Cornwall Insight wrote to Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry on 10 January to offer an investable solution that will help keep the UK on track to meet steepening decarbonisation goals.
National Grid’s Two Degrees scenario shows a 107GW gap between the 53GWs of low-carbon capacity that we have today and the 160GWs that may be required in 2050. A lot of the built generation will also require repowering. The investment challenge is immense.
Commercial and market outlook
In AEMO’s ‘Step Change’ scenario, it was estimated that storage capacity in the NEM would need to increase by a factor of 30 between 2022 and 2050 to support a grid transformation that limits temperature rises below 2 degrees. This represents about 13GW of new storage capacity by 2030 and...
Power and gas networks
It is perhaps unsurprising to highlight that global energy markets have been exposed to significant volatility in recent years. Whether this be through the emergence of a global pandemic, dampening demand and drastically altering consumption behaviour thereafter, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine which resulted in significant changes to historic...
Home supply and services
Due to the current energy crisis, consumer energy bills have been exposed to substantial increases over the past year. The recent rise in wholesale prices has had knock-on effects in many non-commodity costs within consumer bills, some of which will be baked into charges for several years to come In...
Energy storage and flexibility
News this week that the UK government is mulling over a cap on green generation revenues comes at a time when our research finds that the investment pipeline for electricity renewables generation is the highest it has ever been. In our Renewables Pipeline Tracker (RPT) service we analyse the growing...
Low carbon generation
Balancing Service Use of System (BSUoS) charges have continued to be the dominant driver of Third-Party Charge increases in recent months, with costs remaining elevated since last autumn. In this 'Chart of the week', we present a view of past monthly BSUoS charges and expectations for future costs on a...
Business supply and services
High underlying commodity and carbon costs haven’t only impacted costs in the wholesale market. From April 2021 to the end of October 2021, balancing costs on the electricity transmission system have totalled £1.29bn. This represents a £301.88mn (30.6%) increase in costs over the same period in 2020, where total costs...
Energy storage and flexibility
Variable Renewable Energy is making tremendous strides towards the predominant energy source in the NEM, but its voracious capital intensity is over-running existing transmission capacity. Consumers are faced with a $3.5bn transmission build cost over the next 20 years, which to return value relies heavily on the emergence of grid...
Commercial and market outlook
The Declared Wholesale Gas Market (DWGM) prices in Victoria have been on a rising trend since the start-up of LNG exports in 2015. Is this trend sustainable, given the Gas Statement of Opportunities (GSOO) forecasts an improved gas supply outlook with the new Port Kembla Gas Terminal (PKGT) expected to...
