Author | Lightnews

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

6/6

Of the six largest European economies, the two with the highest grid emissions are Russia and Germany, because of the very high fossil fuel share in their electricity mixes.

Germany has the highest share of coal-powered electricity generation, and Russia has the second highest.

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

5/6

By way of comparison, here's the electricity mix and the carbon intensity of electricity generation of the six largest European economies in 2024, with the EU added for context.

France is the only one of the six largest European economies with sub-50g electricity emissions.

A chart showing the electricity mix and the carbon intensity of electricity generation of the six largest European economies and the European Union in 2024,
listed by decreasing carbon intensity of electricity generation.
The countries are Russia, Germany, Italy, the U.K., Spain and France.

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

4/6

Here's the aggregate electricity mix of all eight of the sub-100g countries combined.

Nuclear and hydro still dominate the mix, with a 78% share between them,
but wind is growing fast, with 10.7%.
(Coal barely shows up with a 0.26% share).

⸻
Ref: Ember ember-energy.org/data/electri...

A pie chart showing the aggregate electricity mix of the eight European countries with electricity emissions below 100g CO2/kWh.

2024 data for Slovakia, Finland, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway.
2023 data for Iceland and Albania.

Nuclear has a 45.6% share, hydro has a 32.5% share.

Data source: Ember Electricity Data Explorer

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

3/6

Here's the carbon intensity of electricity generation for all six sub-50g countries, and the two sub-100g countries, along with the electricity mix that gets them there:

⸻
Refs:
Ember: ember-energy.org/data/electri...
Our World in Data: ourworldindata.org/grapher/carb...

A chart showing the electricity mix and carbon intensity of the eight European countries with a carbon intensity of electricity generation below 100 g CO2/kWh.

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

2/6

As of 2024, six European countries have a carbon intensity of electricity generation below 50 g CO₂e/kWh:

• Albania
• Iceland
• Norway
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• France

Another two, Finland and Slovakia, have emissions below 100 g CO₂e/kWh.

👇

Carbon intensity of electricity generation

Measured in grams of carbon dioxide-equivalents emitted per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. Emissions are estimated on a lifecycle basis, including upstream, supply-chain and manufacturing sta...

ourworldindata.org

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 11h

1/6

Britain's Clean Power 2030 Action Plan sets an emissions target for electricity generation of under 50 g CO₂e/kWh by 2030.

There are six European countries already below this target.
Who are they, and how did they get there?

🧵

⸻
Ref: Clean Power 2030 Action Plan
www.gov.uk/government/p...

Clean Power 2030 Action Plan: A new era of clean electricity – main report
DESNZ
Updated 15 April 2025

Summary

We have accepted independent advice from the National Energy System Operator (NESO), on the energy infrastructure required to deliver Clean Power 2030. In a typical weather year, the 2030 power system will see clean sources produce at least as much power as Great Britain consumes in total over the whole year, and at least 95% of Great Britain’s generation; reducing the carbon intensity of our generation from 171gCO2e/kWh in 2023 to well below 50gCO2e/kWh in 2030.

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Dr Dan Shugar 🇨🇦 @watershedlab.bsky.social · 1d

Who did this?!

A joke scientific paper with the title "Over 90% of children diagnosed with autism consumed breast milk and/or formula mileL a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the obvious"

68 300 1.1K

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

Dutch 1 GW offshore wind tender gets no bids.

❝ [Climate minister] Hermans said the result confirms that the market for offshore wind energy has “entered a phase where government support is crucial to prevent development from stalling.” ❞

❝ From 2026, subsidies will be available again.❞

No bids submitted for new Dutch North Sea wind farm tender - DutchNews.nl

No energy company has come forward to build and operate a new offshore wind farm off the Dutch coast, outgoing climate minister Sophie Hermans has told MPs. The tender for the Nederwiek I-A site, abou...

www.dutchnews.nl

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

6/6

Here's the Offshore Wind subsidy per MWh by year.
It was negative in 2022, during the gas price crisis, but otherwise the subsidy has been positive.

Looking ahead, DESNZ forecasts that market prices will fall, but offshore wind from AR3/AR4 will come online to reduce average CfD strike prices.

Offshore Wind CfD subsidy by year.
The subsidy is CfD payments divided by CfD generation.
Source: LCCC dashboard.

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

5/6

The main AR3 projects, Dogger Bank A, B & C (3.6 GW) and Sofia (1.4 GW), will start generating in 2026 & 2027.

Dogger Bank A is due to start its CfD on 31 Dec. 2025. It will be selling its electricity at a negative subsidy of -£30.67/MWh.

World’s largest offshore wind farm produces power for the first time - Dogger Bank Wind Farm

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hails Dogger Bank’s role in bolstering energy security, creating jobs, lowering costs, and achieving Net Zero. First power achieved at UK’s Dogger Bank as the first of 27...

doggerbank.com

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

4/6

The 5.5GW of Offshore Wind capacity awarded in AR3 at lower strike prices is just starting to come online.

Almost all the Offshore Wind capacity now generating is from AR2 and earlier, when strike prices were higher.

Here's the Q1 2026 forecast subsidy for Offshore Wind from pre-AR1 to AR3:

UK CfD subsidy for Offshore Wind,
for Allocation Rounds from pre-AR1 to AR3.

The subsidy is the difference between CfD strike price and the Market Reference Price for Offshore Wind, which is forecast to be £84.08/MWh for Q1 2026.

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

3/6

Here are the UK CfD strike prices for Offshore Wind for all Allocation Rounds.
The chart show the ASP, i.e. each auction's price cap, and the strike prices awarded. The strike prices are inflation linked, and are shown in 2024 prices, as used for AR7.

Strike prices fell sharply in AR3 and AR4.

Contracts for Difference UK: Offshore Wind

CfD strike prices, in 2024 prices, for each Allocation Round, and for each delivery year within each Allocation Round.

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

2/6

In Q4 2025, the technology-averaged strike price of Offshore Wind is £146.18/MWh,
and the CfD strike price averaged over all CfD generation is £147/MWh.

Why so high?

CfD Determination
Low Carbon Contracts Company
Prices and Supplier Payments
CfD Weighted Average Strike Price (Nominal)

Offshore Wind: £146.18/MWh
Onshore Wind: £111.07/MWh
Solar PV: £66.64/MWh

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 1d

1/6

A 🧵 on offshore wind CfDs.

In Q4 2025, Offshore Wind accounts for 71% of UK CfD generation,
and 72% of CfD payments,
ie over twice as much as everything else put together.
Offshore Wind dominates Britain's renewable electricity.

⸻
Ref: LCCC Dashboard www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/resources/sc...

Contracts for Difference
CfD Determination

The chart shows forecast CfD payments by technology,
and forecast CfD generation.

Source: Low Carbon Contracts Company, Dashboard.

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Reposted by Lightbucket

Menotti Minutillo @menotti.bsky.social · 3d

ladies and gentlemen...we got him

180 4K 18K

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 2d

2/2

And here's the National Audit Office's report on Hinkley Point C, from June 2017:
www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/u...

The CfD strike price depends very heavily on investors' return:
👇

Sensitivity of strike price to investors return for a HPC deal-type structure.

The chart presents the strike price necessary for investors to achieve different levels of return based on two sets of electricity wholesale price projections. The higher the level of risk private investors bear, the higher the strike price.

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Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 2d

1/2

The National Audit Office has a Sizewell C study as a work in progress.

Scheduled: Winter 2025/26

Scope:
• DESNZ’s work & spending on Sizewell C to date
• the terms of the deal agreed and whether this provides value for money
• remaining risks to value for money that DESNZ will need to manage

Sizewell C - NAO work in progress

The study will support transparency and Parliamentary scrutiny of Sizewell C, and will review DESNZ’s current and future work on the project.

www.nao.org.uk

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Reposted by Lightbucket

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 2d

On a typical day, 3% of people who complete Wordle get it in one guess. Which means around one person in 30 completes Wordle on incognito mode, then goes back in a second time and gets it “in one”.

There’s something oddly fascinating about this.

21 14 98

Reposted by Lightbucket

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 3d

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...

The value of public R&D

www.gov.uk

8 350 620

Reposted by Lightbucket

Chris Hinchliff MP @chrishinchliff.bsky.social · 4d

Thames Water is such a basket case—it’s hard to keep up.

2024 = its worst ever score for environmental performance, yet bills were up massively this April. As usual, it's the worst of all the water companies too.

A £260m refund is a start but the whole industry looks increasingly irredeemable.

Water companies told to refund £260m to customers.

But bills are still due to rise to fund improvements to water infrastructure.

www.bbc.co.uk

1 4 9

Reposted by Lightbucket

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 4d

Increasingly I think the point of a wealth tax is not to raise money but to create space for raising income tax. The lethal thing in politics is when the compliant middle class feels like they have been taken for mugs; if you want to get money out of them, someone else needs to pay more too.

42 110 570

Reposted by Lightbucket

Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 6d

AR7 analysis: How much offshore wind will the govt be able to contract at the upcoming CfD auction?

It depends on the "strike price", but roughly…

6GW at £70/MWh
5GW at £80/MWh
4GW at £90/MWh

THREAD
1/6

4 15 28

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 6d

I see this post has attracted an unusual level of interest for my Bluesky efforts (2 likes), so I've added a 6-post thread about CfDs and the endlessly fascinating details of the Interim Levy Rate:

🧵👇

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 6d

1/6

Here's a thread about Contracts for Difference, how the payments are calculated, and what the actual resulting costs are.

All electricity suppliers pay a per-MWh charge, the "Interim Levy Rate", to the Low Carbon Contracts Company to cover forecast payments from the LCCC to CfD generators.

🧵

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 6d

6/6

Here's a history of the Interim Levy Rate.

It hit zero from Q3 2021 to Q4 2022, during the gas price crisis (when the ILR had a price floor of £0/MWh and couldn't go negative),
but has otherwise ranged between £5/MWh and £12/MWh.

⸻
Ref: EMR Settlement www.emrsettlement.co.uk/document/set...

A graph showing the CfD Interim Levy Rate for each Quarterly Obligation Period from Q2 2020 to Q1 2026.
It shows the adjusted rate at the end of each quarter.

The ILR ranged from about £5/MWh to £12/MWh over this period,
except during the gas price crisis from Q3 2021 to Q4 2022, when it was at zero.

Lightbucket @lightbucket.bsky.social · 6d

5/6

Here's the LCCC's forecast Interim Levy Rate for the next 2 years.
It stays in the £10-£12/MWh range, it's not expected to fall significantly.

The new Nuclear RAB Interim Levy Rate (paying for Sizewell C) is shown for comparison.

⸻
Ref: LCCC dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/adva...

A chart showing the forecast Interim Levy Rate for the CFD and Nuclear RAB levy schemes operated by the Low Carbon Contracts Company,
from Q3 2025 to Q3 2027.

The average forecast CfD Interim Levy Rate for 2026 is £11.72/MWh.
The average forecast Nuclear RAB Interim Levy Rate for 2026 is £4.03/MWh.

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