Electricity Markets in Great Britain - The Energy Academy (Series Three)

What’s up crew? Neil Weaver here, with another series of the Energy Academy!

In previous series, we explored the overall structure of Great Britain’s electricity system, and I outlined the wholesale market for electricity at a high level.

In this series, I’ll be delving into markets in more detail and examining the ways businesses can make money in Great Britain’s electricity markets.

By the end of this series, you’ll understand:

💥 The overall layout of Britain’s major, interlinking markets for electricity.
💥 How the Capacity Market works - what it is and how it helps to decide which new generators get built.
💥 The nuts and bolts of the wholesale market for electricity - the forward and futures markets, the timings of “the EFA day”, the difference between physical and non-physical trading, and day-ahead and intraday markets.
💥 The Balancing Mechanism - which is the market National Grid ESO uses to match supply and demand nearer to real-time.
💥 Imbalance pricing - or what happens when market participants can’t or don’t do what they said they would.
💥 And, finally, ancillary services - those markets which ensure the security of supply after all of the major trading has been completed.

Want to learn more? Head along to Phase: https://platform.modo.energy/phase

Episodes:
00:00 - What you'll learn
01:42 - The layout of the market
05:04 - The Capacity Market
10:28 - Forward and futures trading
15:51 - The EFA day
19:55 - Physical vs. non-physical trading
25:29 - Day-ahead and intraday markets
30:16 - The Balancing Mechanism
34:19 - Imbalance pricing
37:27 - Ancillary services
43:46 - Series recap