{"id":2155,"date":"2024-05-22T07:50:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T07:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2024-05-22T08:04:31","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T08:04:31","slug":"introduction-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2155","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The UK is halfway to reaching Net Zero, having cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% since 1990. <\/strong>The Government proudly announced that the UK is the first major country to achieve this, but how far ahead are we, and what about the \u2018hidden\u2019 emissions that are released abroad for things we import and consume? Our <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q1-2024\/the-uk-tops-the-global-decarbonisation-league-table\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">first<\/a> article this quarter gives a deep dive on the UK\u2019s emissions reductions and introduces a new global decarbonisation league table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Much of the success in reducing emissions has come from the electricity sector, which continued its progress by breaking new records for lowest carbon emissions and share of fossil fuels. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q1-2024\/moving-towards-zero-carbon-electricity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">second<\/a> article looks at the falling carbon intensity of electricity as we move closer to operating a zero-carbon grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wholesale electricity prices continued falling back to normal levels, averaging \u00a365\/MWh over 2024 so far. This is now just a touch above the average price during the 2010s when accounting for general inflation (\u00a358\/MWh in 2023 money). While energy costs are falling, capacity costs have risen to their highest ever. The latest Capacity Market auction, which decides the fixed payments that generators receive for being able to deliver power at peak times, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/uks-202728-electricity-capacity-auction-clears-65-70-pounds-per-kwyr-2024-02-27\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cleared at \u00a365per kW<\/a>. With 43 GW of capacity contracted, the total payments due to be made in 2027\/28 will amount to almost \u00a33 billion (or \u00a340 per person). This indicates that Britain\u2019s power market is becoming tight and provides an incentive for old stations to remain online, and new ones to be built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Monthly-average wholesale power prices<\/em> <em>in the day-ahead market, adjusted for<\/em> <em>inflation and in nominal terms<\/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\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB-1024x523.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2156\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB-1024x523.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB-300x153.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB-768x392.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB-1536x784.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/24Q1_1.1-WEB.jpg 1880w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Our third and fourth articles look at two new technologies which could form part of Britain\u2019s future energy landscape. The Government announced over \u00a320m of funding for clean hydrogen as part of its Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q1-2024\/new-funding-for-clean-hydrogen-projects\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">third<\/a> article looks at the seven large-scale projects this fund will enable, and the role hydrogen could play. <a href=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/q1-2024\/the-emerging-role-of-wave-power\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Finally<\/a>, the \u00a32m Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) has achieved success after 12 months of testing off Orkney. This project combines wave energy generators with under-sea energy storage to power marine equipment, and is a stepping stone towards harnessing power from the oceans to complement other renewables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK is halfway to reaching Net Zero, having cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% since 1990. The Government proudly announced that the UK is the first major country to achieve this, but how far ahead are we, and what about the \u2018hidden\u2019 emissions that are released abroad for things we import and consume? Our first article this quarter [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[41,40],"class_list":["post-2155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q1-2024","tag-electric-insights","tag-q1-2024"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155","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=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2204,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions\/2204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}