The U.K.’s electricity supply is becoming increasingly reliant upon a series of umbilical cables to the continent called interconnectors. We have cables stretching to France, Belgium and other countries. Last month, a new £1.7bn 475-mile interconnector to Denmark was brought into operation.
Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho was lauding this new development on X. She said (emphasis mine):
The 475-mile cable is the longest land and subsea electricity cable in the world and will provide cleaner, cheaper more secure energy to power up to 2.5 million homes in the U.K.
It will help British families save £500 million on their bills over the next decade, while cutting emissions.
A deep dive into the National Grid interconnector data, however, shows the claims of cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy do not stand up to scrutiny.
They do not make it cleaner. The problem here is that the energy we import during periods of high demand is likely to be ‘dirty’ energy from diesel engines and coal-fired power stations, while the energy we export in times of lower demand is more likely to be ‘clean’ energy from wind and solar.
Second, it is crystal clear that interconnectors do not provide cheaper energy. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The data show that interconnectors have helped us to perfect the art of buying high and selling low. The price we pay for imports is consistently above the market price and the price we get for exports is significantly below market rates; we even frequently pay others to take surplus power off our hands (known as negative prices). In what world does it make economic sense for consumers to pay elevated subsidies to generate wind and solar power, and then pay people overseas to take the same power off our hands?
The security claim is more nuanced. In a narrow sense, the interconnectors do provide some security, because even though at times we pay excessive prices for electricity, the interconnectors have allowed us to keep the lights on. However, we are in this position because people like Alok Sharma gleefully blew up coal-fired power stations, so destroying our domestic dispatchable capacity. This means we are now dependent upon the kindness of strangers in Europe to keep the lights on. As other European countries continue down the path to Net Zero, destroying dispatchable sources (like Germany’s nuclear power plants) and installing more intermittent sources of energy, we may not be able to rely upon this kindness. Indeed, it is likely that Europe-wide electricity surpluses and deficits will synchronise as a result of seasonal and time-of-day related factors, meaning that there will be more times when we pay others to take our surplus power and we will pay extremely high prices more frequently when demand is high and renewables generation is low. Overall, this is clearly not a position of security, it is a position of weakness and insecurity.
Moreover, it is also clear from the data that we are a price-taker, not a price-maker in the market. This is because we do not have sufficient dispatchable capacity to meet demand. Again, this is a position of insecurity, not strength.
The detailed analysis below demonstrates clearly that Coutinho’s claims are bogus.
Volume and Value of Electricity Traded Over U.K. Interconnectors
Figure 1 shows the volume of electricity traded over the interconnectors by quarter for the years 2021-2023.
In 2021, we sold far more electricity (2,756 GWh) than we bought (396 GWh) over the interconnectors. In 2022, the position reversed, and we bought (3,168 GWh), which is far more than we sold (805 GWh). In 2023 the situation was more balanced, and we sold more than twice as much (2,152 GWh) as we bought (1,097 GWh). It appears that the third quarter of each year always sees the most total trade.
Figure 2 shows the value of electricity traded in the same periods. The total value of the trades is calculated by multiplying the volume traded in each auction by the volume weighted price. As we shall see below, sometimes we pay people on the continent to take power away, making the price is negative for some sales transactions. When the data are aggregated, this has the impact of reducing the apparent sales value.
In 2021, even though we sold far more electricity than we bought, the value of the trade was more even with £112m of sales and £82m of purchases. 2022 was an exceptional year with £1,116m of purchases and only £25.2m of sales. In 2023, even though the volume sold was double the volume we bought, perhaps surprisingly there was a much higher value of purchases (£160m) than sales (£16.7m).
Electricity Interconnector Transaction Prices Compared to Daily Market Prices
Figure 3 compares the average price of purchases and sales through the interconnectors to the market price of electricity on the day of the transaction. The Low Carbon Capture Company publishes a dataset that shows the subsidies paid in relation to various renewables through CfDs (contracts for differences) each day. That dataset also includes the Market Reference Price for wind and solar on each day which has been used as the market price for each day. Typically, this reference price is set by gas-fired electricity.
The dark blue bars show the average buy-price in the quarter. The light blue bars show the average of the market prices on the day of the transactions. The dark orange bars show the average sell-price in the quarter and the light orange bars the average of the market prices on the day of the transactions.
The bottom line is that we typically pay more than the market price for buys (the dark blue lines are taller than the light blue lines) and accept less than market price for sells (the dark orange lines are shorter than the light orange lines). Looking at the detailed data, the maximum purchase price was £6,599.98 per MWh on July 20th 2022 when the reference price was £247.91 per MWh. The minimum sale price was £–404.71 per MWh on May 29th 2023 when the reference price was £63 per MWh. It is also interesting to note that for the whole of the second quarter of 2023, the average sale price was slightly negative (£–0.22 per MWh). These negative sales prices mean we paid others to take this electricity off our hands.
Frequency Distribution of Electricity Interconnector Buys and Sells
Figure 4 shows the frequency distribution of buy and sell prices for 2023.
As you can see, we have perfected the art of buying high and selling low. A sizeable proportion of the sales transactions have a negative sales price. The peak is in the £–20 per MWh to £60 per MWh range. Most of the interconnector buy transaction prices are above most of the sales prices, with a very wide spread that peaks around £100 per MWh. However, there is a cluster of buys in the £0-£20 per MWh range and a sizeable number of buy transactions over £600 per MWh.
Interconnector Buys and Sells by Time of Day
It is also instructive to look at the volume of electricity traded by time of day. Figure 5 shows the volume traded in 2023 by time of day.
As we can see, most of the electricity sold is from 10pm to 6am. There is also a residual tail of sales from 7am to 2pm, reflecting the demand lull in the middle of the day. Most is bought in the morning peak from 5am to 7am and then again during the evening peak from 4pm to 9pm.
As might be expected, we are selling most when demand is low and buying when demand is high, reflecting the fact that we are not really in control of generation and cannot use it to match demand.
This is further illustrated by Figure 6 that shows the value of electricity traded by time of day.
Even though the volumes sold during sleeping hours are high, the value of that electricity is low. In aggregate, the electricity sold during the middle of the day has negative value, so we pay others to take it off our hands. By contrast, we pay through the nose for the electricity we buy at peak hours.
Conclusions
Evidently, there is a massive disconnect between the rhetoric about interconnectors and the reality. Sadly, it is becoming clear that in many cases, when it comes to pronouncements involving Net Zero, the opposite of what the Government tells us is true. They are not cleaner – we tend to buy ‘dirty’ electricity and sell ‘clean’ electricity. They are not cheaper – we are being ripped off at every turn. And they are not more secure – we are dependent on our neighbours being willing to sell us electricity at times of scarcity.
The interconnectors are a giant swindle. They are nothing but an expensive sticking plaster over the reckless mismanagement of our dispatchable generation capacity. This can only be solved by investing in new sources of dispatchable supply (like gas and nuclear) so we can regain a position of strength. This investment would increase energy security, make us a price-maker in Europe and turn the interconnectors from an expensive liability into a valuable asset.
David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where a longer version of this article first appeared.
UPDATE: This article analyses only the National Grid auctions for trade of electricity across the interconnectors. Additional energy is traded across the interconnectors as detailed by Elexon, where the picture may be different. This may be the subject of an additional article.
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Woke is evil
He was arrested for defending a Christian Cllr’s right to object to the gender perverts and mentally ill deniers of chromosomes, dna and mitochondria. If the other Cllr had been a Mahometan or Hindu no arrest by the Pervert Gestapo. As in the DisUnited States, the Plod is simply a Gestapo for Gov’t special interests.
What are Cllr Lawal and Stevens doing in the Tory party if they believe in the principal of freedom of speech?
The worrying thing about this story is the extent to which it is now normalised. We have already had victories over precisely this, yet the police are persisting with the same approach. Suella Braverman has even addressed precisely this, yet the police are ignoring all she has said. These stories are multiplying despite crossing legal bounds and no one is held to account. And now, dare I say it, even the commenters annoy me (in the Telegraph not here – here is much better). When they express outrage now they just look to me like birds who, with the publication of the story, have been fed some bird feed and while they are pecking away the real culprits are moving on, setting the next domino in place ready to start the show and flip our world into totalitarianism.
The UK is increasingly a Christophobic country.
There is not one single case of the plod arresting a Mahometan for objecting to the mentally ill pervert cult.
Woke is evil
Sheesh! Welcome to clown world eh?
The decision makers in Plod-world should be made accountable for this nonsense.
Too many things to say about this disgraceful incident and not enough time, therefore I’ll leave it to the late, great George Carlin. He could be talking about any government in the laughably labelled ”free and democratic” West here. As long as governments overreach and employ goon squads to trample all over our liberties and keep us in check basic rights such as freedom of speech and democracy are just one big, fat illusion. A privilege to be given and taken away at their behest.
“Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government does not give a f*** about them. Government doesn’t care about you or your children or your rights or your welfare or your safety. It simply doesn’t give a f*** about you. It’s interested in its own power, that’s the only thing, keeping it and expanding it wherever possible. Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights or we have no rights at all.
And rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter. You see how it’s going?”
https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1695813659883434338
Thanks for that Mogs. Very true.
When’s the kick back going to start…
Andrew Tate and Alex Jones get together and discuss the state of the world, propaganda, control and feminisation of men.
https://youtu.be/aAQ8pKYnsHM?si=Elw__oDPCDWq5XbS
A bit shouty but makes one second guess the relentless attacks. He’s awake.
Wokery in conjunction with the Liberal Progressive virus denies you the right to have an opinion on Equality, Diversity, Race, Gender or Climate. Whoever thought that in a supposedly free country that we would be denied an opinion? If you have an opinion that does not comply with the tenets of the 5 agenda’s I listed you are committing a crime of HATE. —–How totally absurd. I disagree so I am guilty? But this article shows another extension to that absurdity where someone who then neither agrees nor disagrees with another persons allegedly hateful view gets into a spot of bother for saying that person should be free to have his opinion. —–What a dreadful slippery slope where non Progressives will soon all be in the woke gulag.
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Your distillation of the current state of play is absolutely spot on.
We now have Stasi ..Official .
Again totally disproportionate Police action .
The law needs changing ..
The people are sovereign. The government is there to serve.
Legally unenforceable manifestos presented at 4 or 5y intervals give governments no right to remove a millennium of rights.
The globalists don’t think so and are laughing at such a quaint assertion. And at the moment they are winning.
As a resident of Northamptonshire I’ll be dropping the Chief Constable a line on the line he has crossed.
I know his PA!
I cannot get my head around this, how is this even possible ?
So police really turned up to someones house and arrested them over a tweet and locked them up for 9 hours.
The police are not fit for purpose,
How many police officers did that tie up in a nice & easy job with no need to patrol streets, a smart middle class family to terrorise with ease and no nasty loudmouthed perps to nick? What’s not to like?
Quite. I hope he sues Northamptonshire Plod. Incidentally, during the Covid nonsense wasn’t it the head of Northamptonshire Plod who threatened to have his minions search people’s shopping for “non-essential” items?
Well it took 6 or 7 to arrest that poor autistic teenage lass who had the temerity to say one of them looked like her lesbian nana. Would they even send that many if some violent thug was kicking off in town on a Saturday night? It’s a chuffing joke. Let it never be said, should you ever have the misfortune to be burgled, that the police can’t be with you for 5 hours due to lack of resources.
Mogs, the plod will not attend household burglary cases.
Well it took 6 or 7 to arrest that poor autistic teenage lass who had the temerity to say one of them looked like her lesbian nana. Would they even send that many if some violent thug was kicking off in town on a Saturday night?
It depends. If bouncers call the police, they’ll usually act, as that’s one of their peer groups. Ordinary members of the public or even bar staff are usually told to get lost. They’re supposed to hire bouncers for protection. But that’s certainly not a racket. No, no, no, this cannot be!
To answer that you need to consider what is going on at a deeper level. Consider, there is a relationship between this and Donald Trump’s arrest. It might sound tenuous, but consider what is driving those two things and that is the level that answers your question. No of course it’s not a single coordinating entity – if there is one they haven’t directly asked for this, but it IS a confluence of interests and philosophies where the centralisation of greed and power is leading the world to a very dark place.
No manpower issues for Northants police, then; though looks like some of them have been ‘wasting police time’ and ‘impersonating a police officer’.
Stephen Mold
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire
Email- Commissioner@northantspfcc.gov.uk
https://www.stephenmold.com
Please drop Mr Mold a polite, factual line on this travesty.
I hereby politlely request that people self-identifying as Northamptonshire police beings refrain from acting as strongmen for the local Labour party in future, something they’ve been factually doing so far?
No bloody chance of that leading to anything except maybe laughter and some other police forces being tipped off wrt potential troublemakers which could do with some proactive policing. Didn’t you ever wonder why open sale of stolen goods and trading of supposedly illegal drugs is happening everywhere in plain sight? Hint: It’s not because the police alone cannot see this. They just know why they ought to turn a blind eye to it.
He needs to name the scumbag labour councillor.
Isn’t it about time a senior copper was fired for promoting this sort of conduct amongst the lower ranks? Unless and until serious consequences follow this behaviour will continue.
Are the police given any training these days? The incidents where plod goes rogue seem to be occurring with increasing frequency. It’s almost as if they are trained to act outside the law. No surely not…
I’ve just sent Stephen Mold, the Northamptonshire Police Commissioner a message.
Please consider dropping him a polite, respectful and factual message.
Sir,
As Christian who lives in the county I’m frankly appalled by the treatment by Northamptonshire Police of Messrs Lawal and Stevens in this case of woke policing.
For the record, I hugely respect our force.
It seems the Chief Constable is now targeting Christians who hold the traditional Biblical view of homosexuality.
I wish to raise a formal complaint over this matter. As a published author and local speaker who has many Christian friends within the county, I also need to make you aware we feel intimidated by this woke policing. It seems policing ‘without fear or favour’ is no longer the ethos.
Sincerely
Thank you Neil.
Yet another fine advert for the Free Speech Union. It could be one of us next and I am not being glib with that comment.
This seems eminently winnable for the FSU. Go on Toby, tear them a new one!
We’d better all sign up and pay our subs then.
On the other hand, so far as I know the police do not harass the High Street Bible-thumpers that I see and hear every week who warn me of all manner of Evil in the world sometimes referring to activities banned by Leviticus. Perhaps police policy, guided by the Home Office, is to turn a blind eye unless the preacher or tweeter also holds a position of actual political influence?
The clue is he had been reported to the police by a local Labour Party member. Labour party members don’t enlist the police to help them furthering the political agenda of their party wrt to street preachers whose ranting and raving is of no conceivable concern to them. They probably could, though, which is bad enough.
I’m on a roll here … now written to Chief Constable Nick Adderley, copied to Police Commisioner and local MP.
Please do likewise if you can – remember they’ll be coming for you next.
Enough is enough.
Sir,
You will no doubt be aware of the action of your force against Anthony Stevens who was arrested, then held in custody for 9 hours simply for tweeting a link for a petition to defend King Lawal, both Northamptonshire councillors. The context is that King was sharing his traditional, Bible-based Christian beliefs.
For the record, I have long held our county’s police in high regard, publicising its efforts for motorcycle safety on my YouTube channel, the 3 videos now with over 100,000 hits. Your officers have always been highly responsive and effective on the occasions we have needed assistance. As an advanced rider, my mentor and riding buddy is an ex-police instructor. I was best man for a police sergeant’s wedding and have always held the thin blue line in the highest regard.
As a Christian myself of 50 years faith, I am frankly appalled by your officer’s treatment of Mr Stevens, and that in front of his family. This was clearly designed to intimidate, to send a message.
These actions bring Northamptonshire Police into disrepute, clearly abandoning the principle of policing ‘without fear or favour’. It is obvious now that some groups get more favour than others. I would remind you that Sir Robert Peel was a committed Christian and UK law is strongly rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.
I have raised the issue with the Commissioner and hope you focus your resources – paid for by people like me – on real crime and not wokism.
Sincerely
Excellent
Excellent letter. But will it get an equally excellent reply?
The content of the reply doesn’t really matter, Neil has set an excellent example of what we all need to do in our locality in similar cases if we wish to be both heard and the issue remedied. We are in the situation we find ourselves in because good people do nothing.
Response received 29/8 …
Thank you for emailing the Chief Constable, when this matter was brought to the attention of the Chief Constable he commissioned a review into the circumstances and facts. This is a live investigation so no comment will be made at this stage and will await the findings of the initial review.
Regards
Xxxx
Inspector xxxxx
Staff Officer to CC Nick Adderley / Head of Executive Support
Why is Toby Young saying the police have made a serious mistake? Is there evidence that it was a mistake rather than policy?
First question to Police…who has made the complaint?
Isn’t it about time that the ‘complainers’ were clearly identified?
If the police won’t tell you, don’t let them in in the first place…it’s about time that the people who make these bogus complaints were identified, so that they can be equally smeared by the publicity and hopefully successfully sued……?!
Someone must be wondering if Jesus Christ can save these two gentlemen. Chiefly from themselves. An elephant only has itself to blame if it lumbers into a pit. Or gets eaten by a pride of lions.
It’s never wise to defend the indefensible. Burning a book is hardly a matter of speech, free or otherwise. Being fascinated by these book burnings is ignorant. Tweeting a photo of the scripture concerned being placed on the floor would be offensive. Adding the strife of tongues to the plotting of men that is politics is not being slow to speak, as the Christian scripture would advise the counsellor.
Christian virtues do not rule England. If the Christian counsellor had been more aware of the nature of the ‘formidable season’ in which we live, and which, as a Christian he could have learned about quite easily from his Apostle, Paul (2 Tim. iii. 1-5), he could have saved himself a lot of unnecessary inconvenience. And Paul would have advised the counsellor to give respect to whom respect is due.
Book burning is a perfect example of free speech.
Quit rimming the islamists – they hate useful idiots like you as much as they hate the people applying a match to their handbook – you are the kuffar – you are beneath the animals to an islamist.
Before you start with the “not all muzzies” nonsense – consider this
“Radical” islamists demand the global caliphate as soon as possible and by any means necessary.
“Moderate” islamists are happy to wait for the radicals to deliver…
TRUST NOT A ONE OF THEM.
“Someone must be wondering if Jesus Christ can save these two gentlemen”
Save them from what?
Please give examples of “speech” and please clarify what speech you think should be prohibited by law and why.
What “respect” is due, to whom? Why is saving yourself inconvenience a virtue?
Do you think either of the men has committed a “hate crime”?
If you don’t think burning a book is “speech”, consider what action would have been taken had the book being burned been some bland volume such as a dictionary. Do you seriously think any action would have been taken? It’s absurd to think that would have been the case, therefore the action of burning a religious text is quite obviously speech.
So many of these cases seem to result from police not being very bright, and not understanding the laws that they are supposed to be upholding.
This seems to be repeated so often. Time for our Home Secretary to provide unambiguous orders to the police forces that speech upsetting senribilities in others us NOT an offence. This ‘hate crime’ thing has to stop.
The UK Keystone Cops are woefully Incompetent. They don’t understand that the day of reckoning will be upon them.
It seems that the only written part of our constitution is being torn up, the Magna Carta. It is probably the most important legal document ever written, and the fact that the Police do not understand it speaks volumes about their now undeclared purpose. This “hate speech” thing is bad law, made by idiots in Parliament without a clue of life, because pressure groups wanted it to kick back at some “foreign practices” which were criticised by the indigenous population. I am sure you all know what these include, rape, grooming etc.
I found this one of the most extraordinary actions to date by our woke police. I hope the FSU will help this councillor sue the pants off Nottinghamshire Police. It is also indicative that he was reported to police by a Labour councillor, which suggests what we might be in for when Labour next get into power.
Just a piece of advice if this should ever happen to you. The first thing you must do at the police station is ask to see the duty solicitor and not say anything else until you have spoken them.
This is now England . Banana Republic