262 windless days means that we still need gas for power for years to come

The Chief Executive of National Gas, Jon Butterworth, has stressed the long term necessity of fossil fuels, especially gas, to prevent power blackouts in the UK

As reported in the Daily Telegraph, he highlighted the country’s growing dependence on intermittent power sources like wind and solar but pointed out that gas will continue to play a role in bridging the gap when renewable sources are not able to generate enough power.

He pointed out that for 262 days in 2022 the UK was unable to generate enough electricity from these renewable sources and gas was required to meet demand.

At the time of writing on 23/10/2023, for the last reported half hourly period between 2pm and 2.30pm, 18.2% of all electricity generated for the period was from wind, with the lion’s share coming from gas at 45.52%.

For this half hourly period, the total demand for electricity in the UK was 36.21 GW’s. How we generated this electricity can be seen below:

1- Gas: 45.52 %
2- Wind: 18.2 %
3- Nuclear: 11.61 %
4- Biomass: 7.48 %
5- Solar: 6.98 %
6- Imports and exports: 4.2 %
7- Coal: 3.98 %
8- Hydro: 1.44 %
9- Pumped storage: 0.59 %

As we are still so reliant on gas for power to make up a significant chunk of the generation mix before more renewable sources come online in the years to come, we remain very open to worldwide supply and demand dynamics as we all compete for the same gas imports.

This means that we will experience extreme levels of price volatility for years to come.

For this reason, we really recommend tracking the latest wholesale market trends if you are in the window to make a decision on your next business electricity or business gas contract.

For this reason we have have produced an easy to understand weekly market report. Click here to see the latest information and subscribe. We will send the latest report to your inbox every Monday morning.