That’s good
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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At first I was like "hey where's the coal?" and for once, I was pleasantly surprised.
Hopefully we can make a smooth transition off gas and make it vastly renewable.
Great news.
And the cost of electricity is pinned to the price of the most expensive fuel, which is gas.
Lame.
So why do we need more nuclear then?
This is a spike. It doesn't really mean much that it fluctuates up this much for a handful of days a year. Most days during the year we are dependent on gas. More nuclear would replace a lot of that dependency.
We don't have time for nuclear and it's not cost effective. More renewable and more batteries is cheaper and quicker and already happening. Last year, gas was 29.7% and wind was 30.1%, gas will be down again looking back a year from now.
How far off of this being normal are we?
20% of last year we were below 100g/kWh. That was up from 14.5% the year before. So, every year it's becoming more and more common.
The 2030 target is to be below that level averaged over the year.
It's not that uncommon. Last year we were below 100g/kWh (the 2030 target) for about 20% of the time. We averaged 83g today.
Chart from mygridgb.co.uk
Look over the last 12 months and you'll see renewables are 30% over the year. 30% Gas, 15% Nuclear and 10% Biomass. The rest is imported from France (mostly Nuclear) and Norway (Hydro).
This year should see another 3GW of wind start up at Dogger Bank, with similar amount scheduled for the next couple of years. This will be more and more common.
Nukes are the more efficient future; batteries and sunlight is the near-term solution, with sunlight/wind and pumped reserve (backing the hydro) in the middle.