Energy Suppliers

[the shadow]

Horace Pinker Knows

For their place they get to stay in London where parliament is or their actual home?

MPs who represent constituencies outside London are allowed to claim expenses on top of their £81,932 salary, to pay rent and bills for their second homes.

Across the 2020-21 financial year, some 316 MPs claimed a total of £182,983 for gas, electricity and dual fuel.

In fact, between January and May of last year, 192 MPs submitted claims for £28,279 worth of energy bills.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

So it’s a nonsense comment then as it’s a work expense and not for their actual home. If you needed to spend 4 nights a week away from home for work, you’d expect those expenses to be paid.

£81k isn’t a ‘good’ salary for the job they are elected to do, it’s quite poor in reality, particularly for the sort of competence you really need in those positions. I don’t earn anything like £81k but you wouldn’t see me running for office for that.

 

[BigBoy]

Well that is the entire point though from the National Grid point of view when generators are sync'd together.

There is no syncing of generation platforms. During the day when possible solar is added to the grid, when possible wind is added to the grid, of hydro is available then it too is added to the grid. Each platform is in addition to nuclear, coal and gas production. Renewable or green sources of production are less than 6% of total used in the UK (facts as of 2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren...mber 2020, renewable,of total UK energy usage )
Although renewables generated 40.2% on UK total production it's still a very small amount of available resource compared to how much we use.

Given the facts the potential energy you consume is less than 10% from renewable sources no matter what your provider states.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

To be fair, I have zero problems with nuclear being considered in the same category as wind, solar and hydro.

I wouldn’t put biomas in the ‘renewables’ group though.

 

[theone8181]

To be fair, I have zero problems with nuclear being considered in the same category as wind, solar and hydro.

I wouldn’t put biomas in the ‘renewables’ group though.

Surely it's renewable in the sense it won't run out. I understand now, although I do think they phase these things a bit deceptively, I'm kicking my self that I didn't fix for 3 years.

 

[pastymuncher]

Still no refund or final bill from Shell Energy, they are really dragging this out and I am getting rather fed up with this now.

 

[Dave85]

I wound up unlucky so this blooming painful. My fixed price tariff ends in April. So going from £95 a month to nearly £200 estimated is mental. My current rates where decent I thought and I cannot find anything even remotely close to this. Most are now 0.50p standing charge a day.

Electricity unit rate: 16.68p per kWh
Daily standing charge: 21.53p per day

Gas unit rate: 2.902p per kWh
Daily standing charge: 20.79p per day

 

[Simon]

Feel lucky it ends in April and you aren’t on the cap already

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Still no refund or final bill from Shell Energy, they are really dragging this out and I am getting rather fed up with this now.

I just had an email today to say that I’m getting mine in the next 10 days or so by cheque.

Surely it's renewable in the sense it won't run out. I understand now, although I do think they phase these things a bit deceptively, I'm kicking my self that I didn't fix for 3 years.

Only if you count burning something and it taking 30-100 years to replace the thing you just burnt renewable then sure . There is quite a lot of evidence that burning biomas is ‘not great’, particularly for the local environment. Likewise the fast growing trees they need for it are not native and provide very little in the way of habitat for native wildlife.

On the fix point, I fixed in September 21 for 2 years at 19p/3.6p for electric/gas. I have an EV now but there is no chance I am giving up this tariff at the moment.

 

[Jokester]

Given the facts the potential energy you consume is less than 10% from renewable sources no matter what your provider states.

If I pay for 10kWh from Green Energy Co, they source it from renewables and put 10kWh into the grid. You might think they don't, but they do, unless you can show they are doing shady deals with non-renewables to provide that energy?

 

[BigBoy]

If I pay for 10kWh from Green Energy Co, they source it from renewables and put 10kWh into the grid. You might think they don't, but they do, unless you can show they are doing shady deals with non-renewables to provide that energy?

what you are doing is correct they put renewables in to the grid, my point is the energy you extract from said grid is at a maximum 10% renewable sourced. BUT the chance of that renewable will ever hitting your property is below 1% as the closest source of power will be the one providing your energy. So unless you have a renewable source producing more than 5 Gigawatts of power within a 50mile radius of your location, it is highly unlikely any of it is hitting your property.

Give your location is Aberdeenshire you have a higher chance of renewables being in your supply as Scotland in general has more Hydro/Wind generation than any other part of the country.

 

[Sasahara]

If I pay for 10kWh from Green Energy Co, they source it from renewables and put 10kWh into the grid. You might think they don't, but they do, unless you can show they are doing shady deals with non-renewables to provide that energy?

This is the problem, if renewable sources are available they will be used irrespective to you buying a "renewable" only tariff. If you are supplied by the national grid your effectively using the same proportion of renewable and non-renewable energy as everyone else on the grid, or at least in your grid network area.

Maybe you can say you contribute a very small amount of extra funding (aka the retailers cut which was around 5% before the price spike) to a renewable generator as Green Energy. I believe actually generate some of the energy they sell?
So you could say you are very slightly helping to fund expansion of that. But to be fair, if it's profitable to make renewable energy for the national grid your contribution to fund that expansion is a tiny proportion of the investment used.

If they had no retail customers they'd still sell all the energy they generate to the grid at the same price and all the energy from any other renewable source they have purchased from would also still be used. (until a time when renewables out supply usage)

Buying a renewable tariff is a nice marketing strategy to make customers feel better.

Non-renewable are only used when renewables can't meet the required capacity and load balancing.

As an example, right now at 25.7 GW demand.
52.5% renewable energy (Solar, Wind, Hydro)
25.4% other energy (Nuclear, Bio, pumped)
11.6% interconnectors (Mixed sources, Nuclear and wind a significant part)
10.5% fossil fuels

If demand drops it's fossil fuel generation that is reduced first where possible. If every Green Energy customer decided to have a no power usage day today, it would be gas power generation that would be reduced on the grid, not the renewable energy you think you have purchased.

 

[HungryHippos]

^ That is also my understanding, it does seem like it's fake marketing to make people feel better.

As you said, investment can and should go into green energy anyway.

 

[robj20]

Your energy comes from the closest source, in my case based on my geographic location my power comes from Hinckley point nuclear power station.

My supplier might buy green energy with the money I give them but the energy I consume is from nuclear i.e. not green sourced.

It doesn't work like that, closest source is nonsense.

Also renewable accounts for a higher percentage than people think.

https://grid.iamkate.com/

 

[martin363]

circa £15 month for just even been signed up to an electric supplier.

The standing charge is a catch all, I actually only live in the UK for max 6 months a year, and turn the power off when not there, but the Standing Charge ensures I still pay every month

 

[kinetic747]

The standing charge is a catch all, I actually only live in the UK for max 6 months a year, and turn the power off when not there, but the Standing Charge ensures I still pay every month

What's the justification for the rises in the standing charges? Couldn't be the fact that people are trying to use less energy could it?

 

[Journey]

It doesn't work like that, closest source is nonsense.

It's electricity in a wire, also known as the national grid, it comes from whatever is generating closest to you at the time. You can't make the charge come from a wind farm on the east coast if you live in the south-west next to a nuclear power station. When my solar panels are generating my closet source is my roof, but if they aren't generating enough they add the rest from the battery, or the grid, and if taking from the grid I have no say in what the source supply is, just that I get a stable(ish) 230v at 50Hz and that is corrected and balanced in real time based on demand and connected generation.

 

[BigBoy]

It's electricity in a wire, also known as the national grid, it comes from whatever is generating closest to you at the time. You can't make the charge come from a wind farm on the east coast if you live in the south-west next to a nuclear power station. When my solar panels are generating my closet source is my roof, but if they aren't generating enough they add the rest from the battery, or the grid, and if taking from the grid I have no say in what the source supply is, just that I get a stable(ish) 230v at 50Hz and that is corrected and balanced in real time based on demand and connected generation.

Exactly this.

It doesn't work like that, closest source is nonsense.

Having worked in the industry for 22 years and having more qualifications to shake a stick at than I can remember, take a breath and think about it, are you absolutely sure of this statement? Because I am certain it is complete and utter nonsense...

 

[Jokester]

There is no syncing of generation platforms. During the day when possible solar is added to the grid, when possible wind is added to the grid, of hydro is available then it too is added to the grid.

Having worked in the industry for 22 years and having more qualifications to shake a stick at than I can remember, take a breath and think about it, are you absolutely sure of this statement? Because I am certain it is complete and utter nonsense...

Ah, right what do you do in the electric industry?

 

[Russinating]

It's electricity in a wire, also known as the national grid, it comes from whatever is generating closest to you at the time. You can't make the charge come from a wind farm on the east coast if you live in the south-west next to a nuclear power station. When my solar panels are generating my closet source is my roof, but if they aren't generating enough they add the rest from the battery, or the grid, and if taking from the grid I have no say in what the source supply is, just that I get a stable(ish) 230v at 50Hz and that is corrected and balanced in real time based on demand and connected generation.

How does it work when you have a 100% renewables tariff?

I'm not saying you're wrong, just curious.