{"id":1752,"date":"2022-09-30T05:59:34","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T05:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2022-09-30T05:59:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T05:59:34","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=1752","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Dr Iain Staffell, Professor Richard Green, Professor Tim Green and Dr Malte Jansen&nbsp;\u2013 Imperial College London&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a 12 month hiatus Electric Insights is back, relaunching into one of the most turbulent times in Britain\u2019s electricity system\u2019s history.&nbsp; Our first article focuses on the cost-of-living crisis that is engulfing the nation, and the central role played by energy prices.&nbsp; The wholesale cost of coal and gas have risen to 5-10 times their usual levels over the past two years, and as gas is the largest source of electricity production, the cost of power has shot up too.&nbsp; These price rises have made their way into consumer bills, bringing extreme hardship for households, businesses and industrial consumers alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These huge price rises have sparked intense debate about whether energy markets are fundamentally broken, who is profiting from the crisis, and should they be allowed to?&nbsp; Our second article explores whether renewables are being paid more than they should, and the government\u2019s Review of Electricity Market Arrangements which is exploring these topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These problems are not just limited to the UK: energy prices have been spiralling upwards across the whole of Europe.&nbsp; Several factors are colliding on the continent, including gas shortages in Germany and prolonged nuclear outages in France, meaning Europe\u2019s power systems are facing additional pressures.&nbsp; So, despite British electricity being more expensive than ever, it is cheap in comparison to our European neighbours.&nbsp; Our third article details how Britain has become a net exporter of electricity for the first time in 10 years, with 5% of the electricity generated here sent abroad over the last three months.&nbsp; This comes at a time when Britain\u2019s energy security is becoming a cause for concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This situation has been complicated further by the extreme weather affecting the UK and much of the world.&nbsp; This summer saw a series of unrelenting heat waves, with temperatures soaring past 40\u00b0C for the first time ever, coupled with the driest start to the year ever recorded.&nbsp; We examine how the extreme heat has impacted electricity demand and supply, and the longer-term implications for the power system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">The price of fossil fuels over the last three years, relative to their averages from 2010-19<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"637\" height=\"417\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/1-a.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1751\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/1-a.png 637w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/1-a-300x196.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a 12 month hiatus Electric Insights is back, relaunching into one of the most turbulent times in Britain\u2019s electricity system\u2019s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q2-2022"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1761,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/1761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}