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Doesn’t gas generators set the market price 98% of the time in the UK?

They need to fix their market pricing mechanism before the public benefit from cheaper renewable energy sources.



It is important to realise that the current pricing mechanism is not an accident, and has some non-obvious benefits that need to be weighed against the obvious drawbacks. Clearly other mechanisms exist, which might solve the obvious drawbacks, but it is a choice of tradeoffs rather than a simple fix.


Not any more, according to this article you're commenting on, no.


the comment you are replying to is talking about marginal cost pricing, which wasn't addressed by this article.


> This price-setting dominance is being eroded by renewables, with recent analysis from the UK Energy Research Centre showing that gas set power prices 90% of the time in 2025.


The more often you have renewable surplus the rarer you need to fire up the gas turbines.


One could argue that it’s the “big boys” favour to build out “just enough” renewables in places that are further away from demand, so that gas still sets the price even if it’s just a fraction of what’s actually being used.

Min/max profits, but that would be crazy talk right! I’m sure the large energy producers have my best interests at heart really.




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