Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Reuben klang said:
As we near the end of 2025. I wonder if we'll hit £1.5bn for switching off wind turbines in favour of gas.

I mean we could just give people cheaper electricity but what good would that be?

wastedwind.energy

Wasted Wind

Britain wastes millions a day switching off wind turbines. See how much has been wasted today, and in 2025.
wastedwind.energy
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That's not why they do Curtailment.

The issue is that the National Grid is unable to transport enough of the generated electricity from the Wind Farms to the places it is needed, which is typically the areas which have low levels of Elec production, whilst also having the greatest demand due to population like London/SE. So they have to generate it by other means e.g. Gas. There are projects in the the pipeline to create more large interconnectors between Scotland and England to allow larger transmission of electricity from Scotland to England to help alleviate this issue.

Amusingly, the areas that need the electricity to be moved to has the lowest Standing Charges in the country whilst the areas that generate and vastly over-produce quantities of electricity has some of the highest SC in the country... Yes, yes, I know. I am just being flippant :p
 
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Octopus came today and fitted new smart meters. Apparently we had generation one meters and they've swapped them for gen 2 meters and given me a monitor device. The engineer while he was here told me that the average home uses 2p-8p an hour during the day - I was sitting at 19p.
When he left I wondered around the home and turned off nearly every device and switched off plugs at the wall. Got it down to 3p an hour - just my boiler, broadband router and switch running. I had the monitor plugged in to a power bank and walked around the house over the next 20 mins turning devices back on.
Biggest power user - my American style fridge freezer, next was my PC unsurprisingly. Turn the kettle on and it shoots up to 91p an hour!

I'll probably spend a few days monitoring usage and decide on things I can turn off at the wall long term.
 
Moley said:
Octopus came today and fitted new smart meters. Apparently we had generation one meters and they've swapped them for gen 2 meters and given me a monitor device. The engineer while he was here told me that the average home uses 2p-8p an hour during the day - I was sitting at 19p.
When he left I wondered around the home and turned off nearly every device and switched off plugs at the wall. Got it down to 3p an hour - just my boiler, broadband router and switch running. I had the monitor plugged in to a power bank and walked around the house over the next 20 mins turning devices back on.
Biggest power user - my American style fridge freezer, next was my PC unsurprisingly. Turn the kettle on and it shoots up to 91p an hour!

I'll probably spend a few days monitoring usage and decide on things I can turn off at the wall long term.
Click to expand...

Yes Octopus keep sending me a message about upgrading my Smart Meter.

Why? - the current one works fine!
 
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Our base daily cost excl heating is £2.50 so about 10p per hour in 24 hours. Obviously not too scientific with fixed daily rates on electricity and gas but near enough. We are on a fix with EDF. No solar or battery or EV.
 
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Reuben klang said:
As we near the end of 2025. I wonder if we'll hit £1.5bn for switching off wind turbines in favour of gas.

I mean we could just give people cheaper electricity but what good would that be?

wastedwind.energy

Wasted Wind

Britain wastes millions a day switching off wind turbines. See how much has been wasted today, and in 2025.
wastedwind.energy
Click to expand...
You can see the majority of that figure is for the emergency supply to cover busy periods. Gas sourced electric isnt cheap.

The bulk of that figure is because the government doesnt have the stomach to have blackouts, so pays the premium for idle gas plants to fire up to cover periods when we have inadequate capacity.

The actual issue is the grid hasnt had the investment it should have so we dont have the capacity to move the energy around.
 
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chrcoluk said:
When was that smart meter fitted? curious. I am not getting these emails so hopefully mine will be ok after the switch off.
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It entirely depends on where you live and what specific meter you have.

For example a big priority to replace 3G meter which will stop working and eco7 meters that use the radio signal to switch between off and peak rates.
 
chrcoluk said:
You can see the majority of that figure is for the emergency supply to cover busy periods. Gas sourced electric isnt cheap.

The bulk of that figure is because the government doesnt have the stomach to have blackouts, so pays the premium for idle gas plants to fire up to cover periods when we have inadequate capacity.

The actual issue is the grid hasnt had the investment it should have so we dont have the capacity to move the energy around.
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Its not that expensive either. The high renewables with gas to cover the shortfall system we are following is only viable with the gas plants in public ownership otherwise those private plants are free to milk us during low wind events. Funny how they always seem to schedule maintenance when low wind is forecast and then the grid operator is forced to pay them exorbitant sums to stay on during low wind events isn't it?
 
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200sols said:
Its not that expensive either. The high renewables with gas to cover the shortfall system we are following is only viable with the gas plants in public ownership otherwise those private plants are free to milk us during low wind events. Funny how they always seem to schedule maintenance when low wind is forecast and then the grid operator is forced to pay them exorbitant sums to stay on during low wind events isn't it?
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Nuclear always seems to schedule shutdown in December as well.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it in this thread but there was a load of coverage in the times about a potential energy policy anouncement on Monday.

It's behind a paywall but I am sure you resourceful people can do something about that :p

the TLDR is:
-moving some policy costs from electricity to gas
-moving away from insulation schemes
-big grants for solar systems for people on low incomes (cheaper, more effective, quicker and easier to install than insulation at lowering bills)
-enabling small scale 'temporary' solar installs often refered to as balcony solar in the likes of Germany (they have >2 million systems installed since allowing this).

Those small scale systems are very inexpensive and can take hundreads off your bill.

The knock in impact of going further with solar is export rates are likely to drop from their current highs of 15p/kwh.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it in this thread but there was a load of coverage in the times about a potential energy policy anouncement on Monday.

It's behind a paywall but I am sure you resourceful people can do something about that :p

the TLDR is:
-moving some policy costs from electricity to gas
-moving away from insulation schemes
-big grants for solar systems for people on low incomes (cheaper, more effective, quicker and easier to install than insulation at lowering bills)
-enabling small scale 'temporary' solar installs often refered to as balcony solar in the likes of Germany (they have >2 million systems installed since allowing this).

Those small scale systems are very inexpensive and can take hundreads off your bill.

The knock in impact of going further with solar is export rates are likely to drop from their current highs of 15p/kwh.
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i did read somwhere about adding a charge for people with gas boilers to pay for heat pump installs :rolleyes:
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
The solution there is to move over to a heat pump which the government will also pay for (mostly) ;)
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I thought that they had largely dropped the discounts on heat pumps and even with there is still a significant outlay (and planning permission for flat dwellers).

They are hitting the poorest with a tax on boilers. Personally i dont mind but then i can afford it.
 
Hagar said:
I thought that they had largely dropped the discounts on heat pumps and even with there is still a significant outlay (and planning permission for flat dwellers).

They are hitting the poorest with a tax on boilers. Personally i dont mind but then i can afford it.
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The previous government (Rishi) increased it from £5000 to £7500 upfront grant and the current governemtn added more funding to extend that out further.

The boiler tax got scrapped.

200sols said:
They won't make gas expensive, it's political suicide. And really anything they do will be rolled back by reform anyway.
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The proposal outlined in the Times was to move some of the policy costs from electricity to gas and if you has typical usuage of each, you'd net off at zero. But what that will do is make the case for switching to a heat pump a lot clearer because there would be a material saving on bills, right now there isnt unless you bundle it with solar/batteries.

Combine that with grants for solar for the lowest income households and you could move those groups into a zero bill position and gives a far better ROI than going down the insulation route. This is the position I am in with a decent solar array and a heat pump. It also covers my car charging as a bonus.

The other set of winners is those in all electric flats which cost a sweet fortune to heat. The obvious loosers in the above are people who are very heavy gas users who can't switch to heat pumps for reason X or Y.
 
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