There are two much simpler things government can do now. The first is to push those legacy renewables onto CfDs. Why would they give up their nice rents? 1. lots are coming to an end - a long term stable income is attractive. 2. Reform has promised to cancel legacy renewables, and it can easily. A CfD is harder to rip up as it's protected by private law - but as we've seen with Trump the law is not always a barrier to ideology. 3. A bit of stick. Government brought in the energy generator levy post Ukraine to address windfall profits to electricity generators. I wouldn't be afraid to ramp this up as an incentive to change (or fail safe if they don't move).

On those short term actions, I liked Sam’s take on how you could push older renewables (which make a lot of money, especially when gas is expensive) on to CfDs…

Reforms are definitely needed in the long term, but they take time and there are risks of doing everything at once.
The best course of action imo is quicker fixes that ease the pain of transition, and keep us heading fast to a world where we have enough renewables + nuclear to usually set prices

EE 2.2 Consious Uncoupling Breaking the link between gas and electricity is easier than you think

This is a good read by @samalvis.bsky.social, and this is basically what I think on the whole “decoupling gas and electricity prices” thing.

The first best answer is “build more renewables and flex”, and we’re making a lot of progress on that

A block of 8 flats (probably a 50s or 60s council block) that have had an additional storey with pitch roof added. The white balcony walls have had holes added covered by black railings, in a nautical style

Another angle is the extra storey with pitched roof on the block of flats

Really love the updates to this block of flats. An extra storey on top (with a pitched roof 😍) and very nice curved railings breaking up the balcony walls

"It will also seek to amend a directive to ensure electricity is taxed at levels below those of fossil fuels. A more ambitious proposal was dropped in 2025, but officials are optimistic the energy crisis will help kick-start discussions on the measure."

Dat wordt wel eens tijd.

Brussels pushes remote working to ease energy crisis European Commission also recommends heat pumps and public transport subsidies

All sensible, and in keeping with my and @elisabettaco.bsky.social's recommendations here www.cer.eu/insights/ene...

www.ft.com/content/bbc9...

Brussels pushes remote working to ease energy crisis European Commission also recommends heat pumps and public transport subsidies

An impressive set of recommendations to respond to the Hormuz crisis from the EU. I’m not clear whether they’ll be adopted by member states. If they are, I think the EU could be drastically less reliant on fossil fuels within a few years. Can the UK follow suit?

The annoyance economy isn’t going anywhere We must find our own amusements in dealing with spam, robocalls and chatbots

Enjoyed this by @emmavj.bsky.social, on the annoyance economy (or Trapping People For Money)

Picture of station staff at Redland station in 1903. Text describes 11 staff employed at the station, including a station master, but reductions as early as 1909

Side note: despite what Baumol says, you can definitely get productivity gains in services. The tiny station used to employ 11 staff!

A nice reminder from Ember, using British data. Wind and solar are complementary. Our system works best when you have both, each calling on their own strengths in terms of generation patterns.

If either struggles to grow like it should, we end up with a more expensive, slower fossil phase-out

Two sketches of Redland train station from the early 20th century. The top image shows extensive buildings on both sides of a two platform station. The bottom sketch shows an electric tram line next to the train station

The history board at my tiny local train station has a nice potted history of how we once had this beautiful urbanism, how we lost it and how we could get it back…

Look how good this little train station used to look! And it briefly connected to a tramline!

Image shows a pacer train station at Redland station in 2008. Text describes passenger numbers recovering from 36k in 1997/8 to 210k now, and the service increasing to half hourly

But now… people really want to use this little suburban train! Passenger numbers have more than quadrupled. The 2 or 3 old coaches are often packed out. The service is up to half hourly.

We could, if we wanted, make it as good as it was a century ago.
Maybe even with a connecting tram…

Picture of an information board. The image shows Redland station ticket office being demolished in 1973. The text describes it narrowly escaping the Beeching Axe, but losing all station staff and moving to a single line, one platform station

And then, as cars took over, we knocked most of it down. The line narrowly escaped the Beeching Axe, but became single track and a greatly reduced service. The second platform closed, the ticket office was demolished - and now the only entrance to the station is down a dark, hidden alleyway

Two sketches of Redland train station from the early 20th century. The top image shows extensive buildings on both sides of a two platform station. The bottom sketch shows an electric tram line next to the train station

The history board at my tiny local train station has a nice potted history of how we once had this beautiful urbanism, how we lost it and how we could get it back…

Look how good this little train station used to look! And it briefly connected to a tramline!

Does it definitely have huge pass-through to consumers? The figures I used suggest it is about a quarter of what the direct impact of electricity bills is.

I agree it is a very big issue for specific industries, but whenever I look at the data it seems fairly small in aggregate

I presume the trick is in the "offsetting" bit.
Presumably BICS will be added to consumer (and other industrial) bills, but this will be offset by CPS, RO/FiT changes and some more government money so they don't rise overall

I think CPS has ~2 to 3 times bigger impact on bills than what HMT receives from it (because it is only levied on gas but raises the cost for other generators as well).
So it does have a cost to govt, but much less than if it just wanted to directly subsidise bills

The striking thing, though, is that government is using the savings to subsidise industrial electricity, not consumers. AND it's doing the same with re-indexation of RO and FiT.

These are two of the most obvious ways government could cut electricity bills, and both have been used for industry...

The abolition of Carbon Price Support is interesting. On the one hand, we don't have many carbon taxes and we're removing one!
On the other hand, CPS has largely served its purpose (driving coal off the grid), and it raises bills quite a bit (because gas often sets the price of all electricity)

From the government today:

"We can now confirm that BICS will be funded through a combination of changes within the energy system (such as those recently made to inflation indexation of RO/FITs), removal of Carbon Price Support from April 2028 and Exchequer funding."

Some quite big news on GB energy policy today: the government has abolished Carbon Price Support, part of the carbon tax on electricity generation.

AND it is using the proceeds to fund the expanded British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme, a subsidy to industry

Great spot by @mashley.bsky.social

It certainly feels nostalgic (though I also think quite a lot of it is also driven by fear of stranded assets)

The UK has a difficult mix of issues on energy atm (less sunny, more reliant on wind; electricity grid due an upgrade; high cost of capital; decline of North Sea oil & gas; lingering overreliance on gas).

But we're making progress on tackling all that - why look back to a past we can't go back to?

I'm biased, but I think this is the apex example of how our discourse has become detached from reality.

The reality has moved rapidly in one direction (dramatic fall in solar and battery costs; climate change seeming worse than expected). The discourse has moved in the exact opposite direction

Keir Starmer plans May relaunch with King’s Speech Legislative package set to form crucial part of UK prime minister’s push to regain momentum after local elections

Helpful overview of the government’s legislative plans for the King’s Speech here.
Broadly seems to be a continuation of the current agenda. Plenty of regulatory changes, less generous migration and welfare, SEN reforms, maybe digital ID…

This 2024-? Labour government definitely has some ministers quietly doing important things - though I can’t really judge how widespread yet.

The problem is, this type of reform is often quite long term. It generally only helps you get re-elected as part of an effective cross-govt strategy

I always remember Greg Clark going in to Cabinet for the few weeks’ of Boris Johnson’s lame duck administration in 2022 (after everyone resigned, before Truss became PM).
He just quietly put out a load of big policy announcements while everyone else was focused on the leadership contest.

This is usually my knee-jerk* response to the “why can’t the government get anything done?” question: the problem has mainly been ministers, not civil servants.

* Don’t think it’s always the correct response, but think it has a better hit rate than just blaming the civil service

Smart prepayment customers’ experience of the Demand Flexibility Service As Great Britain transitions to a low-carbon electricity system, demand-side flexibility is becoming increasingly important for managing the grid

100% - we actually did a bit of research looking at this

www.nesta.org.uk/report/smart...