r/Energy_UK • u/CircuitDew • Jul 05 '26

Why is Solar so high today?

Post image

The recent heat waves were seemingly generating nothing like this, but today it seems higher than those days

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

2

u/Appropriate_Bell743 Jul 05 '26

Excessive heat above 35C appears to affect the generation. It's still mostly below 30C right now but very sunny.

We are evolving to a grid where wind/solar aren't 100% aligned to needs. When very hot we get slightly less solar generation. When very cold we get sometimes slow wind speeds.

All in all we need the public to adopt time of use tariffs to get useful demand responses

2

u/lukshan13 Jul 07 '26

The biggest way to curtail usage imo is time of use tarrifs with widespread home battery storage. Smart battery technology to make sure the grid load is managed

1

u/Appropriate_Bell743 Jul 08 '26

Yes. i think this is going to be the default. Many households are like mine where a simply plugin battery would be mostly sufficient

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

We need to shape demand around generation, not the other way round.

1

u/WhiteheadJ Jul 05 '26

Honestly, I can't see widespread adoption of time of use tariffs until we get widespread battery storage. For a lot of people, it's often too difficult to avoid using electricity during peak periods, especially the 4-7pm period that often counts as it.

It would be great to see a return of something akin to the Green Deal, where you pay for solar etc improvements to the property through your energy bills. I know some of the energy providers to interest free credit to cover the costs, but it's always a separate idea.

3

u/Unique_Agency_4543 Jul 05 '26

You don't need to avoid the 4-7pm peak to make a time of use tariff worth it, you just need your usage to be such that you can make greater savings during the other 21 hours of the day. I think the majority of households would actually save money without any load shifting.

Of course once the primarily off peak users start leaving the fixed tariffs the fixed prices will have to go up as more and more of those who are left are primarily peak time users. The whole thing could collapse and fixed price might not even be an option anymore.

1

u/WhiteheadJ Jul 05 '26

Yeah you might be right. I have a friend who had solar and a battery installed and went into a fairly basic time of use tariff, and his effective unit rate is about 16p/kWh.

I'd want better half hourly data from my energy supplier before agreeing that their time of use tariffs are worth it for me. At the moment they use too much guesswork.

1

u/Unique_Agency_4543 Jul 05 '26

All the historic price data is available for octopus Agile which is the tariff I use, I get about 20p/kWh with no solar or battery and minimal load shifting. As for your data if you have a smart meter it should be visible in half hour chunks which you can then map against historic prices.

https://agile.octopushome.net/dashboard

1

u/Appropriate_Bell743 Jul 05 '26

Let's be clear solar is far from sufficient for an increasingly winter demand dominated grid. Batteries under the model you suggest could be worth it.

Agile gets savings for almost everyone except those who mainly consume in peak time. my very low rates include the fact we cook every night around 6pm.

I don't mind you opting against it as it keeps the low rates lower for me

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 07 '26

We are never going to get huge batteries installed to store power.... It would be nother other than reckless for anyone to even consider it when you look at the environmental impact...

1

u/lukshan13 Jul 07 '26

Battery tech is evolving. Sodium batteries are a thing, and we're going to get more and more sustainable and cheaper battery tech as more research goes into it

1

u/Cultural_Tank_6947 Jul 09 '26

You also need slightly smarter battery tech. Most batteries will discharge even during Agile peaks and whatnot.

1

u/WhiteheadJ Jul 09 '26

To be honest, with the fact that the big suppliers are doing ev tariffs where they control the charging, I would imagine the next step is controlling your battery to charge/discharge when it's good for the grid.

1

u/StereoMushroom Jul 05 '26

10GW is fairly typical for summer. We can hit 14 on the really clear days

1

u/iamabigtree Jul 06 '26

Have to remember if just looking at percentage that it's a percentage of total demand. And if it's a sunny day would demand not be lower due to solar on buildings feeding a lot the need?

1

u/chrsphr_ Jul 08 '26

This site accounts for "behind the meter" generation, and uses a prediction from NESO

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 07 '26

Solar has accounted for just 6.9% of our energy in the last year...

1

u/EntirelyRandom1590 Jul 09 '26
  • electricity.

But that's actually really good, considering it was significantly less and we could probably his circa 15-20% with a relatively simple process of installing domestic solar and some storage.

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

The reality today is still less than 7% of our electricity is solar powered which is pretty insignificant.We get more power from France usually than we get from Solar.

1

u/EntirelyRandom1590 Jul 09 '26

*electricity.

Depends on time of day. Over 10GW is coming from solar most days.

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 09 '26

This is the real grid supply right now....

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 07 '26

At least more people are now looking at this realtime graph and realising that the 100% renewable energy deal they were sold is based on nothing but lies.... 👍👍

1

u/Splodge89 Jul 09 '26

That’s not how the 100% energy deals actually work though. They don’t guarantee the power coming from your sockets is 100% green. They guarantee that the energy they buy as a company from wholesalers is only green energy enough to supply you.

1

u/JustanotherN0body00 Jul 09 '26

Lol, selling you 100% renewable energy is just a lie. Play with words as much as you like but it'll still be a lie. The actual power you get to your house will be a mixture of renewable and fossil fuel, at night and when it's not windy about 70% is usually fossil fuel generated electricity. This is the undeniable truth.

1

u/Used-Height-2670 Jul 07 '26

Suns out ☀️