How London Paid a Record Price to Dodge a Blackout
The UK heat wave also saw an unhappy benchmark in the energy crisis.
Rage, rage against the pricing of the light.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/BloombergSign up here for Elements, Bloomberg’s daily energy and commodities newsletter.
Last week, unbeknown to many outside the power industry, parts of London came remarkably close to a blackout — even as it was recovering from the hottest day in British history. On July 20, surging electricity demand collided with a bottleneck in the grid, leaving the eastern part of the British capital briefly short of power. Only by paying a record high £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour — more than 5,000% higher than the typical price — did the UK avoid homes and businesses going dark. That was the nosebleed cost to persuade Belgium to crank up aging electricity plants to send energy across the English Channel.