{"id":2083,"date":"2024-02-15T13:56:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T13:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2024-02-15T13:59:09","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T13:59:09","slug":"introduction-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2083","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>2023 marked a return towards normality for Britain\u2019s power system.\u00a0<\/strong> Wholesale electricity prices continued falling back towards their levels from before Europe\u2019s energy crisis, and imports from the continent resumed after a brief hiatus.\u00a0 This pushed down generation from gas by one-fifth, allowing carbon emissions to get back onto their trajectory towards net zero. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q4-2023\/britains-electricity-system-in-2023\/\">Article 2 <\/a>recaps the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A major government announcement came in January.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/drax-bioenergy-with-carbon-capture-and-storage-project-development-consent-decision-announced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Britain\u2019s first negative emissions power station received planning consent<\/a>, allowing Drax to install carbon capture and storage onto two units of its biomass power station.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q4-2023\/carbon-dioxide-removal-getting-back-to-net-zero\/\">Article 3<\/a> looks at why the UK is looking to take the lead on this technology, and what it means for the next phase of the road to net zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>December provided several positive developments for the UK\u2019s wind industry.&nbsp; After the last round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q2-2023\/offshore-wind-held-up-by-the-inflation-storm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CFD auctions attracted no offshore wind bids<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Government raised the next auction\u2019s price cap<\/a> to \u00a3100\u2006\/\u2006MWh (advertised as \u00a373\u2006\/\u2006MWh in 2012 terms).&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/orsted-makes-final-investment-decision-mega-hornsea-3-north-sea-wind-farm-2023-12-20\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u00d8rsted announced the go-ahead for Hornsea 3<\/a>, a 2.4 GW wind farm in the North Sea (enough to power over 3 million homes).&nbsp; Britain\u2019s wind farms also had a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NationalGridESO\/status\/1737824446822453612\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">record-breaking month in December<\/a>, and over Quarter 4 of the year, wind was the largest source of electricity in Britain for only the second time, supplying a record 35% of demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More renewables mean more volatility for the power system.\u00a0 Negative electricity prices are on the rise across Europe, and the number in Britain has tripled over the past year.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q4-2023\/the-rise-of-negative-power-prices\/\">Article 4<\/a> explains how negative power prices are driven by excess renewable output combined with a lack of flexibility, and what we can do about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One solution is to increase Britain\u2019s connectivity to other markets.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q4-2023\/worlds-longest-subsea-power-cable-connects-britain-to-denmark\/\">Article 5<\/a> reports on the Viking Link, the country\u2019s first interconnector with Denmark, which started operating in December.\u00a0 This should add more flexibility to the grid and should help to reduce electricity prices further in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The changing annual electricity generation mix over the last ten years<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"523\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB-1024x523.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2122\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB-1024x523.png 1024w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB-300x153.png 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB-768x392.png 768w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB-1536x784.png 1536w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/23Q4_1.1-WEB.png 1880w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2023 marked a return towards normality for Britain\u2019s power system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q4-2023","tag-q4-2023"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","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=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}