Another clean energy milestone has struck

June 07 marked another milestone in the UK's transition to clean energy; over half of the country’s electricity produced came from solar and wind with niche contributions from bio-mass and hydro. Traditional coal generation produced not one single kWh. That means less imported coal from Poland and Russia and the money stays in the UK. Next we need to do the same with petrol and diesel..

The Telegraph reported this new record and observed that..

The renewables boom caused market prices to fall into negative territory in the early hours of this morning and prompted National Grid to make payments to major energy users to use more power so that the grid wasn’t overwhelmed by supply.

This is the first summer in which National Grid will use the so-called ‘demand turn-up’ scheme to pay six successful businesses, who were selected through an auction, to use the grid’s excess supply rather than pay energy companies to stop generating.

The fact that we have now seen an end to the folly of paying wind generators to stop generating and instead pay selected industrial users to consume more is a good thing and will pave the way for more battery deployment; getting virtually free energy to store in a battery to use later when electricity prices are high is the sort of commercial deal that gets Financial Directors drooling.

Centralised electricity generation and grid distribution will die the same slow death here as it has in Germany. And as the amount of electricity being distributed by the grid dwindles, the cost of those units will increase sharply. Businesses with their own generation and battery storage will be at a competitive advantage to those who choose to continue to rely on the grid.

If your company wants to be on the right side of that change, contact us here.

You can read The Telegraph article here..