Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

[NeilF]

buy an electric car and then you can get on octopus go........ octopus go combined with solar and a home battery is a powerful combination for 10 months of the year..... (even Feb and november the sun has had a massive impact on reducing our use, and the battery has managed to get us through peak times and onto the Go discount.

Alas that highlights how so much of this is simply a tax on the poor. ie: People can't afford EVs. And folks who live in flats none of this is tenable.

We're standing on hundreds of years of cheap energy, yet this poorly considered forced march sprint towards green energy is doing little other than generating poverty.


Solar, EVs and batteries are great, but need to be part of long term transitions, not basically necessities due to poorly managed energy policies.

 

[Troop]

Not sure if it's been posted recently - for those households who don't use mains gas to heat their homes and use heating oil and other means should be getting £200 towards their energy bills this or next month. It should be credited to your electricity bill automatically.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...ive-energy-bill-support-over-the-coming-weeks

Octopus have been paying this £200 out from the start of this month, think it was the 3rd of 4th they paid me.(£200 credit to my account)

 

[Stu999]

So energy prices set to increase yet again in April according to the news?

What I'm confused about is the market price of gas has been below pre-Ukraine prices for a number of months now, and indeed not a world away from prices we even had 15-20yrs ago. YET, here we are at double energy price, with it set to increase yet more in months to come.

How long is the supposed lag between market prices and consumer prices?

Hopefully it won't be that much of an impact. My gas usage tends to go down quite substantially around April (I realise I've cursed it now).

Edit - Scottish Power moan of the day, I'm in a queue to sign into the app due to "extremely high traffic". I'm switching to Octopus once this £400 thing ends.

 

[Troop]

buy an electric car and then you can get on octopus go........ octopus go combined with solar and a home battery is a powerful combination for 10 months of the year..... (even Feb and november the sun has had a massive impact on reducing our use, and the battery has managed to get us through peak times and onto the Go discount.

Not had to use the grid to charge my batteries at all this month, its been a good month covering all my 2.30am-9.30pm usage.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Alas that highlights how so much of this is simply a tax on the poor. ie: People can't afford EVs. And folks who live in flats none of this is tenable.

We're standing on hundreds of years of cheap energy, yet this poorly considered forced march sprint towards green energy is doing little other than generating poverty.


Solar, EVs and batteries are great, but need to be part of long term transitions, not basically necessities due to poorly managed energy policies.

I dont think green energy is to blame. Green energy is far cheaper than any other form of energy. Yes you need good storage, as well as a backbone of something more reliable (nuclear for now at least) ........... but the fault isnt green energy imo.... the fault is with historical poor management and not enough investment.

I mean if you want to really get down into the muck and argue about it.... the current price increases are actually the fault of fossil fuels NOT wind or solar............ Imagine the pickle we would have been in during the war if we DIDNT have the on average 40% renewable generation we do have....

Also imagine how much better we would be if we had even more of it......#

Yes there is more fossil fuel in the ground that WE could probably get and use ourselves.... but at what cost? the impending envionmental disaster has been known about since the early 1980s (and it was work done by the fossil fuel companies themselves which confirmed it which they hid of course)

but we kicked the can down the road for decades and now I fear more can kicking is no longer an option, so sure we may feel more pain now than we needed to in moving over.

 

[HungryHippos]

Solar, EVs and batteries are great, but need to be part of long term transitions, not basically necessities due to poorly managed energy policies.

Wind Turbines are proven to be fairly effective when backed by a more consistent background generation source like nuclear, we just need to push wind + nuclear with solar assisting, that would cover a lot of our use.

The problem is people don't want wind turbines near them, but they also don't want to pay high bills. We must have some good locations we can use for these where they aren't sat in peoples back gardens, yet they can still do a lot of good. On-shore wind has a shelf-life of 20-25 years, so anything we add isn't permanent if we don't want it to be.

Average bills could come down a lot for electric if we had even more wind generation fast tracked.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Not had to use the grid to charge my batteries at all this month, its been a good month covering all my 2.30am-9.30pm usage.

nice...... i could not afford a battery big enough to cover everything to totally negate the grid, also my solar array is not massive (4.7kwh iirc) but i cant grumble, it has got me through to off peak most days this month.

it does help everyone as well not just the rich.... if those who can afford self generation and energy offsetting do that, then it will reduce the price of the peak prices for those who cant .

 

[bigmike20vt]

Wind Turbines are proven to be fairly effective when backed by a more consistent background generation source like nuclear, we just need to push wind + nuclear with solar assisting, that would cover a lot of our use.

The problem is people don't want wind turbines near them, but they also don't want to pay high bills. We must have some good locations we can use for these where they aren't sat in peoples back gardens, yet they can still do a lot of good. On-shore wind has a shelf-life of 20-25 years, so anything we add isn't permanent if we don't want it to be.

Average bills could come down a lot for electric if we had even more wind generation fast tracked.

I dont get the hate of wind turbines..... sure you dont want one so close that if it fell over would hit your house.......... but in the middle of a farmers field? (and i promise you farmers would be more than happy if there was a good enough incentive for them).

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I wouldn't do anything too funky in order to get onto Octopus Go now they have launched Flux
From my and a few others I have seen calcs flux is almost as good as go, and if you have a large array compared to your usage then flux is likely better.

I suspect sooner or later Octopus will pull go. Sending EV owners to intelligent and solar owners to Flux.
probably a few years off but there isnt really any point in Go when both of those schemes which have come later are more targetted to their respective owners.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I wouldn't do anything too funky in order to get onto Octopus Go now they have launched Flux
From my and a few others I have seen calcs flux is almost as good as go, and if you have a large array compared to your usage then flux is likely better.

I suspect sooner or later Octopus will pull go. Sending EV owners to intelligent and solar owners to Flux.
probably a few years off but there isnt really any point in Go when both of those schemes which have come later are more targetted to their respective owners.

wow those flux rates are not exactly fantastic at the moment tho...... my current fix ends in the middle of april. not looking forward to that and that is with my home set up.

i feel so sorry for those who are stuck.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I dont get the hate of wind turbines..... sure you dont want one so close that if it fell over would hit your house.......... but in the middle of a farmers field? (and i promise you farmers would be more than happy if there was a good enough incentive for them).

has one ever fallen over?

The main issue I have heard of is actually ice. Ie ice can in some circumstances build up on the blades and then of course can come off if it starts to melt.
You wouldn't want to be hit by 100kgs of ice travelling at decent speed thats for sure.
But realistically thats not going to travel far, i suspect even the closest turbines are far further away from actual houses that thats no risk.

The main issue seems to be NIMBYism in regards the looks. I find them somewhat graceful myself.
I guess many who wuold seem them now would prefer someone else has a nice coal fired pant nearby providing the looks

 

[HungryHippos]

I dont get the hate of wind turbines..... sure you dont want one so close that if it fell over would hit your house.......... but in the middle of a farmers field? (and i promise you farmers would be more than happy if there was a good enough incentive for them).

Yeah if you incentivise it (people pay less) and place them at good locations where they don't cause any disturbance, absolutely a good thing to have more of.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

wow those flux rates are not exactly fantastic at the moment tho...... my current fix ends in the middle of april. not looking forward to that and that is with my home set up.

i feel so sorry for those who are stuck.

They arent indeed but then go is significantly higher now as well

 

[HungryHippos]

The main issue seems to be NIMBYism in regards the looks. I find them somewhat graceful myself.
I guess many who wuold seem them now would prefer someone else has a nice coal fired pant nearby providing the looks

Noise as well imo, they can be fairly noisy. But if you place them far away from anything I think it's fine.

Also apparently bird killers though I am not sure how many dead birds per turbine.

 

[NeilF]

I dont think green energy is to blame. Green energy is far cheaper than any other form of energy. Yes you need good storage, as well as a backbone of something more reliable (nuclear for now at least) ........... but the fault isnt green energy imo.... the fault is with historical poor management and not enough investment.

I mean if you want to really get down into the muck and argue about it.... the current price increases are actually the fault of fossil fuels NOT wind or solar............ Imagine the pickle we would have been in during the war if we DIDNT have the on average 40% renewable generation we do have....

Also imagine how much better we would be if we had even more of it......#

Yes there is more fossil fuel in the ground that WE could probably get and use ourselves.... but at what cost? the impending envionmental disaster has been known about since the early 1980s (and it was work done by the fossil fuel companies themselves which confirmed it which they hid of course)

but we kicked the can down the road for decades and now I fear more can kicking is no longer an option, so sure we may feel more pain now than we needed to in moving over.

It's not a given solar and wind is cheaper. If they are not producing anything how can they be cheaper? You also need another whole energy system to keep/run in parallel to cover for them.

They certainly have their place, but the current almost religious like rush to them without proper management and analysis is not good. It needs to be a considered policy, not a virtuous knee jerk.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Noise as well imo, they can be fairly noisy. But if you place them far away from anything I think it's fine.

Also apparently bird killers though I am not sure how many dead birds per turbine.

They do make noise yes.

The do kill a few birds, something like 0.0001% of the kill count of domestic cats per year.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

It's not a given solar and wind is cheaper. If they are not producing anything how can they be cheaper? You also need another whole energy system to keep/run in parallel to cover for them.

They certainly have their place, but the current almost religious like rush to them without proper management and analysis is not good. It needs to be a considered policy, not a virtuous knee jerk.

The install costs of all the green techs right now is a tiny fraction of the costs of equivalent other generators, especially nuclear.
Its not a debate its simple fact.

The green revolution has already happened in regards costs of panels etc and they are now breathing new life into older turbines with larger blades. Blade tech has also improved.

Edit, thats not to make out like the green techs are all we need. The issue with the green techs is not cost, its the intermitency of generation

 

[Freefaller]

The UK has one of the most predictable and usable tides - but the problem with tidal power is the disruption to local fauna and flora that comes with building tidal power generation. Since you can effectively set your clock to it (more or less) it means you can help support the grid with loading fairly well. However it's expensive, and disruptive - but I think it's more reliable than solar and wind potentially?

 

[Troop]

nice...... i could not afford a battery big enough to cover everything to totally negate the grid, also my solar array is not massive (4.7kwh iirc) but i cant grumble, it has got me through to off peak most days this month.

it does help everyone as well not just the rich.... if those who can afford self generation and energy offsetting do that, then it will reduce the price of the peak prices for those who cant .

Cut our usage down a huge amount, whole month has been on 14.4Kw batteries, with another 2.5kw backup kept fully charged, just to connect up to the main packs to boost them if needed( gives me another days usage).
All from a 1.5kw garden solar setup. only use about 2KW per day during Octopus Go faster peak rate (42p), all covered buy the batteries.
Use the cheap rate for as much as we can, made a massive difference to our cost.

Whole cost of everything to build the system(DIY) just on 3k give or take a £100 either way.

 

[NeilF]

Kind of.
They are now around the average of 21-early 22
Early 22 they were higher than now due to the economies starting to open up again

predicted Q3 and Q4 from cornwall are now

Q3 and Q4 2023 Standing Charge and Unit Costs forecasts:
Q3 SC£/day) Elec - 0.38, Gas - 0.29
UC: (p/kWh) Elec – 32.28, Gas – 7.77

Q4 SC (£/day): Elec - 0.38, Gas - 0.30
UC (p/kWh): Elec – 32.38 Gas – 7.75

Terrifying... So the suggestion is that Q4 of 2023 will hardly be much cheaper to Q4 of 2022