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by mytailorisrich 253 days ago
> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity.

This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.
1 comments
benrutter 253 days ago
Yeah - I wondered about how "quiet" this driving force was. It's certainly a big issue, but the network operator (NESO) published a big paper after the government asked them to suggest how achievable net-0 by 2030 was, which really specifically called out the need for much larger transmission capacity.

I work in the energy sector and hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't really see it published in the media a lot.

In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan - a lot of it seems critical of the idea of a cleaner network, mainly on the assertion that it's making things more expensive. My understanding is that the opposite is true, but either way, I don't often see much discussion of anything past "clear energy bad".

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pjc50 253 days ago
> In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan

That's just the media. No interest in making things actually work, just in covering the fight, and quite often sponsored by fossil fuel backers or weird overseas media monopolists.

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amiga386 253 days ago
My understanding - from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro - is that.

1. Gas-powered electricity generation sets the wholesale rate (for _all_ forms of generation) more often than not, and gas is expensive, especially after we had to find alternative sources in order to punish Russia for invading Ukraine.

2. Other than the wholesale rate, we need to _build_ all this clean energy, we need to attract investment, and it's our promise to pay for that CapEx over 15-20 years (the strike price) that we'll be paying for in our bills once gas is out of the picture, moreso than the actual cost of generation.

Also, Tories in 2023 failed to attract any investment, no capacity added: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344

Whereas Labour in 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o

... we will find out if this worked, after the auction is finished and they announce the results (around November 2025 - February 2026)

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