Energy Suppliers, Suppliers of Energy. Gas / Electric

Used to work in power generation industry, won't go on too much but essentially in the Uk we built a few low grade gas plants (one in Barrow in Furness have worked on) which gets its gas from a small field literally just offshore (can see the platform from land). These work great for a few reasons in a few locations...
Easy to build, converts old tech coal as infrastructure already there. already have a workforce. burns low grade/mixed gas that isn't really used for national gas pipe network. Can turn it on and off really quickly unlike nuclear and is predictable. Very good for stemming holes in the grids power demands, literally minute by minute adjustments can be made.
Negatives. Isn't really much cleaner than modern coal, all things considered, better to have existing coal (all the embedded carbon/knowledge/infrastructure/materials) is better than flattening it and building new gas for just a small % difference in tailpipe emmissions.

Whats happened now is anywhere the national grid power lines of any decent size are in a remote/cheap land location, and near to a household gas pipeline. Bingo. A big slab of concrete is poured in a greenfield site and a dozen little gas/CGT turbines in shipping container/modules pops up. They run to make money, coming on at peak times only to generate and make up holes in the grids supply/prevent grid stall/black out situations from happening (extremely costly).
However in last decade or so, more and more and more of these little sites have popped up, ALL the coal is gone (well there are a few big machines, but pissing in the wind isn't far off their effectiveness when there are grid issues), and they are just making money for whoever is the owner/group rather than providing any real value to the country and the energy system as a whole, sort of the Uber peak demand kind of a model.
But now we are quite reliant on these small gas/CGT modules, and there are quite a few old coal been partially demo'd and replaced/renovated with gas as the fuel. But they aren't burning low grade/mixed/local gas they are burning high grade domestic heating gas, for power, and there are costs, hence electric unit price they generate even on low demand days is a chunk above the price coming out of many other sources.

So its not just a UK problem, but in the 2005-2020 period, the powers that be have allowed way too many of these small 'station's to come in, partially out of convenience (don't have to build some extra nuclear any time soon) and partially because someone somewhere will make a bundle. But the UK is particularly negatively affected by these things when the gas price fluctuates really by any amount.