Electricity Price Rise in the UK Tempered by Massive Power Surge due to Storm Malik

As Storm Malik lashed across Scotland and regions in North England, it also propelled the UK’s windfarms to generate 19.5GW of electricity, more than half of the entire country’s total demand.

An engineer does a maintenance check in a power tunnel in London, UK. Credit: National Grid website

An engineer does a maintenance check in a power tunnel in London, UK. Credit: National Grid website

As Storm Malik lashed across Scotland and regions in North England, it also propelled the UK’s windfarms to generate 19.5GW of electricity, more than half of the entire country’s total demand. The National Grid reported that this was the highest amount of electricity that British windfarms have generated so far. Last year, during a particularly windy weekend in May windfarms across the country generated 17.6GW of electricity.

Regions affected by Storm Malik were also most severely affected during Storm Arwen, which hit the country towards the end of last year and caused power failure for 12 days.

Typically, winter storms have been followed by a season of low wind across the UK and Europe, causing nations to dip into their natural gas reserves. This increased dependence on fossil fuels coupled with the economic rebound following Covid-19 recovery has caused electricity prices to cross €500/MWh. Last year, the price of electricity in the UK was a little over €52/MWh.

The surplus electricity generated during Storm Malik has offered consumers a reprieve from steep prices, while also cutting down economies’ reliance on fossil fuels. Currently, the market price for electricity in the UK stands at approximately €180/MWh. This is the lowest that electricity prices have gone down to since the beginning of this year.

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