July to secure the annual greenwash volume that is then included in the FMD published by October. All retailers must publish their historic FMD. It is supposed to be consistent with the total supply they claimed to their customers to be backed by renewables over the year. Note that companies now also have an interest because they are required to report on their emissions in annual reports: these depend on what their supplier claimed, and on any extra REGOs they bought for greenwashing.
The OFGEM database of REGOs and ROCs is publicly accessible, and is a relatively easy way to find out what your local wind or solar farm generated in the past.
Thanks, sorry to be so dim. Doesn't it mean that there's a discrepancy in the totals at the end of the year. If octopus has to buy 100 MWH/gas but buys the equivalent of 100 MWH in REGO so that he can claim that it was really renewable. Doesn't it mean that someone who has actually bought 100MWH/renewable must actually say it was really gas otherwise the totals generated and sold won't tie up.
If you're dim, I'm even dimmer. It kind of sounds to me like the imaginary surplus is being paid for twice.
It means they can only claim for the REGOs they have bought, and any bought implicitly through a traded purchase of electricity (rather than directly from a generator). The full regulations are here
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-electricity-fuel-mix-disclosure-regulations-2005
Your explanation isn't helping me understand anything about how there can be a surplus of electricity because if it doesn't get used, it disappears and is lost forever (unless stored in batteries, which you don't mention.)
Supply and demand have to remain closely matched at all times, otherwise the grid frequency will stray too far from its 50Hz target: that can cause serious damage to generators, grid equipment any many user appliances and result in blackouts.
However, when it's windy or very sunny we can now end up with more potential supply than demand. The extra must be curtailed.
“Curtailed” means it’s lost or wasted unless stored in batteries, right?
I have a little off grid solar system. When the battery is fully charged, any more sunshine gets stuck in my pv panels somehow - I’ve never quite understood why the panels don’t blow up or something when they’re getting a full dose of sunshine but the battery is already full and I’m not drawing any juice.
On sample selection of offshore windmills they are only reporting ROC certificates issued not REGO. So does this mean those sites don't have any REGO surplus to trade?
So who are the main source of REGOs?
All renewables generators are entitled to REGOs once accredited. Some retailers are looking even at aggregating domestic outputs - but bear in mind that certificates are only issued in units of 1 MWh, and are not worth a lot so small domestic outputs are not worth the admin cost: a 4KWp set of panels will produce less than 4MWh per year.
REGOs may be handled by an appointed agent, so may not show against a specific generator. Also, where a wind farm is owned by a retailer group who intends to simply keep the REGOs for their own FMD there is no financial reason to register the REGOs until the end of the financial year and trading deadline. for inclusion in FMD. You need to look at an historic year to see what was finally registered.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/REGO%20Guidance%20for%20generators%2C%20agents%20and%20suppliers.pdf
Arghh i think i get it now and thus in 100% renewable grid you wouldn't need them anymore!!
I'm with you, Steve. It makes no sense to me. It seems to me that any"surplus" electricity is imaginary, since, as you say, what is generated has to be used. Electricity that is generated but not used (or stored in batteries) disappears into thin air. It ceases to exist, since electricity cannot be saved or stored (except in batteries, which weren't mentioned in this discussion.) The REGOs have to be a magician's trick to try to fool us.
For clarity REGOs apply to every MWh of actual renewables generation aside from small domestic installations.
I want to buy my electricity from a supplier who will give me cheap electricity regardless of it’s origin.
So do I
For £400 a month you can get a weekly update on REGO prices from this crew: pity their chart lacks a y-axis
https://renewable.exchange/blog/uk-rego-prices-drop-45-between-august-and-november-2024/
Back in the summer Drax commented that REGOs were trading around £10-15/MWh, so that would imply current prices of around £5.50-8.00/MWh. Bear in mind that REGOs trade over a so called Compliance Period of a year to give plenty of elasticity in allocating them to supplied demand.
These prices are still way in excess of the EU equivalent GoO prices which have collapsed back to eurocents per MWh. Here's a recent EPEX auction
https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-results?market_area=&auction=&trading_date=2024-11-27&delivery_date=&underlying_year=&modality=Mgo&sub_modality=&technology=&data_mode=table&period=&production_period=
The UK disallowed the use of GoOs to meet REGO needs after Brexit (and vice versa). The question is will consumers demand a separate tariff that is REGO free if prices are adding significantly to bills? Would that come with security of supply when the wind doesn't blow, and would the REGO tariff include power cuts when renewables can't deliver? Would REGOs be made compulsory in much the same way as ROCs? (You get to pay whether you wanted them or not). Additional subsidy per MWh may not really be helpful when competition is eroding curtailment payments that are growing rapidly in volume: the new Clean Industry Bonus for AR7 is a backdoor Capacity Market payment, made regardless of generation.
I live in Oregon, USA. For about a year I've been trying to figure out how your system works and I still don't really understand it. It seems very complicated to me, and very like a con game.
Yes, it's very difficult to understand and most of it is a con.
Another excellent analysis, thank you David, I've invested in yet more candles.