Beelbeebub

"UK plc" doesn't really exist so we would need to set up a nationalised oil company with storage etc and some legal framework to define who they can and cannot sell to. Which is fine, but we'd have to do it - with all the attendant faff (parliament, setting up the structure, hiring peeps etc. And the resource is dwindling. By 2030 it will be half what it is now. And who thinks we can set up this national company by then? The time to do it would have been around 1980. just to reiterate - THERE IS NO OIL AND GAS BONANZA JUST WAITING FOR US TO CLAIM IT. Nobody, not even the oil industry thinks there is. The only people who say there is are Trump, Farage, Badenoch and their circle.

Curtailment payments also happen for gas power stations. The grid buys firm future generation. If the grid can't use it, it's not the generators fault. Likewise there are penalties for not delivering that firm generation. Imagine booking caterers for a big event and then telling them, when they turn up ready, because not as many people came or the car park is full. You'd quickly find caterers would build the cost of cancellation into their quotes and you'd never know how much it cost to do the catering because it would be muddled up with the cost of you canceling them. The grid is building out new capacity especially at the known bottlenecks. I think by 2030 alot of the current curtailment costs will fall away (though total curtailment may rise simply because of the higher renewables overalls)

I'm not certain the geophysics works like that. Some fields are interconnected across national boundaries but I don't think all are and even those that are connected aren't strongly coupled. It's not a big cave of gas or oil, more like a giant sponge where the gas and oil moves slowly - which is why we need multiple wells in one field. So if the UK doesn't extract from them nobody else can either. "Reserved for UK use only" is easy to say but hard to implement. There are no private "UK" only oil companies. They are all multinational. So you'd need to set up one specially. Then what is "uk use only" - selling to a UK refinery (assuming one is set up for the oil). What if that refinery sells abroad? What if the UK wholesaler the refinery sells to wants to sell abroad? How far down the chain do we go?

Sorry, fat thumbs.

Yeah, i'd have thought so too.

What is slightly annoying is my inverter limits by power - which varies the amps as the voltage goes up and down. My voltage is regularly high 240's so i could export about 4kw but occasionally it dips to 230 or so which is only 3.6kw It would be nice if the inverter had a current limit export

I should have said export power - 16A export limit.

Yes. 8kw inverter 3.6kw export

Yes with a suitable battery and inverter you don't need to spread the generation via different orientation. On a slight tangent, my 24 panels system occupies the 12 degree mono pitch of a roughly 7x7m footprint carport. That's 50m2ish. Or about the footprint of modern 3bed house (about 100m2 over both floors). It strikes me that you could provide any house with 24 panels if you use a low mono pitch. Sure some would be sub optimal in terms of orientation or shading but even shaded or on an overcast days they put out 500w or so - enough for base load. It was about £3k in panels and mounting hardware (inverter and batteries were another 7-8k) and very easy to install (low pitch, metal roof). Hardly breaking the bank for a new build. And that house would be low electricity consumption in the winter and zero in the summer. If the occupants had an electric car it would do a good deal of their "fuel" over the summer, an immersion heater or heat pump and free hot water as well. That would do very nicely against the cost of living.

I went the max panel and inverter route. Size of inverter was partly determined by desire to cover peaks without drawing from grid i.e. kettle, toaster, air fryer all on at same time. This allowed for a large number of panels (24). This was dictated strongly by my (carport) roof size. I wanted to get it looking neat so fewer panels would look stupid. 24 panels filled the roof really nicely. It also compensated for sub optimal angle and orientation (12 degrees and South West). It also allowed reasonable generation (enough to cover daily demand) in the shoulder months as the panels are badly shaded by trees and the house. All in all we have zero import for 6 months and produce about 25% of demand in deep winter. The array easily saturates my export limit (a measly 3.6kw) so we have alot of potential excess in the summer. One advantage of the big array and inverter in the winter is the charge rate can be really high so you can take advantage of the 2 or 3 hours of sun during an otherwise dull day. 3 hours of good sun is about all I need to top up.

Sorry I wasn't clear. They don't normally need to be close though some of the sleek all in one type obviously do! This was in the context of a long DC cable run from panels to inverter (and battery) There was a suggestion about putting the inverter next to the panels and running the underground cable in AC. If we used AC coupled batteries they could then be at the house connected via AC But a hybrid connects to the inverter over a DC line so if the batteries are to be at the house i'd need a DC line from the inverter by the panels to the house alongside the AC line from the inverter to the house! Which defeats the object of putting the inverter by the panels (to avoid a buried DC cable) in the first place 😁

Plus it takes no account of expenses so massively punishes small businesses and self-employed Say 20% flat rate 30k a year salary pays 6k tax and has 24k taken home 200k a year tradesman with 170k expenses. Pays 40k tax and has a take home of -£10k Like it or not tax is always going to be complicated.

Convoluted tax accounting?! Shocked I tell you! Shocked!

So if the HOC figures are correct (£4bn in revenue) the tax payer could well be net negative .... (Depends if the £10bn is per year or over a period)

The HoC library says "How much money are oil and gas taxes forecast to raise in future years? The OBR has forecast that taken together receipts from offshore corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and the energy profits levy will raise £4.1 billion in 2025/26. Receipts are then forecast to decline to £0.1 billion in 2030/31, primarily due to the expected continued fall in oil and gas production and expiry of the EPL" That's not a lot in government terms (or oil company profit terms) So the argument seems to be that the pio companies want to pocket the 4bn for themselves rather than allow it to go to the Exchequer. But they also argue that continued O&G extraction is vital for government revenues. "Allowing us to keep going will give you lots of tax revenue but we can't keep going unless you lower the taxes" We either lose the tax revenue because the companies don't operate or because we don't charge them. BTW whilst I agree about the sentiment over local extraction over importation the difference we are talking about is tiny Again, the difference between the green and red lines. It doesn't make much odds to security of supply, prices, CO2, jobs or anything else whether we do or don't allow more extraction. The only thing it really effects is the oil company bottom lines. I'm not sure they need or deserve more profit.