The UK has been sending record levels of fuel to Europe after ships delivered large shipments of liquid gas to British ports from around the world. As energy prices have spiked over the past year in the UK and the rest of Europe, Britain has been using its geographical position to act as a “bridge” to Europe, as energy supplies flow in to replace Russian shortfalls of natural gas.
According to Ying-Chin Chou, a senior gas analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, since April, the pipelines sending gas from Britain to the continent had been “maximised”, with British consumers receiving a “substantial” discount to the export market as a result.
Data from S&P shows that since February, the UK has been exporting energy, rather than being an importer, with far higher exports than the 2016-2019 average.
Rob Lalor, director of analytics at electricity market specialists EnAppSys, said a similar trend has been taking place more recently with electricity trade.
He said: “Since May 9 our power prices have dropped off, whereas in Europe they have pretty much stayed as they were over the previous months.
“That is pushing power into the continent. Looking back to the start of 2015, I can’t see a comparable period.”
According to UK_imports, an automated Twitter account that highlights the amount of energy in the UK’s grid, we imported a net total of 74.82GWh, which was about 1.49 percent of its supply.
Meanwhile, interconnector data found that Britain exported 272.56GWh to France, 122.79GWh to Belgium and 95.83GWh to Norway.
These high export levels to Europe come as UK households are set to face crippling energy bills.
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