Andrew Sissons @ACJSissons Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Andrew Sissons

8 months

Very excited to publish this: an essay from @antonhowes on energy transitions of the past, with an intro by me. It gives a great insight into how economies can create energy abundance, how it changes lives and how it can be squandered

What the history of energy tells us about the age of renewables

The transition to using coal and water power can give us some clues about how the switch to clean energy could play out

www.nesta.org.uk

4

11

40

Last Seen Profiles

@Johnson__sh

@TeeGrizzIeyBear

@ZestyJalapeno

@cj_dinenage

@filipinoflash

@beffshuff

@sharkosaurfps

@Cedyboyy0

@wa7son

@tekooila

@algorithm_bot_

@memexpropriados

@aparnabisht7

@VayneXL

@jerohanxxx

@gopherhockeysi

@treasur73080519

@DionNissenbaum

@DrNiccollo

@Opera_North

@ThisIsJacob27

@Val_Calvaresi

@cutiepoopanda

@BrendanRMarks

@ZMuhaji

@izumi77777777

@AlineDessine

@ziwe

@lazyleotea

@si_nappoi

@AlsnMthr66943

@looksexthing

@VieEnResidence

@Ess4Dee

@ThomazRafael

@OnlyCharice

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

If I were advising the UK Prime Minister, I would tell them to make a televised statement to the nation tonight (or very soon) along the following lines: 1. We are in an energy crisis. This crisis is having a dreadful effect on everyone’s finances. And it is going to get worse.

781

3K

15K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

Controversial opinion, but I think February is an underrated month. It has the biggest start-to-finish improvement of any month imo. It starts off in absolute deepest winter, and by the end you’ve got snowdrops and daffodils, birds singing, sunset just before 6pm.

66

114

2K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

5. In the face of this crisis, I can assure you that the government will put in place huge support this winter. I don’t want anyone to go without heating or electricity this winter. But in return, I must ask you, if you can and it is safe to do so, to USE LESS GAS this winter

21

74

2K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

2. The crisis has been caused by huge rises in the price of gas. Much of that is down to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine; we must continue to fully support Ukraine. The crisis is global. The government will take serious and urgent action, but we can’t make the crisis go away

121

84

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

6. This crisis is grave, but the rewards for tackling it will be great. By not relying on gas, we can make our energy at home, not rely on the likes of Putin. We can build a stronger, cleaner economy. We can tackle the climate crisis and leave a better world for our children.

42

72

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

3. What the rising gas price is telling us is that there is no longer enough gas to meet what we currently use in the UK. We don’t know how long this will last, but it could be some time; years, not months. We need to plan on the basis that it will last several winters at least.

25

80

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Every bit of energy you save this winter will help someone who is struggling to survive. It will help small businesses to survive. It will help our climate. It will help the economy and protect our prosperity for future generations.

12

85

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

But we will need your help. If you can better insulate your home this winter or beyond, please do. If you can make your boiler and radiators more efficient, please do. If you can safely turn your thermostat down, please do.

43

77

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

The government will set a target to reduce our gas use by 10% this winter, and by 20% before next winter. We will provide detailed advice in the coming days about how we can do that and how you can help. We will set the many skilled energy workers in this country to this task.

20

53

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

4. We use gas for three main purposes: - Heating our homes - Generating some of our electricity - Producing industrial goods. As well as affecting household finances, the crisis is also hurting businesses, and we must protect them as we did through the Covid crisis.

14

63

1K

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

To try and maximise political consensus, I’d add: We will pursue all avenues for increasing our gas supply, both in the UK and with our international partners. But the truth is that there isn’t enough extractable gas in the ground to resolve the crisis, certainly not quickly.

38

44

931

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

The economics of renewable energy is confusing - and I’m not sure journalists all explain it correctly. So here’s a thread to try and explain what these renewables auctions are, why they’ve previously been successful and why the latest one went wrong…

44

307

849

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

On some of the detail: @RGurumurthy ’s thread here has details of how we @nesta_uk could reduce home gas use by 10% this winter and 20% before next winter (these measures mostly don’t make your home colder)

Ravi Gurumurthy

@RGurumurthy

2 years

The scale of the energy crisis now requires a COVID-style response. In months, the Government created the infrastructure to roll out vaccines nationwide. We need a similar national campaign to help every household cut their gas use by 20%.

16

137

412

38

72

814

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

I know this isn't the main issue here but... seriously, get a grip! Heat pumps aren't "woke", they're a white box with a fan in them that provide heat very efficiently. Are tumble dryers woke? Are fridge-freezers woke? They're very useful and to be honest a bit boring.

43

82

606

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

For the avoidance of doubt: there was never a policy to “rip out” existing gas boilers. The 2035 phase out date is about stopping *new* boilers being installed.

Rishi Sunak

@RishiSunak

9 months

For a family living in a terraced house in Darlington, the upfront cost of a heat pump could be around £10,000. So we're giving people far more time to make the transition to heat pumps. We’ll never force anyone to rip out their old boiler for an expensive heat pump.

3K

345

2K

22

250

550

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

So I’ve got a piece in the @FT (!!) about how we are could move towards an era of energy abundance…but only if we get used to energy only being plentiful some of the time. 🧵

48

138

550

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Some more @nesta_uk analysis on the price cap here. My boss @Mad_Gabes and colleagues @AndyReganCDF and Kevin Wiley have written this blog jam-packed with details and next steps from the price cap announcement...

The price cap, and what should happen next

The GB energy regulator Ofgem has updated the price cap on default energy tariffs. This process will now be happening every three months…

medium.com

52

81

526

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 years

@Samfr Reminds me of @Paul_Swinney ’s 2014 super-chart for @CentreforCities . London is a machine which sucks in young graduates and later spits them out into the South East

12

113

425

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

This is a good question. Why have heat pumps become a bit of a contentious topic in the UK? I'm late to it, but wanted to have a proper go at answering it... 🧵

Tom Forth

@thomasforth

2 months

I'm proper fascinated by how the general vibes around heatpumps in Britain became so negative (at worst) or indifferent (at best). I am hugely sceptical of the top answer I've been given (right wing media bias and an anti-expert society) by most people I've asked about it.

186

11

333

41

77

351

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

Right, I’m going to have to do a thread on the sewage / water company stuff… It’s right for people to be angry - both at sewage overflows and at Thames Water possibly being bailed out - but the problem is going to be frustratingly hard to fix…

32

111

312

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

4 years

I've made a graphic showing how the UK's GDP and carbon emissions have changed since 1850. GDP is in red; carbon emissions are in purple. They're both indexed to be 100 in 1850, and both totals, not per person.

6

112

277

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

What is causing the energy crisis? Why can’t the government just make it go away? It’s complicated, so let me try and explain. Including what the government should do, could do and can’t do. 🧵

Elizabeth Ammon

@legsidelizzy

2 years

Can someone explain to me why the Government can’t just say “no energy companies. You can’t increase your prices that much. We’re going to legislate so you don’t”. Something has to be done.

40

11

207

16

88

288

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

6 months

Just to explain roughly what has happened with Thames Water: - After privatisation, water companies took on a lot of debt (mostly to fund improvements to water infrastructure pre-2008) - That made them v sensitive to interest rates - if you borrow lots, high interest rates hurt

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

6 months

This sounds like another textbook example of a company totally unprepared for higher interest rates. Particularly unforgivable given it made huge profits on the back of very low interest rates. Raising water bills to bail it out sounds unthinkable, to be honest

2

28

176

8

47

282

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

The UK’s economic outlook looks bleak - we are heading towards a very bad winter, a bad 2023 and beyond. But let me try and plant a few tiny seeds of optimism. This crisis could help us escape the last crisis: the cheap money, low growth nightmare of the last decade…

Duncan Weldon

@DuncanWeldon

2 years

The BOE’s base case is circa 10% inflation for the next year or so, a recession broadly comparable to the early 1990s recession, rising unemployment, a sizeable two year fall in real household incomes and higher borrowing costs.

16

39

86

9

76

272

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 months

It looks like the floods might become a political problem for the government. They have some weak spots here - not least the PM’s row back on climate change - but the real problem for government is how big and slow-moving the River Severn is. Short thread…

22

88

266

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 years

@henrymance I like that they replaced Away Goals with Own Goals

0

2

214

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

I’ve been thinking about a new piece on tackling Mid-life Misery (trying to address the fact life seems to get worse after age 35), and I have a question: Has the admin burden of being a responsible adult got worse recently, or has it always been bad (pre-internet for eg)?

63

22

225

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

Why do retrofit loan schemes always seem to fail in the UK? (Remember the Green Homes Grant? The Green Deal?) What would it take to make them work? Well, we @nesta_uk have been looking in detail in this question, and today we have published our answer...🧵

All the things I could do: financing green home upgrades

Looking at the role that banks could play in helping homeowners to reduce CO2 emissions from their home

www.nesta.org.uk

23

78

221

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

I don’t really want to get into the YIMBY NIMBY discourse, but maybe there’s something which forces a lot of our housing to be built on the edge of small towns. With limited infrastructure and access to jobs. With typically lower land values…

David Henig 🇺🇦

@DavidHenigUK

1 year

I don't think most Westminster based policy folk understand the sheer levels of anger at what are seen across the country as bad developments forced through with very little benefit.

48

77

350

8

21

213

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

Please can we stop framing climate change as an issue of “the left”. It isn’t. Some of the biggest advocates of net zero are on the right - Chris Skidmore, Alok Sharma, and tbh Boris Johnson. Some of the biggest anti-net zero voices - like the GMB union - are on the left.

25

37

211

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

He lives in a house, a very big house with a HEAT PUMP. (The planning restrictions on heat pumps and insulation are daft and need to be reformed, pass it on) H/t @KatyKing2

Blur frontman Damon Albarn has upset his parish council

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Having sung about a 'Successful fella' in his 1995 hit Country House, Damon Albarn went on to buy a huge farmhouse in South Devon.

www.dailymail.co.uk

15

24

206

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

This is the kind of misinformation Twitter desperately needs to stop amplifying. The map shows a 100 metre rise in sea level. 2 degrees is not going to cause that.

Morten

@helifliMorten

2 years

If the global temperature rises 2 degrees lots if UK will be gone…study below.

909

1K

3K

9

18

204

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

I wholeheartedly agree with Michael Gove that the UK government's plans for heat pumps should be reviewed. We aren't going fast enough, and risk being left behind the rest of the world. Luckily, we put out a paper last week on what government should do about it...🧵

10

45

200

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Let’s tackle one of the raging controversies about heat pumps using our new @nesta_uk research… Can you only get a heat pump in a well insulated home? My answer is NO - heat pumps should work well and now be affordable in even the leakiest homes… 🧵

How heat pumps can help tackle the energy crisis

www.nesta.org.uk

25

88

191

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 months

I've written a new personal post - and it's kind of timely for once. It's about why the UK economy is such a mess. What if raising productivity growth is not about big ideas, but doing lots of little things better?

Lots of little things: what if there are no big answers to productivity growth?

One of the core problems with UK policy-making is that it is dominated by a quest for big, elegant, all-solving ideas that can fix…

acjsissons.medium.com

21

43

188

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Cutting heat pump subsidies just after they’ve launched would be a disastrous policy. Many heating engineers and companies have invested in installing heat pumps. Pulling the subsidy now would hurt the industry and might make it impossible to grow again in future.

City A.M.

@CityAM

2 years

Tory contender Rishi Sunak backs insulation over heat pumps as winter crisis looms

7

3

9

11

51

185

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

VERY significant for fans of electrification and heat pumps. The electricity to gas price ratio will be about 3.3 under the price freeze. That means a heat pump will be cheaper to run than a gas boiler as long as its efficiency is above roughly 2.8. Good news

Jo Alsop, Warmur

@theheatinghub

2 years

New energy price guarantee Electricity limited to 34p per kWh. Gas to 10.3p per kWh Average household gas bill 12,000kWh = £1,200 pa Average electricity bill 2,900kWh = £986 pa Spend £400 subsidy on gas boiler efficiency to save c£180pa, 2-yr payback

26

47

123

29

57

184

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

6 months

This sounds like another textbook example of a company totally unprepared for higher interest rates. Particularly unforgivable given it made huge profits on the back of very low interest rates. Raising water bills to bail it out sounds unthinkable, to be honest

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

6 months

Another timebomb for the government waiting to explode next year. Thames water can't pay back £190 million loan due in April. Says they need the regulator to agree a bill increase of 40% above inflation to 2030 to survive.

166

505

986

2

28

176

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

Ok, I did “why the renewables auction went wrong” last week. Now here’s a thread on why I think it’s such a big problem. Tl;dr - we need loads more cheap, green electricity to do lots of the other bits of net zero (electric vehicles, heat pumps, industry).

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

The economics of renewable energy is confusing - and I’m not sure journalists all explain it correctly. So here’s a thread to try and explain what these renewables auctions are, why they’ve previously been successful and why the latest one went wrong…

44

307

849

5

54

166

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

I’ve read through the @PIK_Climate report on the economic impacts of climate change. The results are eye-watering, but also very, very important. Everyone working in economics or finance - not just climate people - really needs to understand this. 🧵

38 trillion dollars in damages each year: World economy already committed to income reduction of 19...

04/17/2024 - Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19 % until 2050 due to climate change, a new study...

www.pik-potsdam.de

7

81

161

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

OK, I'll bite... 1. "Why are you making companies sell boilers no one wants?" You know the answer: we have to tackle climate change. Gas and oil boilers make up a big share (c.15%) of our carbon emissions. So we have to replace them with low carbon alternatives.

Sam Bowman

@s8mb

1 year

This is nuts. Nobody wants to buy a heat pump, so the government is forcing boiler companies to make them anyway, or get fined for making the boilers people actually want.

39

40

148

14

28

153

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

Heat pumps do work in older homes, actually. We asked people who have installed heat pumps whether they preferred it to their previous heating system. Older homes scored just as well as newer ones. 83% of people in pre-1900 homes were as satisfied or more with their heat pump

31

38

154

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

That throws up many problems - interrupting the UK’s supply chain, slowing down the journey to net zero, meaning our dependence on expensive and volatile gas will go on longer. But it is hopefully also something we can fix, quickly. <end>

12

14

153

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

Renewable energy - particularly wind - is very different to traditional fossil fuel energy. Almost all of the cost is the upfront capital cost (I.e., building the wind turbine). Once you’ve built it, the energy is virtually free. For gas (CCGT in the chart), fuel is the main cost

20

38

151

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

6 months

This is a total storm in a tea cup. People typically replace their boiler every 15 years - so £120 is less than £10 a year. Meanwhile, our dependence on gas has raised typical energy bills by almost £1,000 a year. That’s the real issue, and it’s not gone away

Natasha Clark

@NatashaC

6 months

Another 2 firms today confirm to @LBC they will increase the price of boilers as a direct result of the government's clean heat market mechanism, which will come in on Jan 1. For every target heat pump not sold they will get a fine of £3k, like those on electric cars coming on

53

97

176

19

26

145

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

This is a really good piece by @KuperSimon , on whether your retirement age should depend on the job you do. We really need a debate like this in the UK - like they have in France - rather than just pushing retirement ages later and later for everyone.

Simon Kuper

@KuperSimon

1 year

Why lawyers and accountants should work much longer than garbage collectors and carers. Me @FT on the right retirement age

6

29

93

8

29

143

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

10 months

This is a helpful summary of one of the main climate inactivist arguments that seems to be in vogue just now. Why is it wrong?

48

45

140

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

This is an exceptionally bad take from a usually-pretty-sensible economics commentator. In particular, worth emphasising that an electric boiler will, all things equal, typically cost three times more to run than a heat pump.

22

12

139

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

I’ve been thinking a lot about what options there are for fixing the sewage crisis without loading the bill on tax or bill payers, or just nationalising them (which would be hard). Honestly, it’s tricky, trickier than anyone wants to admit. But here are some ideas…

20

40

139

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

There is a very simple trick you can use to separate good ideas from bad ideas in the energy transition: ask “how much clean energy does it need?” E-fuels (pumped by Rowan Atkinson here) require loads of energy to make. So they’ll be v expensive and unviable outside a few niches

Guardian Opinion

@guardianopinion

1 year

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson

100

147

339

21

26

134

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 months

Life expectancy in the UK has fallen back to early 2010s levels. I think this should be a bigger story than monthly GDP estimates...

15

74

133

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

So first thing to be clear on: CfDs are NOT a subsidy as such. They are an agreed price. Nuclear power also operates on the same basis - it too has v high capital costs and v low running costs. (There are subsidies associated with old renewables, but that’s a different thing).

7

15

133

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

If you’re looking for a post-Budget drinking game, good news! I’ve updated the Leffe Curve.

4

25

128

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 months

I've updated my old graph on the UK's long-term growth rates in GDP per capita. From 1939 to 2008, GDP per capita grew by 2.2% on average each year. Since 2008, it has grown by ~0.3% per year on average. Those are 18th century growth rates...

13

58

129

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 months

New @nesta_uk paper by Max Woollard and me: How much insulation do UK homes really need? Insulation is good, it has many benefits and we should do a lot of it - but it's not essential for getting a heat pump, and we should stop telling people that.

Insulation impact: how much do UK houses really need?

Reducing carbon emissions quickly means sometimes installing a heat pump before insulation, finds our latest report

www.nesta.org.uk

27

46

129

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

Well, I've written up my personal piece about Mid-Life Misery - how we seem to get less happy between the ages of 35 and 55. It's part of my What Would Make Life Better series, and I have tried to suggest some actual solutions to the mid-life blues...

Easing mid-life misery

The middle part of our lives — between the ages of roughly 35 and 55 — appears to be the least happy, most miserable bit…

acjsissons.medium.com

29

27

128

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

The obvious solution, you’d think, would be to raise the CfD prices a bit (using the auction to still get the best possible prices). Yes, renewables would cost more, but it would still be cheaper than the alternative - using more gas. Unfortunately, this is not what happened

4

18

126

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

At this year’s auction, the UK govt kept the reserve price - the highest CfD bid allowed - quite low. So low that none of the offshore wind projects - which tend to be the really big ones that generate lots of electricity - decided to bid (as per the news today).

6

24

126

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

10 months

Every good policy wonk knows that: a) the UK govt is going to lose billions in revenue from fuel duty; and b) road pricing is a good way to replace this. This is the kind of policy we need to talk about, openly and without hysteria.

17

28

122

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

The Elizabeth Line's passenger numbers are impressive, but we should really compare it to the Tube, not rail. The Tube averaged ~263m journeys per quarter in 2022. Crossrail did 62m in Q4 2022. So Crossrail carries 1 passenger for every 4 the rest of the Tube network carries 😎

Jack Kessler

@JackKessler1

1 year

A line that did not exist 10 months ago now accounts for one in six of all rail journeys in the UK.

104

608

5K

7

13

120

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

8 months

A few thoughts on the electricity grid - one of the topics everyone was talking about at Labour conference… 1. The penny has dropped that it’s a big deal. Labour’s energy policy announcements focused a lot on the grid. It could be crucial to their programme for government.

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

8 months

@ELPinchbeck Keith Anderson of Scottish Power says 18 months ago, no one wanted to talk about the grid. Now everyone does. He says installing heat pumps is easy (😳), sorting the grid is hard… He says he knows where all the power lines need to go - but we need to talk to people about it

1

19

3

26

118

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 years

This is a perfect encapsulation of love in a lifetime relationship, from @PronouncedAlva ’s moving interview with Richard Ratcliffe.

2

35

116

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 days

This is *such* an important point. Baumol’s cost “disease” cuts two ways. It’s annoying for businesses / employers because it raises their costs per unit of output. But it’s great for most workers / people, because it shares the gains of productivity growth across the economy

John Springford

@JohnSpringford

9 days

This is a good thing, btw. Productivity growth in some sectors spills over in the form of higher wages to less productive ones. That's why British barbers have higher living standards than Turkish ones, for example.

2

4

35

4

23

127

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

3 years

OK, here's a thread on what's been going on with water quality. It's not primarily a story of evil privatised water companies (though there are some shocking examples). The main problem is inadequate funding and under-powered regulation. It's been going on for some time . . .

Jim Pickard 🐋

@PickardJE

3 years

there’s a lingering disquiet about Tory MPs voting last week against an amendment to stop private water companies dumping raw sewage into rivers and coastlines…not sure they’ve gauged the public mood on this

568

2K

11K

5

70

113

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

If you’re interested in how higher interest rates pose a problem for net zero - and how we might respond - I wrote something a bit longer here

How higher interest rates could slow our journey to net zero

The transition to net zero requires us to spend a huge amount of capital — building renewables, upgrading the electricity grid, switching…

acjsissons.medium.com

4

22

115

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 months

Wanted to do a proper thread on this excellent chart. I think it's a v important issue that receives hardly any attention from policy makers. The idea of a mid-life dip in wellbeing is a pretty common finding - but what causes it and what to do about it is a bit of an enigma...

Torsten Bell

@TorstenBell

5 months

Men absolutely love being teenagers. And everyone likes being retired.

126

328

2K

9

28

112

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

This is very encouraging, but many people will be thinking: will my home really be suitable for a heat pump? The answer is almost certainly “yes” - let me explain why…

Hugo Gye

@HugoGye

11 months

Britain is heading for near-universal heat pumps by 2050. Speaking to the Parliamentary Press Gallery today, Grant Shapps suggested govt had given up on the idea that hydrogen could replace natural gas as the main way of heating homes. Story @theipaper :

68

106

364

9

24

111

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

Just re-upping my old piece about why cars make us miserable. Taking cars out of our cities makes them so much better - once you’ve seen a glimpse of it, you can’t unsee it.

Taking the cars out of the cities

Cars make people miserable. They’re noisy, they pollute the air, they hurt people in accidents. They seem to make the people who drive them

acjsissons.medium.com

12

33

111

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

That poses a problem for developers of renewables projects. Who would spend hundreds of millions or more on some kit if you don’t know what price you’ll get for your electricity? (When renewables take over the grid, the price of power gets very low - such as this time in July)

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

Negative electricity prices klaxon - right now! The more renewables capacity we have, the more often we don’t need any gas, the more often spot prices drop. Pass it on.

7

18

46

3

21

112

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

… and then came the energy crisis, and subsequent rise in interest rates struck. Two important things changed: 1. The price of gas went up - and so did electricity prices (gas sets ⚡️ prices sadly) 2. Interest rates and material costs went up - making renewables more expensive

6

14

109

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

I want to introduce a problem in economics that I see a lot and haven't seen written down: the multi-benefit problem. This happens when something has several different benefits, but no single benefit is big enough to justify the cost. Result: the thing often doesn't happen. 🧵

15

18

108

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

The trains where I live (South of England, regrettably) are pretty good, unlike in certain other parts of the country. Good enough that I rely on them - I plan meetings and childcare commitments on the basis I will arrive on time. I can even sometimes get the wifi to work.

7

20

106

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

So the UK government very sensibly introduced Contracts for Difference (CfDs) for renewables. These effectively give renewables a fixed price for every unit of power they produce. So companies can invest billions of pounds in renewables in the knowledge of what price they’ll get

3

12

106

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

🔥We have a new @nesta_uk paper out on how to rapidly grow the heat pump industry. As interest in heat pumps takes off, we're going to need a LOT more highly skilled heat pump installers. Here's how we can do that . . . THREAD

How to scale a highly skilled heat pump industry

How to scale a highly skilled heat pump industry. This paper explores the current state of the heat pump market from a skills, training and productivity perspective and suggests ways of increasing...

www.nesta.org.uk

6

33

104

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Let me repeat something boring because I’m seeing people misunderstand this: - Gas is price inelastic, which means when the price rises, demand only falls a bit - But demand doesn’t stop falling when it reaches some magical point - the higher the price, the more demand falls 🧵

6

33

101

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

8 months

Oh no - not this again. We’ve already restricted solar farms pretty heavily (can’t go on higher grades of farmland and face planning barriers if they’re above 50MW). All this achieves is to keep our energy that bit more expensive (and a bit less clean and homegrown)

Helena Horton

@horton_official

8 months

New story from me: ‘Detached from reality’: anger as Rishi Sunak plans to restrict solar panels

72

461

1K

7

24

99

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

To summarise - yes, there is a lot of economic pain ahead. But if we can use the pain to tackle our addiction to fossil fuels, cheap money and safe assets, we could end up on a path to a better, fairer, greener UK economy. It won’t be easy, but it’s what we should aim for. <End>

11

15

101

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 month

How on earth is this job not called the Sheriff of Nottingham?

BBC Politics

@BBCPolitics

1 month

Labour's Gary Godden elected as police and crime commissioner for Nottinghamshire

4

9

43

5

14

99

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

@ByrneHobart @Tanino82 Ideally Gross Operating Surplus plus Employee Costs (or revenues minus non-labour input costs, which is ~the same thing). Walmart’s contribution to GDP is probably much lower than revenues, because it spends a lot buying food. Samsung probably has lower input costs.

3

0

95

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

Tom is, I’m afraid, right about this. The electricity-gas price ratio is too high. This is a profound policy failure, which makes it much harder for our economy to switch to clean electricity. But, fwiw, I’m optimistic that the ratio will fall substantially over the next 5 years

Tom Forth

@thomasforth

11 months

Octopus have just given me their new costs. Electricity is now 3.9x the cost of gas. A much higher ratio than I'd expected. That still feels too high to make getting a heatpump a sensible thing to do. Or am I misunderstanding something?

22

6

44

21

16

97

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

We need to talk about the impact of higher interest rates on Net Zero. Net zero requires big investment - in renewables, electric vehicles, industry, heat pumps. The irony is: we were slow to ramp up these investments during a long period of cheap money, and now it’s over.

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Great piece by @JohnSpringford . Rising interest rates are a problem for net zero. Governments should respond.

3

2

12

9

26

90

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

This is a good chart, which explains some of the UK's current difficulties (forget the GDP revisions, they were all pre-energy crisis). But it's worth breaking down why the UK stands out. The US comparison is simple - it has cheap gas and isn't in the European gas market...

Dario Perkins

@darioperkins

9 months

we really got screwed in the UK

28

68

279

3

31

94

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

It got to the point where CfD prices for renewables were generally expected to be cheaper than market electricity prices - so renewables would save us money. This policy was all going very well - big growth in renewables, cheaper electricity, lower carbon emissions…

1

13

94

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 months

There are 3 main things that have got us where we are: 1. Too little water company investment in sewerage infrastructure to reduce sewage overflows 2. Underestimating the cost of capital (interest rate), which let water companies make too much profit 3. Underfunding regulators

8

19

93

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

The way CfDs work is pretty simple. If the market price is lower than the CfD price, the renewables get paid a subsidy to make up the difference. If the market price is higher, the renewables pay back the difference. The total is then either taken off or added to energy bills

4

14

94

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

On the one hand, this made the CfDs an even better deal - with the market price of electricity higher, those low CfD prices were set to save a lot of money. But on the other hand, higher costs meant the CfD prices were now too low to be attractive to investors

2

14

93

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Lots of excited talk today about nuclear and about renewables having low periods. Lots of people jumping to single, exciting solutions or sweeping conclusions. So here’s a thread on electricity, and why it’s not as simple as just building more of <insert your favoured solution>

9

30

93

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

11 months

Ooh this is very helpful. The Parliamentary Office and Science and Technology ( @POST_UK ) have written a very good briefing note on heat pumps. Suspect this will be a very valuable reference document…

Heat pumps

This POSTnote considers advances in heat pump technology, their suitability for UK properties, barriers to deployment and government policy support mechanisms.

post.parliament.uk

8

42

92

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 years

*Economic history animation* How many hours we worked per week, and the population of England, since 1270. The weekly hours go up and down, the population sideways.

1

65

91

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

It’s tempting to think the UK’s economic problems began in 2010, or 2007. But I think a big part of the root cause - the mismatch between our national economic strategy and our economic geography - goes back to at least the 1980s (maybe the 1940s)… 🧵

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

I increasingly think one of the UK’s biggest economic mistakes was to build its economy on city-based services, while only having one city (London) which was actually designed to function in such an economy…

3

2

21

3

22

89

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

In the future, we’re likely to have periods with a massive surplus of green electricity (due to the variability of renewables). What’s the most interesting work on the economic opportunities of this? Can we, for example, run lots of desalination plants with the surplus energy?

50

24

92

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Adding a thread with a few other explainers on the energy crisis…

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Here’s a thread with some explainers I’ve done on aspects of the energy crisis. First, on why government can’t just make the energy crisis go away through taxes / price controls (because 60% of our gas is imported)

3

9

15

10

88

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

Really enjoying looking at the income patterns of cities in England and Wales using the new ONS income map. Going to add some interesting cities to this thread...

3

16

91

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

1 year

How much does the UK need to invest in its electricity grid? How does that compare to Victorian investment in the railways? From what I can tell: - The UK invested ~2% of its GDP in building railways from 1845 - 1870 - We need to invest 0.2% - 0.5% of GDP in the grid to 2050

4

26

89

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

If you're baffled by what's going on in the UK financial markets, let me try and explain as simply as I can (though there's lots I'm baffled by too). A tragedy in three acts...starring government debt, inflation, currency and GDP growth. 🧵(v long, sorry)

5

34

87

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

5 months

It would be a disaster if the costs of carbon capture at Drax are added to electricity bills. £1.7 billion is around £60 per household per year. Adding that to electricity bills would make decarbonising heating and transport even more expensive.

21

36

87

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

8 months

I can only see two plausible reasons for this mistake: - Either a civil servant has had a bit of a laugh - Or these policies have been written within a small circle around the PM I guess it’s possible DfT officials made a huge mistake, but more likely they didn’t see it properly

20

19

87

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

2 years

Now for the optimism. First, this crisis is accelerating the energy transition. The single biggest cause of the crisis is high gas prices. The response is to switch away from gas / fossil fuels. More renewable electricity, more clean electric devices, more energy efficiency…

11

12

87

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

9 months

What the UK govt then did was to invite bids for CfD prices. Renewables projects could bid for a CfD price, and the lowest prices would be selected. This auction approach helped to drive down the cost of renewables over time - until the energy crisis

1

11

88

Andrew Sissons

@ACJSissons

16 days

This is what we need to do for heat pumps too: make the monthly payment lower than for a gas boiler. Some @nesta_uk analysis on how to do that coming soon

Tim Leunig

@timleunig

16 days

Electric car now cheaper than petrol: Vauxhall e-Corsa vs Corsa. Same deposit, lower monthly payment. If you have off road parking, it will have much lower running costs as well - a steal for the right buyer.

43

56

241

7

12

87