The quarter’s headlines

by Dr Iain Staffell – Imperial College London 

This quarter’s issue looks at how the weather is increasingly affecting the power system. 

Britain’s renewables are once again breaking records, with Quarter 1 seeing wind, biomass and hydro all register their highest energy production (see Article 2).

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Britain’s continuing decarbonisation

Q1 carbon emissions from electricity generation are down 10% on last year and 33% on the year before. As a sign of just how far British electricity has changed, the ‘dirtiest hour’ in the whole of this winter was lower carbon than the average generation mix just 3 years ago.

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Disappearing daytime demand

by Dr Iain Staffell – Imperial College London 

In the last weekend of March demand on the national grid was lower during the daytime than it was overnight ‒ the first time this has ever happened. 

Prior to solar power becoming widespread, minimum demand was always seen during the night. Daytime demand never came within 5 GW of the night-time minimum; but in 2015 the gap narrowed to 2.4 GW, and on the 25th of March it disappeared completely.

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The mild winter windfall

by Dr Iain Staffell – Imperial College London 

Britain has again experienced a mild winter, keeping down electricity bills and carbon emissions. 

2017 has so far been 1.9°C warmer than the 20th century average, lowering the country’s demand for electric heating. 

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What are different electricity sources worth?

by Dr Iain Staffell – Imperial College London 

People often assess the economics of power stations with their Levelised Cost of Electricity, but it also matters how and when the electricity is produced.1 

The growing share of weather-dependent renewables means that flexible and controllable capacity is now more valuable to the system.  As power prices become more volatile, the range of prices earned by different technologies is widening.

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Capacity and production statistics

by Dr Iain Staffell – Imperial College London 

Following their problems last quarter, the French interconnector and nuclear fleet returned to normal, so imports gradually rose over February and hit an 12-month high in March averaging 2.9 GW (1.8 GW of which from France).

Coal fell from 16% to 6% of the supply mix over February as imports rose and demand fell.

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Live Grid Data