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Everything posted by SteamyTea
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Are you sure, you started this topic on the 15th February 2026. That is 110 days, or 2640 hours, or 158400 minutes or 9504000 seconds. Coldplay have been on tour 15 times over the same period.
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Does the UK really have the most expensive electricity in Europe?
SteamyTea replied to SteamyTea's topic in Boffin's Corner
When making comparisons, three things have to be taken into account, the local wages, purchasing price parity and the amount used. A quick search got me some monthly household wage data. If that is divided by the cost of a unit of electricity, the more it can buy, the cheaper it really is. Country Wage/kWh Luxembourg 17965 Netherlands 12871 Malta 12195 Finland 11431 Denmark 11133 Hungary 11002 United Kingdom 10469 Sweden 10227 France 9428 Austria 7952 Croatia 7926 Ireland 7725 Belgium 7498 Germany 7474 Bulgaria 7274 Slovenia 7258 Estonia 7120 Lithuania 6909 Spain 6500 Cyprus 6429 Slovakia 6109 Italy 5630 Poland 5489 Czechia 4831 Portugal 4813 Latvia 4589 Greece 4253 Romania 3128 But once usage is taken into account, the rankings change. At 3.3% of household wage, our electricity is cheaper than the norm. Even if we doubled the price to take into account of standing charges, we are still only slightly higher than our long term average of around 5% of earnings. Interestingly, Finland and Sweden have the highest usages and the most expensive electricity, but they may have very low gas usage. Country % of Wage Wage Luxembourg 1.0 Hungary 1.9 Malta 2.7 United Kingdom 3.3 Lithuania 3.8 Croatia 4.0 Denmark 4.2 Netherlands 4.8 Estonia 5.3 Cyprus 5.6 Latvia 6.1 Ireland 6.3 Bulgaria 6.5 Italy 6.6 Germany 6.6 Belgium 6.9 Poland 6.9 Romania 7.0 Slovakia 7.3 France 7.6 Spain 7.7 Slovenia 8.0 Austria 8.4 Portugal 8.5 Finland 10.7 Greece 11.5 Czechia 12.3 Sweden 13.1 -
As the question ends with a question mark, you know it does not Here are the EU prices. https://www.euronews.com/2026/06/01/germany-is-a-leader-in-renewables-so-why-does-it-have-one-of-the-highest-eu-electricity-pr Below are the full EU rankings: Ireland: €0.40 Germany: €0.39 Belgium: €0.35 Denmark: €0.33 Austria: €0.33 Czechia: €0.32 Italy: €0.30 Romania: €0.29 Cyprus: €0.28 Sweden: €0.27 Poland: €0.27 Spain: €0.27 Luxembourg: €0.27 France: €0.26 Netherlands: €0.26 Latvia: €0.25 Portugal: €0.24 Greece: €0.24 Estonia: €0.23 Finnland: €0.23 Slovenia: €0.21 Lithuania: €0.20 Slovakia: €0.19 Croatia: €0.17 Bulgaria: €0.14 Malta: €0.13 Hungary: €0.11 The UK is currently £0.24.67 with is €0.29/kWh. The same as Romania. https://energyguide.org.uk/average-cost-electricity-kwh-uk/
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Urban wind generator or waste of time/effort?
SteamyTea replied to Bancroft's topic in Wind Generation
Only if the light emits between 24.25 GHz to 71.0 GHz. -
Is it the grey cardigan that does it for you?
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Urban wind generator or waste of time/effort?
SteamyTea replied to Bancroft's topic in Wind Generation
Local Authorities have no idea what things should cost, so selling them a £300 wind turbine made for a boat, a fifty quid PV panel, a small battery system for say £500 and a person to put it all together, should probably be about £1000. Councils will probably pay 5 to 6 times that amount. Then, where there is a meeting to fit renewables to council buildings, someone in accounts, will drag out the £5000/kW number and say 'it is too expensive'. -
Urban wind generator or waste of time/effort?
SteamyTea replied to Bancroft's topic in Wind Generation
I would sell them to the council. Could save them £1000s on each sale. Probably where the myths that renewables are expensive, and don't work, comes from. -
That only affects the generation times and instantaneous power per unit area i.e. takes up a little less land.
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By being able to absorb energy when the local voltage is high and distribute it when the voltage is low. It is what already happens, just that there would be a more centrally controlled system rather than many distributed systems. They can also help with local resistance (which is around 4 ohm I think). There is also phase balancing and sine wave conditioning which they play a part in.
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They will help immensely by stabilizing voltage. Especially important with PV and heat pumps.
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It may be a cheap way to reinforce the network. The biggest losses are the local substation and 'last mile' of cabling. The DNOs have to supply a reliable service.
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Posted up a bit about small (around 1 kWh) systems a few years ago. The economics still say it is cheaper for the DNO to do it at the substation level.
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The thought of being trapped in @Pocster's basement with no stimulus, apart from Coldplay, makes me want to walk out to sea and not return.
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Fan Coil Units for use with a (cooling) ASHP
SteamyTea replied to ProDave's topic in Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP)
Why in the Southern States the VCL is on the inside. Mind you, with climate change affecting the regional weather patterns, there may need to be some rethink about condensation risks. -
There is air cooling and air conditioning, they are not the same thing. Air conditioning controls the humidity and the temperature.
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Does that not just hurt the ordinary person though. Look what happened when a relatively few people withdrew savings from Northern Rock. And when Shell were boycotted in German because of misinformation. Not sure if I should mention Jaffa Oranges in the 1970s. Better to tax the bollocks off them, oh hang on.
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Yes, they start at 2m (or whatever) and count down.
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Good point, but I doubt it. It is not new generation as such, just recycling excess. Do they say how much power, and energy, they can draw on? Quite a worry that, but they may be using certificates behind the scene.
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- virtual power plant
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That is about 2.9 MWh of primary energy.
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Joist and Rafters - actual vs nominal values.
SteamyTea replied to ab12's topic in Roofing, Tiling & Slating
Yes. I think the sizes are based on the rough sawn size, not the finished size. https://www.ryedaletimber.co.uk/blog/regularised-timber-sizes-uk-guide-to-nominal-vs-finished-dimensions/ -
1 kg of seasoned hardwood has approximately 4.5 kWh of energy in it, when burnt in ideal conditions. As wood burners are not very efficient devises, you probably need to halves that. So a 5 kW one will, if run properly, will take 2 kg an hour, but probably closer to 3 kg. Burners can be adjusted to moderate thermal output, but that not only hurts efficiency, it also changes the combustion chemistry. Depending on the temperature of combustion, you also get varying amounts of particulates. Then there is the land area needed to grown the timber. A metre² of land in the UK gets around 950 kWh of solar energy on it, trees convert, at best, 0.25% of that to timber. So sub 0.2 kWh/year.m². So to run a 5 kW burner for 1 hour is going to take, at very best, 15 m² of land. Then you got the timber transport, storage, conditioning and waste disposal. Do you really want a wood burner. Most houses got central heating in the 1950s and 60s.
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Does it match the left handed Stanley knife?
