He should but I thought the point he was rejecting that people would be paying by more.
Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
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yes millibands against it - but anyway suppliers in the SE (without the wind-farms) will just bid more, and prices will re-balance.
(don't predictable large industrial users already have zoneing)
It's similar to proposal of not paying gas+wind bidders of the energy slots, at gas generation level, which itself will produce re-adjustment of the wind folks bids;
one interview acknowledged, at least, that the green levy creates significant pricing disparity with europe where that 6bn is applied on their general taxation.
(don't predictable large industrial users already have zoneing)
It's similar to proposal of not paying gas+wind bidders of the energy slots, at gas generation level, which itself will produce re-adjustment of the wind folks bids;
one interview acknowledged, at least, that the green levy creates significant pricing disparity with europe where that 6bn is applied on their general taxation.
Soldato
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You already have different SCs, what many of us believe is unfair is that the SC is pretty much based about population density as its cheaper to supply more urbanised areas.
But that the part that is the opposite, in that the places where its generated tend to be the low population areas, and yet we are all paying the exact same amount per unit.*
*technically there are minor differences but very minor
I think that was kind of what he was saying, although its vague as he was trying to avoid the obvious traps.
As ever it needed some explanation in that we already have "a postcode lottery" in regards the SC.
Maybe it would be cheaper for everyone, I am not actually that convinced by that argument, in that I cannot see how that can ever be the case for London.
Maybe if the areas shown as "proposed" the last week or so where a massive amount of outside London that just happens to have sizewell, loads of offshore and loads of proposed and in progress solar farms is the final one, then maybe, just maybe, London would also be cheaper.
The impact Greg Jackson says would happen seems to be to be above the whole profit of the supply industry and hence it means either the generation will make a hell of a lot less, i'm unconvinced, or the government must be taking in a hell of a lot of additional taxation due to the standard pricing, again I am unconvinced.
I would like to see some proper published targets and goals for the proposed change as its likely to be a 30-40 year thing once implemented. And we saw (and continue to live with) the mess the last changes ended up creating.
Whats the main motivations and goals, I don't believe they have spelled them out.
If its to create more equity in that the areas producing the power do not see (as they do today) actually higher bills than the areas who are mainly consuming then there are ways to correct that the just zonal pricing may well not fix.
If its to lower pricing of renewables and hence help push the public to support that then again there are other options than zonal pricing. And zonal pricing at that point would be a postcode lottery, because the drawing of a new set of lines on maps would be that exact lottery.
Eg someone in Kent could be technically closer to the east coast wind farms than someone in West London, and yet London due to the lines on a map and being lumped with East Anglia could see cheaper prices.
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Soldato
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To what degree does the unit cost actually vary though in practice? The standing charge is different because it's meant to cost more to supply more rural/remote areas (more network per person I guess).
However electricity doesn't have much transportation costs. Apart from network losses its easy to move around if you have the wires and the energy transfer pretty much travels at light speed. If you live near a nuclear power station or wind turbine or whatever you aren't just 'getting' the energy from that source only, unlike with something physical like water.
What's the rationale for why unit rate should be cheaper closer to the generation source, and how much cheaper should it be?
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A small part will be transmission losses. Ie energy lost through resistance of the cables.
You can also argue that people who have to ‘suffer’ having generation near them should be rewarded.
Not all generation courses cost the same, the vast majority of the energy produced in Scotland is about half the cost of that produced in the midlands.
Soldato
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Yes that's not what I'm asking though.
If it's all connected to the same interconnected national set of wires, and transmission losses are small, then why should it be cheaper if you live closer?
Electricity doesn't work like something physically solid like water. It doesn't have to be 'transported' like a physical product does. The generation sources all connected together provide a voltage which almost instantly transfers energy, there's no 'movement' of anything other than an electric field.
So what I'm saying is even if you live close to a cheaper (to build and operate) source, you aren't just getting the energy from that source you're getting it from the whole grid working as a collective.
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Yes you get a mix of sources but that’s not really how it works.
The grid is segmented into a number of ‘islands’ and then there is an ‘super grid’ layered on top which connects up the ‘islands’ and provides a national transmission network.
Electricity flows down the path of least resistance so you are genuinely getting electricity produced from near where you live. If you live in Scotland, you’ll not be drawing any power from a gas fired power station in the midlands. It’s also why the CO2 mix of the grid is different depending on where you live.
The national transmission network costs 10’s of millions every year just to maintain and the people that get the most benefit from it are those who are net importers (London) and those who get the least benefit are net exporters (Scotland, East)
The grid is segmented into a number of ‘islands’ and then there is an ‘super grid’ layered on top which connects up the ‘islands’ and provides a national transmission network.
Electricity flows down the path of least resistance so you are genuinely getting electricity produced from near where you live. If you live in Scotland, you’ll not be drawing any power from a gas fired power station in the midlands. It’s also why the CO2 mix of the grid is different depending on where you live.
The national transmission network costs 10’s of millions every year just to maintain and the people that get the most benefit from it are those who are net importers (London) and those who get the least benefit are net exporters (Scotland, East)
Soldato
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I would say that this idea is more about accounting than what happens in the real physics of it.
The whole system is connected together through the very high voltage and medium/low voltage transmission. And in an AC system, electrons don't actually move they just vibrate in place.
The generators themselves pay a lot towards those costs, the costs of maintaining the national network in domestic bills is very small.
IIRC generators far from demand already pay higher charges than generators close to demand.
Also it has already been evidenced in this thread those far from supply already pay a higher cost towards maintaining the network and those close to supply pay a smaller amount proportionately. However its such a low amount compared to the average bill it near as makes no difference at all in overall cost.
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It’s really not.
The North Scotland grid is currently 5gCO2/kwh and 98.6% wind and 1.4% gas.
The East where I live is 183gCO2/kWh and 20% solar, 7% wind, 16% imports, 23% nuclear, 29% gas and 3% biomas*.
Which do you think is more expensive to supply? Spoiler, it’s the East of England and it’s considerably more.
*contains rounding errors
So gas is still setting the price in Northern Scotland.
Soldato
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You're not talking about the same thing as me.
Yes production of electricity in Scotland is cheaper and lower carbon.
But if you live in Scotland you don't just get Scottish electricity. They may account for it in that way, but from a physics perspective it's not true. Electricity doesn't flow through wires. We all harness the electric field energy in the grid created by the whole system.
If you want to break the link between England and Scotland (for example) by completely separating/isolating the actual grids, then you could say Scotland gets Scottish produced electricity.
Edit - with a bit of help from Chatgpt:
"In an AC synchronous grid:
Every connected generator — whether it’s in Scotland, England, Wales, or Norway via the North Sea Link — contributes to the entire system’s electromagnetic field.
All loads (homes, factories, data centers) are drawing from this shared electromagnetic state.
So no one load can be said to be using electricity from a specific generator, because every generator is supporting the same voltage waveform across the entire network."
"What actually determines how much “share” a generator provides?
Generator setpoints & dispatch: National Grid ESO and other system operators dispatch generators based on cost, emissions, location, and availability.
Impedance and phase angles: Power flows according to the network’s impedance and the relative phase angles of generators.
System-wide balancing: If Scotland is exporting more power than it uses, then Scottish generators are contributing more to the overall waveform — but that doesn’t mean you're only using their power."
And to conclude:
"Once electricity enters the transmission network, it becomes part of a single, synchronous, shared electromagnetic system — and individual consumers can't trace their electricity to specific generators or regions.
So any regional pricing scheme that claims to reflect “local generation” is not based on physics, but on economic or policy mechanisms — like managing grid constraints or incentivizing local investment. If that's the justification, fine — but it shouldn't be misrepresented as "you're using your local power so you should pay X"."
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Soldato
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There are two things going on.
The first is that as we look at the grid as a whole the generation is paid based on the most expensive for the whole country, if that is broken up then the generation (including imports of course) would be based on the most expensive in that region.
Which is why Scotland which currently pays the most, would pay the least. This is the logic and reasoning behind the "chopping" up of the pricing grid.
We already do that for the SC, its odd to do it for one bit but not another.
The second is as B2Sk8 says that its not one grid. This is demonstrated perfectly as living in the East we regularly get to the point that the super grid, or national part maxes out. They simply cannot export any more from the region, which is when they (Octopus) give us the free energy as they can supply more over the local grid.
Many of the large expensive upgrades are to fix these issues, with Scotland and the East seeing large projects to be able to "move" more energy out of the regions into the areas who have limited generation.
The argument for regional pricing is that some energy intensive industry could be attracted to move to areas that have abundant and if segmented cheaper energy. (Locally supplied as opposed to nationally supplied)
Right now there is no financial incentive to do so, and we in effect then see that we spend more on "joining everyone up" which requires more transfer capacity.
There is a view, which I tend to believe, that it would be far simpler to get over nimbyism if the people local to generation benefit financially from it.
Also worth considering that onshore is typically connected to the local grid, not the national one.
I think that may very on very large generations, but for example onshore wind is connected to the local grid.
So its less about who specifically produces it, and more about limiting the costs which are very significant building more national level infrastructure when we could potentially do more things to move the demand.
It would also potentially change some of the positioning of investment. Obviously with no difference in revenue everyone wants to site their generation in the best spot, with the cheapest running and acquisition costs.
As I said before, it would help if we actually were told the specific things they are looking to fix and the relative importance of each.
Greg Jackson for example is only focussing on price and trying to drive more green investment. Which he (to my mind rightly) believes would increase if regions saw their prices falling as generation took place in their environment.
He is ignoring the politics that others are trying to spin. Eg the lumping of East Anglia with London on the proposals the other week, which seems to many peoples minds a way of benefitting London pricing with one of the areas who generate a surplus when you look at generation vs demand.
The first is that as we look at the grid as a whole the generation is paid based on the most expensive for the whole country, if that is broken up then the generation (including imports of course) would be based on the most expensive in that region.
Which is why Scotland which currently pays the most, would pay the least. This is the logic and reasoning behind the "chopping" up of the pricing grid.
We already do that for the SC, its odd to do it for one bit but not another.
The second is as B2Sk8 says that its not one grid. This is demonstrated perfectly as living in the East we regularly get to the point that the super grid, or national part maxes out. They simply cannot export any more from the region, which is when they (Octopus) give us the free energy as they can supply more over the local grid.
Many of the large expensive upgrades are to fix these issues, with Scotland and the East seeing large projects to be able to "move" more energy out of the regions into the areas who have limited generation.
The argument for regional pricing is that some energy intensive industry could be attracted to move to areas that have abundant and if segmented cheaper energy. (Locally supplied as opposed to nationally supplied)
Right now there is no financial incentive to do so, and we in effect then see that we spend more on "joining everyone up" which requires more transfer capacity.
There is a view, which I tend to believe, that it would be far simpler to get over nimbyism if the people local to generation benefit financially from it.
Also worth considering that onshore is typically connected to the local grid, not the national one.
I think that may very on very large generations, but for example onshore wind is connected to the local grid.
So its less about who specifically produces it, and more about limiting the costs which are very significant building more national level infrastructure when we could potentially do more things to move the demand.
It would also potentially change some of the positioning of investment. Obviously with no difference in revenue everyone wants to site their generation in the best spot, with the cheapest running and acquisition costs.
As I said before, it would help if we actually were told the specific things they are looking to fix and the relative importance of each.
Greg Jackson for example is only focussing on price and trying to drive more green investment. Which he (to my mind rightly) believes would increase if regions saw their prices falling as generation took place in their environment.
He is ignoring the politics that others are trying to spin. Eg the lumping of East Anglia with London on the proposals the other week, which seems to many peoples minds a way of benefitting London pricing with one of the areas who generate a surplus when you look at generation vs demand.
You mean just like zonal Standing Charge, as it stands now, being a postcode lottery?
The fact that the cost every half hour for the whole of the UK is based on the most expensive price in any part of the UK, only benefits the generators. It's no coincidence that it's the generators who are against zonal pricing. It's been stacked in their favor ever since the 90's when it was privatised. It should be based on the zonal price to encourage the transition to a cleaner future.
Soldato
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Not sure how prices can be justified to being cheaper or more expensive in different areas?
From my understanding, the grid works on the principle of an infinite busbar.
Regardless of generation source, a stable voltage/frequency is applied and demand fluctuates therefore bringing additional generation online or reducing generation.
If I boil my kettle, dependant on time of day, local/regional/national demand will determine what flavours of generation I am asking for and from what distances of transmission.
I’m not sure I can be specifically charged more or less than other users considering.
Whatever Ed is saying at the min I just have no faith in, especially with this “promise” of cheaper energy… the bloke is clueless, a lier or combination of the 2.
From my understanding, the grid works on the principle of an infinite busbar.
Regardless of generation source, a stable voltage/frequency is applied and demand fluctuates therefore bringing additional generation online or reducing generation.
If I boil my kettle, dependant on time of day, local/regional/national demand will determine what flavours of generation I am asking for and from what distances of transmission.
I’m not sure I can be specifically charged more or less than other users considering.
Whatever Ed is saying at the min I just have no faith in, especially with this “promise” of cheaper energy… the bloke is clueless, a lier or combination of the 2.
Soldato
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You mean just like zonal Standing Charge, as it stands now, being a postcode lottery?
I don't agree with that either. It should be a single standing charge across the whole country.
I'd say the same about water charges too even. And council tax.
That's fair, although I disagree with the water charges given that parts of the UK are privatised and other parts of the UK (Scotland for instance) are publicly owned.