Britain Imported £3.5 Billion Of Electricity Last Year
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Britain imported a record amount of electricity from Europe last year as solar and wind farms struggled to generate sufficient energy in the wake of coal and nuclear power plant closures.
The UK forked out £3.5bn on electricity from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands last year, accounting for 12pc of net supply, according to research from London Stock Exchange (LSEG) Power Research.
According to official data, France accounted for around £1.5bn of power sold to the UK in the year to November 2023 while Norway earned around £500m.
Electricity imports were brought to the UK via the growing network of interconnector cables designed to boost the collective resilience and energy security of neighbouring countries.
But closures of British power stations means the traffic is increasingly one-way with the UK instead becoming dependent on its neighbours.
Angus MacNeil, chairman of the Commons energy select committee, said he supported the creation of interconnector cables between Britain and its neighbours because they boosted energy security, but said flows should be balanced across the year rather than largely one way.
“The French will be rubbing their hands – it’s easy money for them,” he said.
“The ideal is for the flows to be neutral overall in terms of both the flows of power and of money.”
Of course, if it is cheaper to import power than generate it ourselves, it will save money. The sad reality however is that we are importing because we don’t have enough generation, and are therefore likley to be paying a premium to import.
As for Angus MacNeil’s comment that it should work two-ways, all that will do is exporting expensive wind power at a loss, which will be added onto our bills.
What he should really be concerned about is we are now dependent on Europe for 12% of our power.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As a French customer on their STOD tariff, I object to paying high prices ( rouge days) when the UK system is under stress and EdF make windfall profits by exporting whilst charging their own customers higher prices.
Eventually the average French customer will wake up to this and all hell will break out and EdF will stop exporting if it costs the French a high marginal price.
Then where will NG’s wonderful interconnector policy be?
To depend on 12% , and planned to increase substantially, of your electricity supply from other nations is diabolical. One of the pillars of UK supply used to be ensuring enough spare capacity for any eventuality for national security.
Where it is now is sheer madness and incompetence.
+100!
👍Sheer lunacy…..
France’s electricity trade us quite extensive with its neighbours. During the worst of the nuclear shutdowns it was a big net importer, including from the UK, which ran extra CCGT capacity based on additional LNG imports to feed 4GW to France. It is a major exporter to Switzerland and Italy. SeePF Bach’s analysis here that shows the European flows for 2022 compared with previously.
Click to access pfb_france_rushed_down_from_net_export_to_net_import2023_01_28.pdf
Look out for his updates in a month of two covering 2023. In the mean time, he is spot on with this analysis:
Click to access pfb_wind_and_solar_energy_are_cannibalizing_themselves_2024_01_11.pdf
Having stupidly shut its 3 working nuclear plants – they have 6 usable others – Germany has joined the list of energy importers.
But this is the whole idea ! Why do you think they are investing so much in interconnectors ?
Because electricity distribution & transmission are regulated monopolies so its financially advantageous to build new infrastructure to increase profits and unfortunately the regulator who’s job is to see that this is in the public interest is run by people who are clearly unqualified at best many of whom of renewable fanatics/profiteers (where are the engineers & forensic accountants?) so as long as they claim new infrastructure is to help renewables that they don’t care if its in the public interest.
As the most logical thing to do is to build new nuclear generation as close to the load as possible to increase resilience against extreme weather (think freezing rain) especially if you plan to increase the use of electric heating as past experience shows over dependency on transmission can go horribly wrong e.g. in the post war period the electricity system was designed around the idea of coal by wire from the midland & north where the coal was to the load in the south in the 1963 winter the transmission trip out due to the weather leaving insufficient generating capacity
resulting in wide scale rolling blackouts in Southern England by pure luck I believe this transmission issue only happen once that winter but I suspect this contributed to why oil power stations like Grain & Littlebrook D were originally commissioned in Southern England.
Interconnectors are part of the EU’s attempts to ensure that EU countries become interdependent, and thus dependent on the EU itself. By EU law they are granted a privileged position on grids, including being a way of greenwashing supplies, as well as not being faced with grid charges that apply to normal generators. Effectively they are subsidised.
You may also notice from the cross border flow maps I linked that historically France and Germany have been the major electricity exporters. They have used this position of dominance for political ends, such as when France threatened to cut off the Channel Islands if they didn’t get access to fishing after Brexit. Excluding the UK from the Market Coupling arrangements on interconnectors was another Brexit punishment.
Cross border flows in Europe 2016-2022
http://pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/news_2023_1_e.htm
‘but said flows should be balanced across the year rather than largely one way’
Begging the question.
The interconnectors are allegedly for ‘resilience and energy security.’ Not routine use. Indeed, the problem here is Britain being more needy than its neighbors. Emergency use only should NOT be balanced.
Additionally, ‘The UK forked out £3.5bn on electricity from . . . .”
These fine countries saved your arse; you had better damn well hope they make money off it, else it goes away and you die.
‘But closures of British power stations means the traffic is increasingly one-way with the UK instead becoming dependent on its neighbours.’
M’kay, you do know what the problem is. Whining about the cost of imported electricity addresses that how?
We sell some power via the interconnectors but this is often at a negative price to dump the excess generation from our grid. Yep, whole thing is totally mental.
Worth reposting the detail here
Our trade last year with France included some 160GWh of counterflow on Eleclink and IFA1, with one exporting while the other imported, sending electricity round in circles, and adding 160GWh to exports and imports. These events were frequent – almost daily, and often lasted up to several hours. The worst case saw the entire 1GW capacity of Eleclink being used in counterflow, though usually such flows were 500MW or less.
Trade with France valued at hourly day ahead prices was
GWh Eleclink IFA1 IFA2 France
Import 4,648 7,159 3,803 15,610
Export -813 -1,265 -675 -2,753
Net Import 3,835 5,894 3,128 12,857
Import £95.07 £96.78 £98.37 £96.66
Export £93.53 £83.98 £87.46 £87.65
Utilisation 62.3% 48.1% 51.1% 52.4%
The other Continental links:
GWh BritNed NEMO NSL Viking
Import 4,262 3,983 8,942 64
Export -1,587 -1,003 -414 -12
Net Import 2,675 2,981 8,529 52
Import £104.09 £99.15 £99.27 £68.07
Export £79.19 £79.63 £37.33 £70.45
Utilisation 66.8% 56.9% 76.3% 0.6%
Ireland
GWh E-W Moyle Ireland
Import 239 422 661
Export -1,915 -2,454 -4,369
Net Import -1,676 -2,032 -3,708
Import £107.72 £103.45 £105.00
Export £86.80 £91.21 £89.28
Utilisation 49.2% 65.7% 57.4%
Overall
GWh Total GB
Import 33,522
Export -10,137
Net Import 23,385 =4,984MW on average
Import £98.70
Export £84.16
Utilisation 59.3%
David Turver has shown that for the 10-15% of trade done by NGESO for balancing the prices are rather more disadvantageous than the day ahead market. Actual trade on interconnectors may occur anything from many months ahead to within the Balancing Mechanism.
Already we can see a big discrepancy between import cost and export value and a clear indication that exports are subsidised at UK consumer expense. As renewables capacity increases exports will grow, and the prices achieved will get lower as they compete with renewables surpluses abroad. Imports will depend on the trend in dispatchable capacity, but may also prove expensive if there is a wide capacity shortage. Already we have seen the Irish banning exports for fear of being outbid and forced to impose blackouts. Norway has also contrived to limit flows to the UK, and refused to build an additional interconnector to Scotland. Interconnectors do not offer real supply security but they do serve to import the problems at the other end of the line.
IDAU this counterfow is quite mind bending!
Eleclink converts to AC at the Tunnel Terminal site in Folkestone then is 400kV AC U/G to Sellindge Sub Station (north west end). IFA1 travels as twin 270kV DC circuits U/G to the same sub station converter site to the south east side and converts to 400kV AC there before connecting to the transmission grid.
Surely someone would have foreseen the possibility of the power simply cycling around the system and going back from whence it came (albeit two different French side sites). If not, gross incompetency would be an understatement.
Is there any first hand hard documentary evidence available of simultaneous counterflow and at what prices the “trading” occurred. That this is occuuring should warrant a major national investigation and it could easily be illegal trading.
(p.s. I don’t doubt you for one second. it just seems almost impossible to believe that it could be happening in front of everyone’s eyes with no action being taken – truly bizarre)
The French sites are very close together. Eleclink is immediately South of the Chunnel exit at Coquelles, and IFA1 is about a mile South of that the other side of the A16. Both link to Gravelines, the 5.6GW nuclear complex next to Dunkerque. All traceable via Google satellite view.
We don’t actually know that this power was imported because we are incapable of meeting demand.
It could be it was imported because it was cheaper than generating it ourselves. The nuclear station is running anyhow, so if in excess to local demand you may as well get back something for the power instead of nothing.
BOT auto FUD
“It could be it was imported because it was cheaper than generating it ourselves.”
It’s always imported because it’s cheaper.
Not the summer before last when imports from Belgium were the only thing which stopped rolling blackouts in London due to maintenance & transmission constraints to the North which historically wouldn’t have being an issue if it wasn’t for the considerable amount of generation to the south, east and west of London (I also suspect the closure of all the coal unit in the midlands without like for like replacement may have introduced transmission constraints too ) that has closed without a like for like replacement other than some wind / solar and new interconnector
I suspect its at least 10+ GWs looking at a small selection:
– Dungeness B a nuclear power station 1 GW approx (south)
– Grain an oil power station – 3 GW approx (east)
– Kingsnorth a coal power station – 2 GW approx (east)
– Littlebrook D a coal power station – 1.8 GW – approx (east)
– Tilbury B a coal power station- 1.4 GW – approx (east)
Although to the west I suspect the following closures limit what can be transferred from Wales and south west England:
Didcot A a coal power station – 2 GW approx
Hinkley Point B a nuclear power station – 1 GW approx
Aberthaw a coal power stations – 1.5 GW approx
https://www.brusselstimes.com/261862/belgium-saves-london-from-blackout
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/24/britain-forced-beg-belgium-power-keep-lights/
Mr Zed, you don’t refute that it was the cheapest available.
It’s always cheaper when there is no other source available…
Depending on the value you place on lost load, of course.
Zed:
The choice was only about blacking out London if there was no alternative to keeping exports to France at maximum. Evidently the French refused to allow any reduction in their imports (during the period of heavy nuclear maintenance). Really, they should have been billed for the import from Belgium to show that they were really willing to pay that price. Whether that resulted in less power available from Belgium for direct export to France I do not know. Perhaps I should research it.
@Gamecock They paid Belgium nearly £10 000 a megawatt hour I suspect if there was available local generation it would have being cheaper.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/17/just-paid-belgium-50-times-going-rate-keep-londons-lights/
@It doesn’t add up..
Goodness, I was under impression they would have had to curtail the French exports in order to call the grid emergency. So would we really have had a situation were there would be rolling blackout in London and we were still exporting to France (I just don’t see the French having rolling blackout to exports to the UK) . I wonder how the tabloid newspapers would have reacted although I suspect such an affair would result in at least a parliamentary committee looking into electricity trading as there are many strange thing there e.g.
Eleclink IFA1 import export loops as the conversion loss of the AC to DC conversion must be paid for by someone so I suspect these loops aren’t in the consumers interest.
Where have all the investigative journalist gone?
Your right It doesn’t add up.
That’s a very interesting question.
I suspect the answer is the generators will sell to the highest bidder, at any given moment. That will be irrespective of blackouts, that’s not their problem.
If we want to avoid blackouts at times of power shortage, we have to be prepared to outbid everyone else in Europe.
It’s not just generators either. Presumably, stored power in the UK will also be sold to the highest European bidder. So even installing massive storage facilities, sufficient for the UK, is no guarantee against blackouts either.
OT but a very good critique of Met Office fake gibberish.
I’ve always been amazed about the extent the French adopted nuclear and stuck with it, despite some recent backsliding. Beaucoup d’éloges aux français!!
Oui, they seem to be the only ones who got it right.
You have Ontario as well although they did have a moment of madness and try to emulate Germany with wind and solar but the effect the subsidy farming had on electricity bills especially for the people depending on electric heating helped to bring down the Ontario liberal party who went from party of government to nearly become extinct as a political party
It was all in reaction to the Arab Israeli war in 1973
We had. N Sea gas so chose a different route
It has been noticeable how often we barely use gas generation and yet import so much electricity at off-peak times (or when the wind is blowing). The increase from 3.6p to 6p per kWh tax on CCGTs is only starting to kick in? Presumably the figures will be far worse next year if this is the case.
And because the economics don’t add up nobody is building the new gas generation needed to cover for when the windmills fail. Germany has found the same problem so decided that the taxpayer should fund them but the EU has blocked this as excessive state aid. Still, at least they didn’t have morons like Kok Sharma blow up their coal plants so they have cover.
Here is how
That bill for imported electricity will stay high if today is any indication. According to:
https://grid.iamkate.com/
we are importing 8 GW out of a total demand of 40 GW!!