We are pleased to present our GB renewables monthly market summary.
Highlights from February include:
- Average monthly wholesale electricity prices dipped to £52.9 /MWh, equivalent to a decrease of £18.3 /MWh (or 26%), relative to January. The reduction of the average wholesale price was due to a combination of lower transmission demand, which decreased by 15%, and lower fuel prices.
- The intraday market went from having no settlement periods with negative prices in January to having 11 negative half hours. Meanwhile, the day ahead market continued to experience no settlement periods with negative prices, as was the case in the previous month.
- Strong winds associated with Storm Darcy led to an increase in wind load factors and output. The load factors for offshore wind and onshore wind increased by 11 p.p. and 18 p.p. MoM to 59% and 43%, respectively. Even though load factors increased for both technologies, capture prices decreased by 23%. Offshore wind capture prices fell £14.4 /MWh (23%) to £48.9/MWh and onshore wind capture prices fell £14.7 /MWh (23%) to £49.0/MWh.
- Due to the high penetration of wind, onshore wind acceptance bid volumes in the BM increased to 432.2 GWh, up by more than 9-fold (+386 GWh). The surge in accepted bid volumes led to an increase in onshore wind’s bid cashflows, reaching £30 million, equivalent to an increase by more than 10-fold relative to January (+£27 million).
This is subscriber-only content. Not a subscriber yet? Find out more about our GB Renewables package.