Doesn’t gas generators set the market price 98% of the time in the UK?
They need to fix their market pricing mechanism before the public benefit from cheaper renewable energy sources.
in absolutly any other business having a 50% cost advantage would be catestrpohic for competition and front page news signaling a new era, but for this it's shrug and unprecidentidly lame mumbling about "uncertainties" and guff guff harumphf!
somehow tommorow there will be worldwide headlines decribing the wonders of science inventing a new better kind of intermitent wipers
Does this include the cost of gas backup?
If you are wondering why the air quotes around "50% cheaper", it's because the price of electricity is set based on the price of gas. Crazy, right ? https://www.greeniow.org.uk/why-uk-electricity-prices-are-ti...
Now add storage costs
Gas can produce enormous amounts of power at short notice 100% of the time and is cheaper per watt, nobody builds a 5MW twin cycle gas turbine power plant. There is a reason it sets the price at market. The CFDs are locked in at persistently high prices for decades. All these actions will increase costs to customers.
There is a reason our energy costs are the highest in the world, it is because our politicians persistently make choices like the ones described in this article.
In the UK the wholesale price was about £80/MWh in 2025. The retail price was about £270/MWh + a standing charge. If you factor in the standing charge, an average user paid about £344/MWh. So the cost of generation was only about 23% of the retail price. I believe the green levies + CfDs accounted for about another 15% of the retail price.
Does this mean that if generation was free, and there were no green policy costs, our electric would still be expensive?
edit: "Network and Distribution" appears to contribute about 23% of the retail price. I guess green energy increased that cost because wind/solar are more spread out and sometimes off-shore.