Britain was back to relying on gas for the vast majority of its energy on Thursday due to a lack of wind to power turbines across Europe.
Thought this was after a past week where wind energy averaged 39.5% of Britain’s power as Storm arragh fuelled renewables output.
This morning, gas accounted for as much as 70% of the country’s power demand.
Less than 4% came from wind in the meantime, according to data compiled by grid.iamkate, owing to still conditions.
Britain closed its last remaining coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, in September, leaving the likes of gas, nuclear and biomass as non-intermittent sources of power.
Spot prices were up at £294.30 per megawatt hour on Thursday as a result, against the week’s average of £94.18.
The so-called ‘dunkelflaute’ phenomenon also weighed on wind production in Europe, sending German power futures to a near two-decade high of €900 per megawatt hour for Thursday evening.