Great article - I guess the current system was designed many decades ago, and if you were to redesign it now you would do it differently with modern technology to help, sounds like localised pricing would make the grid/usage a lot more efficient and reward those communities/ businesses that are local to renewable assets.
For sure Northern Scotland should have lower prices given the massive change in generation in that part of the country. However, you still can't get away from the fact that at times energy will need to be imported from the South so a balance would need to be struck. The other problem here is even giving away electricity in the short term there isn't enough demand to soak up the surplus. The reality now is no more windmills should be built in Scotland until the existing transmission constraints are removed but mad Ed isn't going to do anything sensible.
Interesting post Sam. legal challenges/NIMBYism of course limits where generation and transmission gets built in practice. Looking forward to reading about how localised price setting will incentivise the construction of generation assets where it is most efficient to build them so. Shetland is very windy but has low population as you say, so you wouldn't want to disincentivise investment by forcing sale into a small local market. The advantage of a national price is that generators aren't queuing up trying to sell into the south east. Very interested to read more
Great article - I guess the current system was designed many decades ago, and if you were to redesign it now you would do it differently with modern technology to help, sounds like localised pricing would make the grid/usage a lot more efficient and reward those communities/ businesses that are local to renewable assets.
For sure Northern Scotland should have lower prices given the massive change in generation in that part of the country. However, you still can't get away from the fact that at times energy will need to be imported from the South so a balance would need to be struck. The other problem here is even giving away electricity in the short term there isn't enough demand to soak up the surplus. The reality now is no more windmills should be built in Scotland until the existing transmission constraints are removed but mad Ed isn't going to do anything sensible.
Interesting post Sam. legal challenges/NIMBYism of course limits where generation and transmission gets built in practice. Looking forward to reading about how localised price setting will incentivise the construction of generation assets where it is most efficient to build them so. Shetland is very windy but has low population as you say, so you wouldn't want to disincentivise investment by forcing sale into a small local market. The advantage of a national price is that generators aren't queuing up trying to sell into the south east. Very interested to read more