Unreliable renewable generation contributes to high spot prices
28 Mar 2008
“The flaws in the policy to ban new thermal power stations are being graphically illustrated by current high electricity spot prices,” said Ralph Matthes, Executive Director of the Major Electricity Users’ Group (MEUG).
Yesterday provisional spot prices at Haywards averaged 19 c/kWh. These are extremely high prices reflecting relatively tight supply. Yet there was no security of supply risk yesterday, just generators pricing their output to reflect current and possible future scarcity. The existence of unreliable and intermittent renewable generation such as wind did not mitigate the high spot prices.
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