Energy costs. Oh dear.......

[pje16]

Electric wallpaper anyone?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64402524

but from article
“I think the running costs could be quite high, as electricity costs three to four times as much as gas,”
that's a shame

[UncleEbenezer]

Electric wallpaper anyone?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64402524

Sounds like those grills that were quite a fad around the beginning of the century (and still are in contexts like patio heaters).

Ugh.

[Tedx]

Will you look at that...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

[pje16]

Will you look at that...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

no wonder the greedy big 6 are coining record profits
I would have used stronger language but...

[Mike4]

Will you look at that...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

Give it five years and perhaps we can expect retail gas prices to begin to creep down...

[NotSure]

Will you look at that...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

Give it five years and perhaps we can expect retail gas prices to begin to creep down...

The "sensible" i.e. surviving distributors hedge. Which works both ways. I give it 3 years

[Tedx]

The Guy Martin series on Energy last night is interesting - it doesn't tell me anything new, but the National Grid grid balancing room was interesting to watch and the look of astonishment on Guy's face when he saw the (world's largest) Hornsea 2 offshore windfarm was cool.

Interesting to see that Hornsea 2 uses 8.4MW turbines, whereas the proposed Dogger Bank windfarms are to use 13-14MW turbines. That's progress for you.

I also read the other day that the UK offshore wind project pipeline now totals nearly 100GW (although actual production is around 50% for offshore wind)

https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables- ... rly-100gw/

(+various other sources)


Just need to use it or find somewhere to store it all now!

[James]

The Guy Martin series on Energy last night is interesting - it doesn't tell me anything new, but the National Grid grid balancing room was interesting to watch and the look of astonishment on Guy's face when he saw the (world's largest) Hornsea 2 offshore windfarm was cool.

Interesting to see that Hornsea 2 uses 8.4MW turbines, whereas the proposed Dogger Bank windfarms are to use 13-14MW turbines. That's progress for you.

The offshore wind sector is designing and planning for 20MW turbines already. Them's real big.

[Tedx]

How Europe Ditched Russian Fossil Fuels With Spectacular Speed

A huge increase in demand for renewables.....a decrease indomestic and commercial/industrial useage.....a shedload of pricey LNG....and a very mild winter.

40GW more solar installed in Europe & more wind.....significant efficiencies (added insulation?). Batteries and heatpumps being installed..........or are we guilty of shipping energy hungry industry off to China who have no problem with cheap Russian gas.....leaving Europe buying LNG at US prices (which probably led to the previously mentioned efficiencies)....What about Russian gas rebadged and sold on by India / China to Europe?

.....And finally a very mild winter. We were lucky with the weather. It's been more than 10 years since we've had a really cold winter and I don't think they've gone away.

Looking forward, how quickly will we all be buying Chinese solar panels made in factories using Russian gas? Ditto for Chinese wind turbines etc.

I think the US is quite happy supplying Europe with LNG.

Ach well. The sooner the UK gets it's own energy independence (and pricing) sorted, the better.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-d ... 28425.html

[BullDog]

How Europe Ditched Russian Fossil Fuels With Spectacular Speed

A huge increase in demand for renewables.....a decrease indomestic and commercial/industrial useage.....a shedload of pricey LNG....and a very mild winter.

40GW more solar installed in Europe & more wind.....significant efficiencies (added insulation?). Batteries and heatpumps being installed..........or are we guilty of shipping energy hungry industry off to China who have no problem with cheap Russian gas.....leaving Europe buying LNG at US prices (which probably led to the previously mentioned efficiencies)....What about Russian gas rebadged and sold on by India / China to Europe?

.....And finally a very mild winter. We were lucky with the weather. It's been more than 10 years since we've had a really cold winter and I don't think they've gone away.

Looking forward, how quickly will we all be buying Chinese solar panels made in factories using Russian gas? Ditto for Chinese wind turbines etc.

I think the US is quite happy supplying Europe with LNG.

Ach well. The sooner the UK gets it's own energy independence (and pricing) sorted, the better.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-d ... 28425.html

Oh it's far worse than that. We're importing huge quantities of refined hydrocarbons from India. Refined from Russian crude, naturally. But the rules designate the refined hydrocarbons as Indian.

[Tedx]

The Guy Martin series on Energy last night is interesting - it doesn't tell me anything new, but the National Grid grid balancing room was interesting to watch and the look of astonishment on Guy's face when he saw the (world's largest) Hornsea 2 offshore windfarm was cool.

Interesting to see that Hornsea 2 uses 8.4MW turbines, whereas the proposed Dogger Bank windfarms are to use 13-14MW turbines. That's progress for you.

The offshore wind sector is designing and planning for 20MW turbines already. Them's real big.

Not 20MW, but 14.7MW. These ones are pretty damn big themselves.

Siemens Gamesa has started the production of the first 108-metre wind turbine blade at its factory in Hull, the UK.



Siemens Gamesa will supply 60 of its SG 14-222 DD wind turbines for the 882 Moray West wind farm offshore Scotland.

and

Siemens Gamesa will also supply 100 SG 14-222 DD units for RWE’s 1.4 GW Sofia wind farm on Dogger Bank. The installation of the wind turbines on this project is scheduled to start in 2025.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/15 ... des-in-uk/

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/06/23 ... -scotland/

[Hallucigenia]

Will you look at that...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

no wonder the greedy big 6 are coining record profits

From that link "US natural gas futures continued to fall"

How many Lemons are buying natural gas in the US?

For most Lemons the price that matters is the UK's NBP benchmark which is not well connected to the US benchmarks :
https://www.reuters.com/markets/quote/NGLNMc1/

although as has been mentioned, most responsible suppliers will be buying most of their gas on the futures market at a time when things were looking really tight. We've got away with it thanks to a record-warm spell in autumn, but it could easily have been a lot worse if the weather had been colder.

Still doesn't look great for next winter, as a lot of the gas that went into storage this year came from Russia which probably won't be an option this summer.

[Nimrod103]

no wonder the greedy big 6 are coining record profits

From that link "US natural gas futures continued to fall"

How many Lemons are buying natural gas in the US?

For most Lemons the price that matters is the UK's NBP benchmark which is not well connected to the US benchmarks :
https://www.reuters.com/markets/quote/NGLNMc1/

although as has been mentioned, most responsible suppliers will be buying most of their gas on the futures market at a time when things were looking really tight. We've got away with it thanks to a record-warm spell in autumn, but it could easily have been a lot worse if the weather had been colder.

Still doesn't look great for next winter, as a lot of the gas that went into storage this year came from Russia which probably won't be an option this summer.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I would have thought gas storage in Europe (and what little there may be in the UK) will be filled during the Summer, when gas prices are likely to be at their lowest. Already UK gas prices are lower now than at any time since August 2021, way before the Ukraine invasion.

Also AIUI Germany was filling their storage last year during Sept and Oct for strategic reasons, despite the very high prices - Germany having suffered shortfalls in supply from Russia during the previous 18 months due to, what is clear in retrospect, was preparation for the Russian invasion. I don't expect Germany to be filling their storage at high prices again.

[Tedx]

UK Hydrogen article from Bloomberg / Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... story.html

[Tedx]

It's only a small one but.....

Corkey Windfarm Repowering

ScottishPower Renewables have operated Corkey Windfarm for over 20 years, with the site’s 10 turbines generating up to 5 megawatts of renewable power. The site, in its current form, has consent to operate in perpetuity.

......The turbines at a proposed 137 metres to tip, allow 5 fewer turbines to be used yet will be capable of producing around 5-6 times the output of the existing 10-turbine Corkey Windfarm.

https://www.scottishpowerrenewables.com ... ering.aspx

and....

Octopus Energy Generation will refurbish up to 1,000 of the UK’s older wind turbines by the end of the decade. Working with turbine manufacturer EWT, we'll kit seasoned turbines out with the latest technology to give them the power to produce 2-3x more green energy.

https://octopus.energy/blog/repowering- ... -turbines/

[Hallucigenia]

although as has been mentioned, most responsible suppliers will be buying most of their gas on the futures market at a time when things were looking really tight. We've got away with it thanks to a record-warm spell in autumn, but it could easily have been a lot worse if the weather had been colder.

Still doesn't look great for next winter, as a lot of the gas that went into storage this year came from Russia which probably won't be an option this summer.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I would have thought gas storage in Europe (and what little there may be in the UK) will be filled during the Summer, when gas prices are likely to be at their lowest.

Normally prices are at their lowest in the summer - but not in 2022, quite the opposite. If you look at the TTF benchmark as a proxy for European gas prices, it went bananas in June from around 2x "normal" levels and peaked on 26 August at around 6x "normal" levels.


The reason for that was that gas storage was being filled according to the usual schedule - at any price - through the spring and summer. If you look at German storage (per the official data from GIE-AGSI), and allow for the Covid effect by taking the average of 2011-19. On 23 Feb 2022 German stores were 30.01% full and that's pretty normal in recent years - 2017, 18, 21 and 22 all had 29-33% in store on that date. Which gives a bit of context for it being 71.25% full on 23 Feb 2023 - the second highest since records began in 2011, only 2020 was higher. We've been really, really lucky with the warm autumn/winter.

On average storage bottoms out on 29 March and peaks at 88.315% on 1 November. If you use 2017/18 as a template for refilling from ~30% storage on 23 Feb, you'll see that in 2023 they filled much faster in the spring, so that by 26 June they were at 60.53% compared to an average of 47.1% in 17/18. The price spike slowed things a bit compared to 17/18 but they kep filling so that at the height of the spike on 26 August they were at 82.21%, still 8% ahead of 17/18. And on 11 November they were officially 100% full, which just never happens normally - as above, in a normal year they get to 88% full and even 82% full is considered "enough" for a normal winter.

Already UK gas prices are lower now than at any time since August 2021, way before the Ukraine invasion.

Also AIUI Germany was filling their storage last year during Sept and Oct for strategic reasons, despite the very high prices - Germany having suffered shortfalls in supply from Russia during the previous 18 months due to, what is clear in retrospect, was preparation for the Russian invasion. I don't expect Germany to be filling their storage at high prices again.

No - this is very muddled. As above, the Germans had hit the traditional target of 82% in August, the only reason they added more gas in the autumn was that it was a super-warm autumn and there was a lot of gas kicking round Europe with nowhere to go.

They will continue to fill their storage at whatever price they have to pay, as they proved in June/July/August 2022 - the only difference in 2023 is that they are starting from a once-a-decade level of gas in store so they won't need as much gas in 2023 to get back to 90+%.

The UK is obviously in a much weaker position due to its lack of storage - and so much depends on the big unknown of what next winter's weather will be like. Generally it feels like people are being a bit complacent because we've got through this winter without much disruption, even though that had more to do with once-a-decade weather than good planning. The futures markets certainly aren't going back to "normal" any time soon.

[Redmires]

The portal is now open for those who haven't had any rebate yet (off grid renters, park homes etc). To claim the £400, apply here.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-energy-bill-su ... -automatic

I've just completed the application so fingers crossed.

[GrahamPlatt]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but given that Russia has shown that one of its “battle plans” is to destroy energy infrastructure, aren’t those offshore windfarm assets a bit precarious?

[staffordian]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but given that Russia has shown that one of its “battle plans” is to destroy energy infrastructure, aren’t those offshore windfarm assets a bit precarious?

Individual turbines are close to 1km apart, I believe, so each would need it's own missile strike. Rather costly to hit a significant number, I'd have thought.

[pje16]

Ofgem sets new price cap prompting calls for energy bill help
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64748135