Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing.
The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.
Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs.
Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.
The episode underscored the precarious state the region’s energy markets face heading into the long European winter.
The electricity price shock was most acute in the U.K., which has leaned on wind farms to eradicate net carbon emissions by 2050. Prices for carbon credits, which electricity producers need to burn fossil fuels, are at records, too.
“It took a lot of people by surprise,” said Stefan Konstantinov, senior energy economist at data firm ICIS, of the leap in power prices. “If this were to happen in winter when we’ve got significantly higher demand, then that presents a real issue for system stability.”
At their peak, U.K. electricity prices had more than doubled in September and were almost seven times as high as at the same point in 2020. Power markets also jumped in France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Prices for power to be dispatched the next day rocketed to £285 a megawatt-hour in the U.K. when wind speeds dropped last week, according to ICIS. That is equivalent to $395 a megawatt-hour and marked a record on figures going back to 1999.
Read rest at WSJ ($)
..and who collects the money for carbon credits? Where does that money go?… Disease, poverty, war.. death… Seems like the four horsemen are galloping towards us at full speed. Help us Jesus!
File this headline under “Well, duh!”
Am I missing something? In 2020 power rates in the UK were three times higher than they were before action was taken on the climate change fraud. From the article, power rates “were almost seven times as high as at the same point in 2020.” Last I knew 3 X 7 = 21. That is the impact of the climate change fraud. Environmentalists often talk in terms of what is sustainable. The energy prices that are developing in Europe are not sustainable. The people are going to start pushing back hard.
If only these owners of gas and coal plants give the government a big middle finger so that the citizens really see what happens when they aren’t there. Maybe the populous will rise up in anger and force a change.
Europe faces reality Wind and Solar Energy and not be trusted upon to provide the needs of the People those who tell us we all need to go Green is either Drunk on Drugs,Ignorant or all the above