Very much enjoyed speaking the Lords Science & Technology committee yesterday with @david_joffe, although watching back I moved my hands so much it looks like I was encouraging the Lords to guess which cup the energy system was under. Here's a brief summary of what I said. /1 Long duration energy storage - defined as something that can store energy for at least 8 hrs (6 if you're DESNZ) - will be critical to the future of the energy system. Its role will be to replace some of the functionality gas plants have in the current system. /2

These findings are extremely worrying. Much of the Government and the CCC's work on the impact of heat pumps on generation and networks assumes a reasonably high level of flex. /1

utilityweek.co.uk/heat-pump-flex… This trial was intended to study the volumes of flex available from getting consumers to switch their heat pump off at times of peak demand. More than half of participants felt uncomfortable doing so. /2

There's lots of interesting things in today's NAO report on home heating decarbonisation, but there's one point I want to highlight in particular: evidence. /1
nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl… DESNZ is due to make a decision on the strategic role of hydrogen in home heating in 2026. The NAO points out that on current plans it won't have enough evidence to do so. And this is a disaster for both sides of the debate. /2

HAPPY REMA DAY! What does the Government's new consultation mean for the sector? Some high-level thoughts. /1 Firstly, the below diagram gives the status of each option originally considered as part of the work. The key takeaway for many players will be that nodal pricing is dead, but zonal remains on the table /2

While I'm sure people are going to be making a big fuss about the framing of this today, the important thing to emphasise is that Labour would've done exactly the same. You need a bunch of standby plant for a low carbon grid. /1
thetimes.co.uk/article/new-ge… Estimates for the amount vary, but most analysis I've seen points to 20-30GW of fast-reacting gas on standby for a period of overcast skies and low wind that lasts longer than even the longest LDES technology. /2

Labour have finally announced the cancellation of the £28bn figure that the Tories have been using to give them grief and replaced it with a £23.7bn figure that will definitely prevent the Tories from doing the same thing. Let’s dig into what this means. /1 Firstly, as should be obvious this is a relatively small reduction in ambition justifiable on the grounds that the Tories have turned the country into an uninvestable basket case where nothing works and prosperity is a distant dream. /2

If the Government does actually drop the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, it would be a mistake. Others, such as @DrSimEvans, have outlined the carbon case, but I want to focus on why the CHMM is a remarkably pragmatic policy. /1
ft.com/content/25176b… The Government is currently subsidising heat pumps to the tune of £7.5k a pop under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. If it continues to do so when heat pump installations hit 600k a year in 2028 - its target - it will be paying £4.5bn/year. This is extraordinarily expensive. /2

TODAY’S THE DAY THAT OFGEM BANS BATTERIES BY ACCIDENT: a story about one arm of Government having no idea what everyone else is doing and ploughing on regardless. /1 Today marks the closure of Ofgem’s consultation on updated guidance applicable to the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition. With such a manifestly charismatic title, surely this will be just regulatory housekeeping? You would think so, but no. /2 ofgem.gov.uk/publications/t…

COP28 AND OUR NEW ELECTRIC EARTH: some thoughts, now the dust has settled a little. /1 Amidst the back and forth of arguments over the lack of language on whether fossil fuels are down or out, one key accomplishment of the talks was a global commitment to triple renewable energy capacity globally to 11,000GW by 2030. /2

While it's trivially obvious that holding COP in a major fossil fuel producer was always going to lead to statements like this one, let's briefly examine it for probity. You can see IEA work for the longer form of this thread. /1

https://twitter.com/dpcarrington/status/1731260240455221291

The right way of structuring this problem is to first recognise that different fossil fuels have different uses and therefore their phase-outs have different implications. /2

I am delighted to announce the launch of our paper, “Reinventing Retail”, available at the link below. A brief summary here for those of you who want to whet your appetites before clicking through. /1

stonehavenglobal.com/insights/reinv… The UK’s energy retail market is in a parlous state, and has been for some time. No-one believes that it’s working; retailers aren’t making any money, innovation is hard and many consumers are at the sharp end. /2

WHAT DOES THE PRIME MINISTER’S SPATIAL ENERGY PLAN MEAN? /1 Last week, amongst what could be kindly called other controversial announcements, the Prime Minister committed to bringing forward the ‘first ever’ spatial plan for energy infrastructure. /2

Having a had a chance to pull my thoughts together, (a) this is a disaster (b) it was a preventable one, and (c) the task now is to restore confidence in the CFD regime. /1 theguardian.com/environment/20… Firstly, last night Government tried to tell journalists that this failure was the fault of the developers because lower costs projects were being developed elsewhere in Europe. /2

Going to wait for the detail of this, but there are (at least) two ways of thinking about this move. /1
theguardian.com/environment/20… The first is that it doesn't really matter. The announcements today relate to the yellow and red bits of the below chart; you can announce 100 licences but it isn't going to magically fill up the oil reserves of the North Sea again. The basin is nearly tapped out. /2

A few quick thoughts on this, which is an important move to solve the problem of EPCs being increasingly worthless. /1
on.ft.com/3Y8vBSH Firstly, a hearty LOL @ this sentence: "We remain committed to our environmental objectives but we cannot overburden landlords facing cost of living pressures." If only landlords had a valuable asset they could sell to make money! /2

A few thoughts on this, which is the rejection of one of the contenders to be the UK's Hydrogen Consumer Trial at village scale. /1

https://twitter.com/MartinCallanan/status/1678450332857188353

Firstly this isn't the end of the process and by rejecting one of the applicants DESNZ is fulfilling the trajectory it expected to at the outset by only funding one trial, which will now be in Redcar. This is part, rather than the end of, DESNZ's hydrogen programme. /2

Further expansion of carbon pricing in sectors without any strategic interventions is a good thing for delivering change, but I have some thoughts about what this makes us look like to investors as compared to the EU. /1

gov.uk/government/new… On leaving the EU and consequently the Emissions Trading Scheme - an EU-wide mechanism for creating a price for carbon - the UK created its own scheme, the UK ETS. This is what's expanding today. /2

Strap in for some really gourmet electric geekery. Let's unpack what the Damien is rightly pushing back against in his great thread. What is After Diversity Maximum Demand? Why is it important? Why is it seen as a stumbling block for market-wide half hourly settlement (MWHHS)? /1

https://twitter.com/a_Damien_Kelly/status/1673616447401078791

‘After Diversity Maximum Demand’ (ADMD) is a statistical analysis of consumer electrical demand used by distribution networks to right-size connections and transformers in the low voltage network. You can see a framework that uses it here: () /2spenergynetworks.co.uk

Some quick thoughts on Labour's set of energy announcements today: /1 labour.org.uk/missions/makin… Labour plans to instantly remove the ban on onshore wind and reshape the planning system to ensure faster decisions on energy infrastructure, through a combination of requirements on regulators and reforms to the framework. /2

So! The Government has published a consultation on a "Strategy & Policy Statement for energy policy in Great Britain." Unlike all the other strategy documents the Government handily lists in the consultation, it hasn't made a hoohah about this one. /1 gov.uk/government/con… This is because the document is more technical than public facing; it's intended to direct Ofgem and the future System Operator by telling them what Government's strategic priorities are. But how is an SPS meant to do that? /2

Still digging through last week's vast mound of documents for policy truffles, and have come across something interesting for the future of our energy security. /1 One of the key failings of the antebellum regime was inadequate attention paid to the downside risks of relying too much on unfriendly states for our energy. We didn't physically run out of gas last winter largely through weather based luck than years of preparation. /2