(Oil & Gas 360) – Home to some of the highest electricity prices on the planet, England is promoting a Demand Side Response (DSR) program to incentivize people to “adjust” their electricity consumption at peak periods.
Incentives include coupons for consumer goods and credits on people’s credit cards with similar incentives for businesses as well.
DSR skeptics say the program isn’t very consumer-friendly for those who have children, special medical needs or shift workers, adding that the program addresses symptoms rather than the causes behind the country’s energy crisis. Russian gas delivery interruptions have been named in government statements as the chief culprit behind high energy costs. The United States accounts for nearly half of the U.K.’s LNG imports.
The program is to help lessen the chances of power outages due to the intermittency of wind and solar during high demand times, which are routinely the hours between arriving home in the late afternoon through the early evening for the bulk of the population.
The government is also targeting better insulation and other efficiency measures for some 300,000 homes in a $1.3 billion (one billion English pounds) insulation initiative.
The U.K. government is targeting a fifteen percent reduction in electrical consumption by 2030 and has a net-zero emissions target for 2050; increasing the use of renewable energy and better efficiency are key components of the effort.
English companies pay more for electricity than any other place in the world. The Financial Times noted in 2023 that prices for industrial power were more than five times that of the U.S., and only Germany and Denmark have higher overall electricity prices. Business leaders say the country’s energy policies have repelled investment capital. GDP growth in 2023 was essentially flat.
A world leader in coal production and exports a century ago, the U.K. closed its last coal-fired generating plant just last month amid public proclamations to make the U.K. what a clean energy superpower.
Nuclear power appears poised for a resurgence through a recently announced Great British Nuclear initiative. The program is expected to be formalized and announced early next year; it stems from work on an energy bill in Parliament.
More recently, the state will for the first time in 30 years invest in nuclear energy as a 50% stakeholder (with public utility EDF owning the remaining half) to construct a new nuclear facility.
The last nuclear power station built in the U.K. was in 1987 when coal generated over 60% of its electricity then.
By Jim Felton for oilandgas360.com
