I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the biggest flaw in the UK’s energy market, and what makes it have the most expensive electricity in Europe despite having one of the highest productions of renewable electricity in Europe - is the fact that the price of electricity from all sources is pegged to the most expensive, Gas and Oil.
Unpegging renewable electricity prices from gas and oil would definitely cause some chaos at first, but ultimately would force electricity prices down in-line with the rest of Europe.
Setting the electricity market price based on the most expensive source at any given time is pretty much universal in Europe. It’s an EU thing, not a specificity of the UK.
Changing this rule would reduce the income and profits of climate friendly electricity providers, thus penalizing the investors who tried to do the right thing.
Also an outdated grid network.
"Transmission constraint costs in Great Britain hit £1.9 billion in 2024/25, accounting for 71% of total balancing costs. That share has risen from 44% in 2022/23 and is on course to reach £4-8 billion annually by 2030 without major intervention. The bottleneck is Scotland.
In 2025, turning down Scottish wind cost around £350 million. Replacement generation (mostly in the form of gas) cost over £1 billion. Curtailment is now the primary driver of Great Britain’s national balancing costs."
These stories about heat pumps always throw me. We had those in Oklahoma when I was a child in the 80s. Guess I assumed every new HVAC unit was a heat pump and almost no one had a different setup.
Here in Florida, you would likely have a hard time getting any but a heat pump installed.
Brits seem to love living in their ancient, draughty houses. I have no idea why! A well-insulated home is vastly more comfortable to live in!
That’s an absolute nobrainer, because oil fields do not cut cost of living, as oil prices are determined on the international market.
Heat pumps became a major thing here in Denmark in 2022, both as something private households switched to quickly, and also something the government quickly decided to subsidize.
The quick transition to EV cars has also been shown to save the country billions.Ironically the electricity prices are now quite high, so the savings over using wood pellet stoker furnaces is limited. The only reason there even are savings is that taxes on electricity were removed for 2026 to help curb inflation.
When those taxes are applied again, wood pellets will probably be cheaper to use than heat pumps.Being more efficient, reduces expenses. Who would have thought.
