I would desperately like to see UK government decouple the price of electricity from gas. We have just about the most expensive consumer energy prices in the world…but lazy journalism won’t get us there.
This piece is a recycled press release from a think tank…admittedly not a rightwing one, but it’s not based on the kind of research you might find in a journal.
People quoted are the director of the think tank, Common Wealth and the guy who wrote the report, Donal Brown, but they’ve not even explicitly said it’s his report.
It’s a lovely idea, the decoupling, but I spent four years of my career working with energy economists, so I was curious who this Donal Brown was:
https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p283676-donal-brown
He’s appears to know a lot about retrofit and science and technology policy, but energy economics:
He’s done a 3 day course.
I think it’s useful for the conversation to be publicly aired about the decoupling of electricity from gas prices.
But I think we also all watched the #Tories spend 14 years making policy on the back of think tank lobbying, rather than proper research. #Labour must not fall into this trap and think there are easy wins without unintended consequences.
@JugglingWithEggs There is a similar situation with the few district central heating thermal plants in Oslo. The price per kWh is also tied to electricity prices.
Which is extremely unfair to those who use the service as the costs of creating this heat are pretty much static.
I think the situation with district heating is even more dire, because no one is explaining that these are monopolies.
Residents in properties supplied by a heat network cannot switch suppliers to find better value, which is a key difference from the gas and electricity market.
@JugglingWithEggs Exactly!
The heat energy is not traded on any markets either as in the case with electricity.
@JugglingWithEggs Yep. If electricity were cheaper, the country would end up using more electricity -- which would require more gas at exactly the time that there is a gas shortage. The high price helps to keep demand for electricity aligned with supply of gas.
The reason why gas prices dictate electricity prices is because we're dependent on gas for electricity. It's just a straightforward case of building more solar and wind generation instead.
Gas is required some if the time to meet our electricity needs - but nothing like what it was 25 years ago. Based on 2024 figures, 58% of our electricity comes from renewables already:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10182/
Juggling With Eggs
queer as in fuck your borders
beemoh
Eggs now in different baskets.
vksxypants