The only sensible way to do this I've heard is to roll out more renewables faster and so burn less gas.

Is there some other plans you support?

SideburnsOfDoom 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

While this is worthwhile, I think that the parent post may be referring more to the "UK Electricity price" to consumers, and how this is calculated. It is related, but not quite the same as "roll out more renewables faster and so burn less gas"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/20/why-the-uks...

> "If we actually paid the average price of what our electricity now costs to produce, our bills would be substantially cheaper."

> In simple terms: the price in the electricity market on any given day is dictated by the most expensive source of generation available, which in the UK would be its gas-fired power plants.

I support "roll out more renewables faster" and pricing reform. Linked article makes it clear that the UK has "one of the most expensive electricity markets in the world" and this impacts consumers and businesses.

Which does raise the question: who benefits from the current pricing arrangement, and why do they have the deciding vote?

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CorrectHorseBat 6 days ago | parent [-]

Is this not simply how markets work? Everything is sold at the marginal price.

You could change that, but it would just mean prices will be higher at another moment (in a perfect market), no?

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SideburnsOfDoom 6 days ago | parent [-]

> Is this not simply how markets work?

The UK is an outlier as noted above. So no, this is not "simply how things work" in general. It's unusual.

> it would just mean prices will be higher at another moment, no?

No, see first quoted piece of text above.

My assumption also is that it's a far from perfect market - see last paragraph.

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ZeroGravitas 6 days ago | parent [-]

The UK isn't an outlier in this regard. It's a fairly standard setup.

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SideburnsOfDoom 6 days ago | parent [-]

So you disagree with the article above, which says "Britain continues to have one of the most expensive electricity markets in the world" ?

And "Britain paying highest electricity prices in the world"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burd..."

And "Why are Britain’s power prices the highest in the world?"

https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q4-2024/why-are-brita...

And "UK energy bills highest in Europe and public patience is wearing thin"

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-energy-bills-highest-in-europe...

"highest" means an outlier, doesn't it?

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OJFord 6 days ago | parent [-]

It being more expensive in Britain doesn't mean it doesn't work the same way (just come out with a lower price) elsewhere in the world.

From your electricinsights article:

> Most markets work in this way: Saudi Arabia’s oil is cheap to produce but gets a very similar price to higher-cost oil from the North Sea. The underlying economic principle is so widespread that it’s known as the Law of One Price.

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SideburnsOfDoom 6 days ago | parent [-]

OK, I get it. The UK is an outlier in outcome, but not in process.

But I still think there's something very British in insisting "Why, it's all above board, we play by the same rules as everyone else of course. We just get a worse outcome than anyone else because, well ... um ... look over there! Immigrants!!" (I'm not paraphrasing you, rather the country as a whole)

British exceptionalism at its finest.

	▲	ZeroGravitas 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		If you want corruption it's much more up front. The Conservatives effectively banned onshore wind in England for a decade just after it became the cheapest source of electricity available. Real Trump-level stupid and like Trump, the media seems to be actively diverting attention from it. That and not installing insulation or mandating new homes to be better built cost the country billions and it got more costly when gas prices spiked. The current govenrment can't shift costs from clean electricity to dirty gas, or to general taxation, because the media would crucify them. Meanwhile Farage is campaigning on getting rid of net zero and the NHS and they love him. The same media starting a culture war about heat pumps at the moment. Basically if you assume the media and the political right are owned by gas and oil interests, the politics since North Sea discoveries make a lot more sense. It's like they were trying to burn as much of it as inefficiently as possible rather than use it wisely for its owners, the people.

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skippyboxedhero 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Rolling out more renewables faster will mean more reliance on gas.

I am not sure how people still don't realise this after ten years of doing this and energy prices going up non-stop.

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myrmidon 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

We did not start to push for renwable energy to get prices lower, this is mainly a mitigation against previously unaccounted-for externalities (CO2 emissions and air pollution).

Complaining about transition costs, to me, is like complaining that industrial waste disposal was cheaper back when we just dumped everything into the next river.

	▲	lostlogin 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> industrial waste disposal was cheaper back when we just dumped everything into the next river. This is still done. Thames Water.

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nicoburns 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only needing gas when the renewable energy isn't available seems strictly better than needing gas 24/7

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rcxdude 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

At this point, there's not that much other non-renewable generation on the UK grid, so expanding renewables will reduce the impact of gas on prices (though it'll likely be non-linear).

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spacebanana7 6 days ago | parent [-]

Gas complements renewables really well because gas can readily be tapped “on-demand” whilst renewables can only be tapped “on supply”.

It’s relatively easy to turn off gas when renewables are supplying energy to the grid at near zero cost marginal cost. But also easy to turn on gas when the renewables aren’t supplying energy, or when demand spikes in a manner uncorrelated to renewable generation.

Batteries are a more elegant solution long term, of course.

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pydry 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Gas complements everything well. It's relatively cheap, easy to store power in large amounts and completely dispatchable. Nothing else can do all 3.

Batteries work well for short term day-to-day storage but they're impossibly expensive for seasonal storage which we will need a solution for for the last ~5-10% of decarbonization.

Probably the only way to fully decarbonize will eventually be to synthesize gas.

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SoftTalker 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Gas can be used two ways: Gas in a conventional base-load steam turbine generator power plant is not easy to tap on demand. For peaking plants using gas turbine generators it is, but those are also less efficient.

	▲	ZeroGravitas 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		The article mentions at the same site they're building a gas plant using the same tech as a large ship engines, which is an attempt to hit a sweet spot for future usage as they have high efficiency at part load.