UK Energy Prices

[Taf]

Octopus starts to limit cheap charging

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umni9zvW1P4

[thenry]

It's environmentally friendly. I don't understand the concern tbh.

[Taf]

Originally Posted by thenry

It's environmentally friendly. I don't understand the concern tbh.

From my latest Scottish Energy bill: 70% gas

We dont have any coal power stations anymore, so that seems out of date.

[Taf]

Originally Posted by Paul

We dont have any coal power stations anymore, so that seems out of date.

But we do buy electricity from the continent where they still burn coal.

[Carth]

Same with a lot of stuff, we're saving the planet by importing stuff from halfway round the World

[nomadking]

Weird that at the moment we are importing electricity from Europe to send it to Ireland and Norway. It's also being used to operate pumped hydro systems, which I thought ran at night to use up surplus nighttime electricity in order for the energy to be released during the day.
Gridwatch

Originally Posted by Taf

But we do buy electricity from the continent where they still burn coal.

We import mostly from France, Denmark, Belgium etc, and not much of that is produced by coal either (esp in France).
All the current figures knocking about seem to relate to 2024/25, when we still used coal ourselves.

---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 14:49 ----------

Originally Posted by nomadking

Weird that at the moment we are importing electricity from Europe to send it to Ireland and Norway. It's also being used to operate pumped hydro systems, which I thought ran at night to use up surplus nighttime electricity in order for the energy to be released during the day.

We appear to have a daytime surplus atm, the current [Octopus] Agile price is negative.

We are mostly always importing and exporting, due to where electricity is needed v generated, its not always possible to distribute it internally.

[Dingbat]

A lot depends on when you look at what is generating energy.

Currently, 6.6% Gas, 71.5% Renewables, 12.4% Nuclear/Biomass

https://grid.iamkate.com/

Similar, from another site.

[SnoopZ]

VAT on Electricity bills axed from October 2026.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgrkv8e8l9qt

[Dingbat]

A good first step. Now uncouple energy pricing, so that cheaper wind and solar, and nuclear, generation isn’t priced based on the cost of gas.

[Carth]

Last week I rang my electricity supplier to complain discuss a begging letter I'd received.

During the conversation I casually mentioned the 'free' green energy that so obviously has been produced in the last couple of months . . he agreed there was a lot of it, with the caveat it that much of it was 'wasted' due to being unable to store it efficiently.

They’re working on it…

https://www.drax.com/press_release/u...he-first-time/

Battery storage has reached a major milestone in Britain’s energy transition, with installed battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity surpassing the country’s nuclear generating capacity for the first time, according to the latest analysis from Drax Electric Insights.

The report, produced independently by academics from Imperial College London and commissioned by Drax, highlights the growing role battery storage is playing in supporting Britain’s electricity system as demand for flexible power continues to grow.

Installed battery capacity has risen from just 10 MW to nearly 7 GW in under a decade, now exceeding the combined capacity of Britain’s nuclear reactor fleet.

From Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s FB page

One country just approved sixteen new energy storage projects that will nearly triple how much electricity it can store for later use.

Britain's energy regulator Ofgem backed 16 long-duration energy storage projects totaling 7.6 gigawatts of power output, a decision expected to nearly triple the country's total storable electricity capacity. The United Kingdom currently has about 10 gigawatts of grid battery capacity capable of delivering roughly 18 gigawatt-hours of power, plus four pumped hydro sites offering an additional 24 gigawatt-hours, together enough to meet total national demand for only about an hour.

These new projects will add more than 46 additional gigawatt-hours of storage capacity, more than all of Britain's existing grid storage combined, though the funding decision leaned heavily on large-scale pumped hydro and lithium-ion batteries rather than newer emerging storage technologies. With battery costs falling quickly and nuclear power growing more expensive and delayed, energy analysts have argued there's a strong case for the UK to diversify further into a wider range of storage technologies, including hydrogen, in the years ahead.

Britain's massive storage expansion reflects a broader recognition that as wind and solar generation continues growing, having enough capacity to store that electricity for use when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining has become just as critical as building the generation itself.

Source: No2NuclearPower, 2026

[GrimUpNorth]

There're plenty of old mine shafts in the UK and I'd be very surprised if none were suitable for Gravity Based Energy Storage.