Clean Power 2030: Inside Mission Control with Chris Stark

Chris Stark is leading the UK's Clean Power 2030 mission. As Head of Mission Control at DESNZ, no one sees the constraint costs, grid bottlenecks and reform of National Pricing trade-offs more clearly.

The UK is building a clean power system at a pace not seen since the 1960s, connecting record volumes of wind and solar while transmission, storage and gas all reshape around them. Constraint costs have hit £1.7 billion, gas is being squeezed off the system, and the government has just rewritten the rules of the wholesale market.

Chris joins Ed Porter to break down what Mission Control is actually delivering, where flexibility and storage fit into the 2030 plan, and what Reformed National Pricing means for investors, generators and consumers.

They cover:

• Why building UK transmission lines takes 8-10 years — and why bringing two projects forward by a year is worth £4bn to consumers.
• Why the UK chose to build the grid and the generation simultaneously, and the risks that creates.
• Why the strategic spatial energy plan is the biggest energy decision coming in the next 12 months and how it sets up a "build it once" network for the future.
• The reform of National Pricing decision, what the wholesale CfD means in practice and how electricity is being de-linked from gas.
• Why flexibility is the "forgotten third child" of the energy transition and how dunkelflaute, long-duration storage and household batteries fit into the 2030s system.
• Chris's contrarian take on carbon pricing - why he thinks the Treasury's decision to remove the Carbon Price Support from gas signals carbon pricing is "coming down the list of things that matters.”

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⏱ CHAPTERS

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 01:09 - What everyone gets wrong about Mission Control
• 03:00 - Constraint costs as a UK grid health metric
• 04:30 - Why the £7 billion constraint cost forecast may not land
• 09:18 - The biggest UK transmission build since the 1960s
• 10:36 - Sea Link, Norwich to Tilbury and the £4 billion question
• 15:29 - Building a UK grid ready to double electricity demand by 2050
• 17:59 - From centralised transmission to flexible, dynamic networks
• 21:16 - Reform of National Pricing: why the UK said no to zonal
• 28:48 - Wholesale CfDs and decoupling UK power from gas prices
• 37:13 - Flexibility, batteries and the forgotten third pillar
• 42:16 - Markets versus state intervention in UK energy
• 47:28 - Long duration energy storage and the battery technology race
• 49:35 - Managing the UK gas fleet down to 5% by 2030
• 53:21 - Chris's contrarian view: the end of carbon pricing?
• 55:42 - Closing thoughts

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.