Thread by @Telegraph

🍃Weak winds
📉Dwindling reserves
🇪🇺Putin's geopolitical tussle with Europe

These all conspire to leave the UK on the brink of an energy disaster.

So, how do we fix it? 🧵
telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/…

🌩️Pundits often reach for the hackneyed phrase of a "perfect storm" to describe a crisis...

But when renewable energy accounts for 40% of electricity generation - Britain's headaches are partly caused by an uncanny calm

🇬🇧The unfavourable weather conditions have forced Britain to turn to gas to fill the gap.

But it comes at a time when demand for gas worldwide has never been higher
telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/…

Freak weather is also playing its part as droughts in Brazil and Argentina dent electricity output from their hydroelectric plants, forcing both to take up the slack in the gas market.

📈At 164p a therm, gas prices are already around triple the average of the last decade

❓Is the crisis temporary?

Despite the prominent short-term drivers of the current spike, experts say policy decisions have also increased the UK's energy vulnerability.

Andrew Large, chairman of the Energy Intensive Users Group, said the Noughties' "dash for gas" has left the country with few options beyond expensive gas.

🗣️"We've talked for a long time about potential grid instability due to reliance on intermittent renewables"

❓How do we fix it?

In the short-term, experts hope that big producers such as the US and Australia will respond by pumping more gas.

"The question is whether the increase in production capacity can catch up with rising global demand levels," analyst Tim Dixon says

💡Dixon says: "The fundamentals are ensuring that we have enough electrons under all conceivable sets of circumstances in order to be able to keep the lights on at reasonable prices. That therefore means gas storage, it means diversification of supply, it means greater autarky."

Read the latest analysis from @russ_lynch and @Tim_Wallace 👇
telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/…