Wind generation may plunge to half Thursday’s levels, while heating demand will stay at an 11-month high as Britain gets its coldest day since last January.
This week’s cold, calm weather has put pressure on the power system, prompting the grid operator to issue a market warning Wednesday and triggering multimillion-pound payments to gas-fed plants to plug gaps in supply.
Prices for Friday power jumped to £188.77 a megawatt-hour, Epex data show. Wind generation is set to sink as low as 2.1 gigawatts and the cold snap will persist. Temperatures have also dropped sharply in France and Germany, raising demand there too and making it harder for Britain to import additional supplies.
Big shifts in renewables output demonstrate the challenge confronting governments as the energy transition accelerates. The UK plans a huge build-out of wind power in the coming years as it targets a clean grid by 2030. But on windless days, gas will still be needed to keep the lights on.
