After last winter, that looks optimistic.Nevertheless, investment in storage has risen as spreads between summer and winter prices have widened.
According to traders, the spreads between stocks' bid and offer prices have widened considerably because market makers are demanding more compensation for the risk they are taking.
You see, the discount between the value of NIE's portfolio (or net asset value NAV) and the fund's market price has widened in the last few weeks, after narrowing briefly earlier this year.
This has been exacerbated by subsidy cuts for renewables in many countries, including the UK, as well as the dramatic fall in oil prices that has widened the price gap between low carbon and conventional energy.
Food prices have fallen a real 7% since 2000 (though they are rising again with higher international commodity prices), choice has widened as some 2,000 new products have been added to the shelves each year and most people in Britain live a short drive away from at least one large shop.
And, since the late nineteen-eighties, that price gap has widened by almost forty per cent.
And the price range has widened, Mr. Clacher said, contributing to the current annual sales of around $100 million.
There is some consolation in the fact that, even as the price gap has widened, differences in quality between top Bordeaux and Burgundy and the best of the rest of the world have narrowed.
The price range has widened this year, with sales stretching from $125,000 to $457,500 for one-bedroom co-ops, compared with $150,000 to $350,000 last year, according to Joyce Coletti, a sales agent with Ryan & Walis Realty.
Data from Hometrack suggests that the average discount from asking price to agreed sale has widened from 0.5percentnt in 2014 to an average of 4percentnt, with the largest discounts of up to 10percentnt registered in inner London.
