Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

[silversurfer]

15% less gas usage required by Europe to meet the quite obvious thumbscrews deployed by Putin. He has recently suggested Nord 1 not usable so consider his next offer to use Nord 2 previously denied permission, genius thinking there by a guy who just wants to solve problems lol

EU to cut gas use by 15%; UK inflation rises for ninth month in a row to 9.4% – as it happened

EU says Russia ‘likely’ to halt gas supplies, while in the UK, milk, cheese, eggs, vegetables and ready meals become more expensive

www.theguardian.com

I presume UK also would be wanting people to do similar cut back on usage. Price is a result of supply and demand, there is a massive gap coming depending how harsh the winter might be. So long as UK gets the gulf stream we've always been a bit blessed without realising it, Germany or any further east is kinda screwed.

 

[MadMossy]

Problem with gas is that no matter how much you cut down your still going to be stung by the electricity costs, seeing as so much of our electricity is generated using gas turbines. All those suppliers who intentionally pushed "green renewable" energy on us were a total lie.

Gas is fossil fuel, its finite, rather than invest in solar/wind/tidal they took the cheaper option of gas. I'd say its really stung them in the backside now, but it hasn't they don't care, we will be the ones who foot the bill.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I suspect pricing will lead to a good few % shaved off gas usage with no intervention needed anyway.

Green renewable energy has never come from gas power stations.

 

[MadMossy]

I suspect pricing will lead to a good few % shaved off gas usage with no intervention needed anyway.

Green renewable energy has never come from gas power stations.

Many suppliers advertise the use of "green gas".

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Many suppliers advertise the use of "green gas".

Which isn't fossil fuel gas

 

[b0rn2sk8]

That’s because they buy gas from non fossil fuel sources such as bio digesters (from food/animal waste) or those grass digesters.

E.g. https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-news/2021/ecotricity-explains-making-gas-from-grass

 

[VaderDSL]

https://gridwatch.co.uk/ just shows how screwed we would be if gas supplies collapsed. 31GW demand, 17GW generated by gas. You can understand the concern countries in the EU have having spent years running off cheap gas imports.

I wonder what it would take to cut this %, presumably the only options are loads of nuclear, loads more wind turbines, or loads more coal or combination of all 3. And an equal reduction in demand, not sure what that would take also.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

There are loads of opportunities to cut consumption, just look at some of the MASSIVE bills people have on here.

The amount of people who only have <100mm of loft insulation is probably in the millions, crazy given how cheap it is.

Demand for electricity has been dropping for a while thanks to new efficiency standards but there is more than can still be done in that space without adding new generating capacity.

You could even argue the jobs not done until every suitable roof has solar on it. That is going to take awhile.

 

[Diddums]

There are loads of opportunities to cut consumption, just look at some of the MASSIVE bills people have on here.

The amount of people who only have <100mm of loft insulation is probably in the millions, crazy given how cheap it is.

Demand for electricity has been dropping for a while thanks to new efficiency standards but there is more than can still be done in that space without adding new generating capacity.

You could even argue the jobs not done until every suitable roof has solar on it. That is going to take awhile.

I've maintained buildings for over 20 years, I've worked in anything from a 600 year old prison to a state of the art London tower block and the amount of energy wasted is absolutely staggering. The private sector are really working to save money "reduce their carbon footprint" (lol) but the amount of energy that goes down the drain in the public sector is absolutely insane, if the Daily Fail got hold of some of the stats it'd trigger a nationwide investigation.

 

[SDK^]

Interesting idea, a thermal heat storage core that charges up overnight during the cheap tariff period and provides hot water / heating throughout the day. Doesn't currently make sense financially but with the predicted gas price increases it could be a bit cheaper. Can't find the install cost but likely pretty expensive at the moment, plus with all the app based smart tech you'd be a bit screwed if the company went bust. They are releasing a combi boiler version next which doesn't need a storage tank so could be a very easy swap for most homes.

Just needs energy companies to keep providing cheap energy periods but with these, home batteries and EVs the demand at night will only be going up.

I watched this yesterday as I'm looking to replace our Gas Boiler in the not too distant future.

These cost about £8k with no Government grant support, so quite a bit expensive than an Air Source Heat Pump.
They seem great through - if everything their guy promises is true ?!

 

[MadMossy]

I used to work a publically funded company, kettle would be on all the time, building had aircon on all the time, even when the officers were closed, computer systems left on standby even when out of office hours including weekends. During the winter even though the building had AC, people would bring in their own little heaters, I remember one really cold winter back in 2010-2011 I think, we had to get an emergency electrician out as the office staff had actually caused multiple overloads resulting a burning smell from some of the outlets, 2 of them had scorch marks.

 

[Puzzled]

I watched this yesterday as I'm looking to replace our Gas Boiler in the not too distant future.

These cost about £8k with no Government grant support, so quite a bit expensive than an Air Source Heat Pump.
They seem great through - if everything their guy promises is true ?!

Looks like a better solution than a heat pump for us as we have microbore plumbing and no room for larger radiators so wouldn't need to change anything to use this. Just needs to come down in price and for energy companies to open up more cheap off-peak tariffs which don't require an EV.

 

[danlightbulb]

so consider his next offer to use Nord 2 previously denied permission

The whole Nord2 thing was stupid. If Nord1 is already in operation, what difference does it make bringing online Nord2? And if Nord1 goes offline, and we bring on Nord2, then we're still taking the same gas as we would have been just through a different pipe, so what does it matter? Stupid politics, either take the gas, or don't.

or loads more coal

We burned coal for decades, bringing it back online for a couple of years whilst we navigate this current problem is not going to be world ending. It just delays things a little that's all, which is fine, we can catch up in future years when the problem is over.

They seem great through - if everything their guy promises is true ?!

Relies on the cheap overnight tariff though, which I would say is the main risk. What if it stops being offered?

 

[Doobedoo]

Similar story with any publicly funded institution. They are generally used and abused and treated as a means to gain something. I’m currently in a police workshop and the company who look after there equipment has a pretty bad rep for over charging for work that doesn’t always need to be done. Same will apply for the NHS, colleges and so on and so forth.

 

[SDK^]

Relies on the cheap overnight tariff though, which I would say is the main risk. What if it stops being offered?

Time of use tariffs are only going to increase in the future. National Grid and the industry want to shift EV charging and any other high draw use items to off-peak use (where it's possible). This will be done by making these times cheaper.

 

[chrcoluk]

Interesting idea, a thermal heat storage core that charges up overnight during the cheap tariff period and provides hot water / heating throughout the day. Doesn't currently make sense financially but with the predicted gas price increases it could be a bit cheaper. Can't find the install cost but likely pretty expensive at the moment, plus with all the app based smart tech you'd be a bit screwed if the company went bust. They are releasing a combi boiler version next which doesn't need a storage tank so could be a very easy swap for most homes.

Just needs energy companies to keep providing cheap energy periods but with these, home batteries and EVs the demand at night will only be going up.

The problem is they not providing cheap energy periods, E7 is a bit meh, and GO requires an EV which locks out 98-99% of the population. Agile sadly is only a little cheaper at weekends and thats it, back in spring it was ok, but the off peak is basically peak price on that now.

Octopus have now said GO is basically sponsored, hence it doesnt reflect real world costs. Probably why they have started to have to enforce EV ownership rules.

 

[chrcoluk]

Problem with gas is that no matter how much you cut down your still going to be stung by the electricity costs, seeing as so much of our electricity is generated using gas turbines. All those suppliers who intentionally pushed "green renewable" energy on us were a total lie.

Gas is fossil fuel, its finite, rather than invest in solar/wind/tidal they took the cheaper option of gas. I'd say its really stung them in the backside now, but it hasn't they don't care, we will be the ones who foot the bill.

Someone revealed on MSE if you dont use gas or you a light user who wants disconnection, after disconnection the gas infrastructure people will turn up and do a street disconnection (not happy with the home disconnection) with a fee close to 2 grand, so paying for gas standing charge is akin to a protection racket.

 

[fez]

The issue with all these "captain hindsight" solutions is that they didn't make any financial sense until the price of energy skyrocketed. Even simple stuff like loft insulation only pays for itself over a number of years. We've done ours over the past few months and you have 2 options for most people. Completely lose all loft storage space or spend a lot more on raising the floor to keep that storage. I reckon that the cost of insulating the roof has come out at the best part of £800 or more to do this and we already had a load of boards up there. That was doing it all myself as well.

Even with the inflated gas prices it will be a number of years before we save that off our heating bill.

This has always been the fight with energy saving and green energy generation. How much are people willing to pay to help the environment? The answer is not a lot. And honestly I don't blame people. The big polluters are the big companies, people that run air con all the time, drive massive cars, fly all the time etc etc. They are the ones that can make the biggest change so asking the average, poor member of society to lose money to put barely a scratch into the problem is a hard ask.

Hopefully all these issues with Russia will push everyone to invest far more into renewables and their own energy generation and we can all give the middle finger to Russia and as much fossil fuel use as possible.

 

[chrcoluk]

There are loads of opportunities to cut consumption, just look at some of the MASSIVE bills people have on here.

The amount of people who only have <100mm of loft insulation is probably in the millions, crazy given how cheap it is.

Demand for electricity has been dropping for a while thanks to new efficiency standards but there is more than can still be done in that space without adding new generating capacity.

You could even argue the jobs not done until every suitable roof has solar on it. That is going to take awhile.

Indeed, but I think so many people see cutting back on heating as a red line they wont cross, some people have insane annual gas usage.
But in terms of insulation though, there is other things not been addressed like window insulation (single glazing and wooden frames). Doing wall and loft insulation when you got windows falling apart is akin to trying to fix a broken dam with a sink plug. I am not aware of a single double glazing government support program. There seems to be an assumption that everyone has modern windows now.

 

[chrcoluk]

The issue with all these "captain hindsight" solutions is that they didn't make any financial sense until the price of energy skyrocketed. Even simple stuff like loft insulation only pays for itself over a number of years. We've done ours over the past few months and you have 2 options for most people. Completely lose all loft storage space or spend a lot more on raising the floor to keep that storage. I reckon that the cost of insulating the roof has come out at the best part of £800 or more to do this and we already had a load of boards up there. That was doing it all myself as well.

Even with the inflated gas prices it will be a number of years before we save that off our heating bill.

This has always been the fight with energy saving and green energy generation. How much are people willing to pay to help the environment? The answer is not a lot. And honestly I don't blame people. The big polluters are the big companies, people that run air con all the time, drive massive cars, fly all the time etc etc. They are the ones that can make the biggest change so asking the average, poor member of society to lose money to put barely a scratch into the problem is a hard ask.

Hopefully all these issues with Russia will push everyone to invest far more into renewables and their own energy generation and we can all give the middle finger to Russia and as much fossil fuel use as possible.

Indeed the way they trying to fund it is wrong. A green levy on consumer bills when they are not the big driver was never the right idea from the beginning. There is also the question why cant companies making very large profits fund it themselves out of shareholder money?

We have a system now where wealthy company with large margins supplies reseller with tight margins (in some cases the reseller is subsidy of wealthy company), and its the reseller thats regulated instead of the wholesaler. Whether this is an oversight or deliberate to fool the population from government side dont know. So when it comes to doing things like subsidising people's bills, it gives no motivation to the wholesaler energy extractor to mitigate costs, if anything they will increase as they now know a government will pay the bills. We absolutely need to be self sufficient, not just from imports but from private companies on energy supply. So any infrastructure thats paid for now we need to own it, not pay a private company to build it but to build it ourselves, this of course goes against small state ideology, but its the only sane way forward.