Definition of Spark Spread
Both prices in the above formula must be in the same currency and must refer to the same energy unit (usually MWh).
A precise definition of a spark spread has to be given by the source publishing such indicators. Definitions should specify energy (electricity and fuel) prices considered (delivery point & conditions) and the plant efficiency used for the calculation. Also, any plant operating costs that may be included should be stated. (see: Methodology of Powernext).
Typically, an efficiency of 0.5 (50 %) is considered for gas-fired plants, and 0.38 (38%) for coal-fired plants (see: Methodology of Powernext). In the UK, a non-rounded efficiency of 49.13% is used for calculating the spark spread.
Both the UK and German Spark Spread tables use a fuel efficiency factor of 49.13% for the gas conversion. In reality, each gas-fired plant has a different fuel efficiency, but 49.13% is used as a standard in the UK market because it provides an easy conversion between gas and power volumes (25,000 therms of gas = 15 MWh of energy). The spark spread value is therefore the power price minus the gas cost divided by 0.4913, i.e. Spark Spread = Power Price – (Gas cost/0.4913).
As of August 2006,UK dark spreads were in the range of 10–30 £/MWh, while UK spark spreads were in the range of 4–9 £/MWh.
Read more about this topic: Spark Spread
Famous quotes containing the words definition of, definition, spark and/or spread:
“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“... we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Thou waitest for the spark from heaven!”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“There’s Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
One’s had her fill of lovers, another’s had but one,
Another boasts, “I pick and choose and have but two or three.”
If head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light
They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)