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by toomuchtodo 22 days ago
Ember Energy: British power prices are increasingly independent from gas - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/british-power-price... - May 13th, 2026

* 15% of British power generation is already de-linked from the gas power price. This is from 10 GW of operational renewable capacity currently covered by the price-setting Contracts for Difference scheme.

* A third (36%) of power generation in Britain will be priced independently of gas by 2030, according to forecasts of generation from the Contracts for Difference scheme. Up to 36 GW of competitively-priced new wind and solar is under development by 2032 through the scheme.

* Hours where gas was below 20% of Britain’s electricity mix averaged £60/MWh in 2025, compared to £130/MWh in hours where gas made up more than 50% of the mix.

* The gas share of power generation fell to a second record monthly low in a row in Britain in April 2026. The gas share in both March (27%) and April (19%) was the lowest per month in over a decade. In March, wind supplied a monthly record 42% of all power generation.

(As more wind, solar, batteries, and transmission are deployed in the UK, fossil gas power share will continue to decline until pushed out of the generation mix)
1 comments
cm2187 22 days ago
Looking at peak wind isn't particularly helpful I'm afraid. The problem is what happens when there is no wind, like in early May (https://gridwatch.co.uk/). Having more wind capacity isn't helping. Batteries are for smoothing minutes/hours not days. Solar obviously only a few hours a day and weak at this latitude.
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fpoling 22 days ago
Modern solar work nicely in UK in May-August when wind is weakest due to long hours and cooler weather. However one needs more expensive panels that also work on a cloudy days.

Then in UK somebody calculated that a house needs 1MWh battery to last over winter using only solar panels that a typical suburb house can install. In 5-10 years that would cost 40K USD making it rather realistic to have. This ignore availability of industrial-scale wind which is the strongest in winter.

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