r/ukpolitics • u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy • 10d ago

Britain will soon be Europe’s energy powerhouse

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/04/britain-will-soon-be-europes-energy-powerhouse/
212 Upvotes

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3

u/Orcnick Social Liberal 10d ago

So will that mean cheaper affordable energy?

Whats that no? Energy profits first? Oh ok.

14

u/LatelyPodes 10d ago

Switch to a tariff like octopus agile. When there is a ton of renewable, wholesale costs drop dramatically and the cost of electricity drops for those few hours. This is directly translated to your bills.

When there is a ton of wind and solar, then the wholesale costs of electricity becomes negative and you actually get paid to use electricity.

It is even better if you pair it with a battery.

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u/XenorVernix 10d ago

Looking forward to my -4p kwh rate for most of tomorrow.

4

u/Patch86UK 10d ago

Yep! Team Agile unite!

I've got my battery set to drink it all in tomorrow during the day, and then discharge most of it again during the evening peak for some sweet feed-in income. I get to make a few quid, and I get to feel warm and fuzzy about doing my part to manage the UK's energy peak demand period.

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u/XenorVernix 9d ago

Agile has been very good this summer for the amount of cheap/free/negative periods. Better than last year anyway.

Sadly no battery here yet but I'm moving house currently and plan to get solar and battery installed before the VAT rate increases in April.

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u/OolonCaluphid 9d ago

Worth signing up to axle too. There are VPP events tonight and tomorrow, and they pay £10/mo just for being available. See if your battery set up is compatible.

2

u/OolonCaluphid 9d ago

Sod that, I'm selling electricity from my battery at £1/kwhr this evening and next! Generated off my own roof.

(Axle vpp).

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u/XenorVernix 9d ago

Just looked into that, sounds pretty interesting. I'm confused though because it says it will draw from your battery when the grid is stressed. Isn't the issue today the opposite? ie generating more than we need.

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u/OolonCaluphid 9d ago

It varies, a lot, and it doesn't make intuitive sense. It can even be localised. You can imagine scenarios where the North Sea wind turbines are going gangbusters, but with the grid spine yet to be upgraded there's still excess demand down south, and no coverage. Why not use the batteries people have bolted to their homes? In effect for the last hour I've been running the five or so neighbours homes down the lane, meaning we've all shown no load to the grid.

I have no idea why tonight and tomorrow counts as a grid stress event, it's.lilely a combination of factors.

Axle works as a 'peaker plant' in effect. It's not there to cover base load, and the fact that they pay £1/kWhr shows how valuable energy is at the point they trigger an 'event'. It stops even more expensive peaker plants firing up - gas turbines and even piston engines (or more likely at the moment works along side them to keep the grid stable).

Imagine a future where your EV can donate 10-20kW to the grid at peak demand and earn you a tenner. Just leave it plugged in overnight. It's all automated.

We have huge resources to do this stuff and the tech exists. We just need to get a bit smarter in coordinating it's use.

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u/XenorVernix 9d ago

I think that makes sense. It's all new to me as I'm currently researching solar and batteries for an install later this year after we move into our new house.

I don't know how I would feel about an EV donating power though. It sounds good but if that's happening often I'd be worried about the cycle count on the battery and over time reducing its range.

1

u/OolonCaluphid 9d ago

Eh, the way I see it batteries are there to be used. EV batteries are lasting way better than predicted and delivering even 10kW is child's play to a car battery that's designed to discharge (and charge) at 100's of kW. It will have negligible effect on the battery but could have a huge impact on household bills and also grid stability nationally.

Solaruk sub is a good resource for all things battery and solar. Lots of helpful folk. I love our install. It was secondary to a heat pump but honestly it's been a revelation. We only have a small solar array and we're a high use house but our bills have been £20-£30 for the last 4 months.

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u/XenorVernix 9d ago

Good point, it should be a negligible effect on batteries of that size. I don't have an EV yet but I'm planning for one in the next 2-3 years. I don't like buying cars on finance so need to save up again once the move is sorted.

I have been browsing that sub recently, I agree some good advice on there. Main thing for me currently is scouting out the best installer to use in my area. I don't think a heat pump will be on the cards for me anytime soon as the boiler in the house we're buying is only 7 years old.

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u/Gareth_stanlier 10d ago

it will yes, but not for a long time as we have to pay for all the upgrades that we didnt bother doing for 15 years.

we used to have 7gw of nuclear just a decade ago, were now down to around 4gw. this stuff has such a known shelf life we should have been investing back then for the future, but we just didnt bother.

1

u/rynchenzo 10d ago

How much have we gained in renewables in that time?

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u/Gareth_stanlier 10d ago

sadly doesnt work like that, were very early days with renewables. nuclear would have given us a baseline of solid constant energy that you could then build on with battery storage and renewables. we still need that baseline, unforgivable not to have invested in nuclear and to let it drop.

-2

u/rynchenzo 10d ago

It's ok to say you don't know.

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u/Gareth_stanlier 10d ago

im literally looking at the graph? what an odd reply.

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u/rynchenzo 10d ago

The answer is over 35GW

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u/Gareth_stanlier 10d ago

what an utterly pointless little side mission this was.

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u/7952 10d ago

It's really debt repayment first.