Beelbeebub

Indeed CC is, alongside Hydrogen boilers, a load of bollocks. And we should be pragmatic. The problem is nobody can agree on what is achievable or not. I was arguing (I know think of it) with a chap on YouTube who was convinced only new builds could use heatpumps, they cost upwards of £33k after subsidy and required you to give up you gas cooker. *if* that was true then yes, the idea of moving the country to electrified heating is impractical without vast cost. Of course, it isn't true. One thing to think about is Octopus are arguing strongly for a local electricity market, almost certainly with heavy skew to ToU tariffs. I doubt thr CEO of an energy supplier heavily invested in the digital infrastructure required for individual real-time pricing of electricity is pushing for a move to individual real-time pricing of electricity out of thr goodness of his heart. I'm not saying there isn't value in the proposal, only that he is far from an honest broker in the debate (as in he is undeniably partisan not as in he is dishonest)

Are you sure? He is big into heatpump and renewables.

The outgoing head of national grid said the transmission costs are about £25 a year an an average bill. With the investment to connect wind etc that will double (watch for daily mail headline) to £50,but the savings on constraint costs by having more capacity will save about £40, so a net £10 a year increace <https://open.spotify.com/episode/5PuyXuWML9xvzb2iHcIrUH>

The price of electricity is ultimately an entirely politically driven thing. The government could pass laws that subsidised or taxed one or other form of energy to make it cost whatever they wanted it to. They could make petrol 1p a liter via massive subsidy or £5 a liter via huge tax hikes. Electricity could be 100% nationalised, the cost borne through general taxation and the electricity provided for free So you can snort and say "Not until someone radically alters the way electricity pricing is calculated" and be correct - because it would be correct in any situation. You could equally argue that massive drilling for the oil and gas isn't worth it because it won't reduce the price "until someone radically alters the way electricity pricing is calculated" But that misses the point. It is alot easier to lower the price of something that is cheap than it the price of something expensive. The more cheap electricity that is produced the easier it is for politicians to put policies in place to make electricity cheap to consumers. Whether they do this is an entirely seperate question

Sorry which undeniable fact? That the UK oil and gas production will keep falling? That renewables are the cheapest source of electricity? Or that a cheaper source of electricity has the potential to reduce bills? Which one of those is flying in the face of reality?

The orginal point of this thread is that, despite what some political parties would have you believe, the UK's production of oil and gas are going to continue to fall, no matter what we do. We therefore have the choice between "Net zero" polices like demand reduction and electrification of heat and transport or becoming even more dependent on oil and gas from other countries the majority of which are not friendly. Renewable electricity is cheaper to generate than any other type. Therefore it has the potential to reduce the price of energy. This is undeniable. People are already starting to get cheaper electricty by using variable tarrifs to take advantage of times when you can get a khw of electricty for a penny. The fact that our current market setup doesn't pass this cheaper electricity price on to consumers isn't the fault of renewables. To blame the high price of electricity on renewables - that is the blatant lie, often told here (and in the media).

@botusbuild is correct. Because we are part of a larger market uk generators (like our hypothetical magic generator) will be able to export some of their electricity via the interconnects so we are "competing" with European energy prices. This is why the French experienced a spike in their electricity prices despite having lots of nuclear generators - French consumer were having to compete with British consumers for French nuclear electric. Of course this is governed by the interconnect capacity more than anything. At some point the UK will have so much capacity that it simply cannot export enough if it to boost the price - sort of like the problem Scotland has already... And a larger better connected grid is better. Ultimately we could be benefiting from Spanish solar, they will benefit from British wind, Norwegian hydro, solar and wind across Eastern Europe etc. Across Europe, the sun is usually shining somewhere and the wind is probably blowing somewhere. So yes, lowering the energy price isn't quite as simple as ditching the auction. On the other hand it is an artifact of our (wider) market so by making changes the price could probably be lowered - unless the current system and mix is (by some miracle) thr absolute optimum already.... 😁

But as has been pointed out continually - the prices remain pegged to gas because of the auction structure. If we had a magic electric generator that produced 25GW 24h a day for a penny year, that would provide nearly 70% of the UK annual electric demand for 1p yet the wholesale price of electricity would have remained the same under the auctions system and people would be claiming that magic electric generators increaced our bills. We do need to come up with a new market mechanism that allows the savings of cheaper generation to be passed on to consumers whilst also maintain investment and reliability. That is a separate issue from "Net zero". But fundamental to coming up with that solution *is having the cheaper generation capacity in the first place*

Yes, thr marginal pricing system is the reason our electricity prices track gas. The fact this is true means that the accusation that higher electricity prices we pay now are due to higher renwable capacity cannot be correct.

My point. At least with renewables we have the option of an alternative pricing structure to pass the benefit of the lower cost on to consumers (whether we do that is in thr lap of politicians and their lobbyists.... so I'm not holding my breath) But the point is that without renewables we will have no choice at all. Which makes the lobbyists job easier - so they put theor effort into slowing renewables. Far easier to prevent renewables from being built than to argue why a politician shouldn't take advantage of the cheaper power.

That's the point. The high price of electricity is being blamed, by some, on the increace in renewables capacity simply because renewables capacity is now higher than it was and prices are now higher than they were.

Is the increacing share of renewables to blame for the Uk's high electricity prices? Or is it that electricity prices track gas prices and gas has become more expensive?

Very much so Yes and I would say the idea we can exist without any fossil fuels for either feedstocks or energy (at least I the near to medium term) is as fanciful as ditching all renewables to burn fossil fuels like it's 1980. Just as a very simple example, aviation is not going to get off fossil fuels for quite some time I would caveat that with lowest price over time, not just today and tomorrow and that there are some external factors like air quality, environmental protection etc. which make paying a little more for energy worth it. It doesn't matter what your view on co2 is - none of my argument for reducing demand and reducing our reliance on FF for certain sectors relies on carbon emissions or climate. Failing to do the above will impoverish us more in the long (and medium) run, it's not virtue signalling I don't think we habe any left do we? Unless that last one that was in the news is still on life support? But longer term electric furnaces are better suited to the UK. The FF ones need to be kept firing continuously for years at a time,which means your steel output needs to be bought and put steel demand in thr UK isn't that continuous. Which makes the plants that need to keep running difficult to manage. Electric furnaces can start and stop more easily and run on thr cheap excess electricity at night etc. Especially wind - our electric price can go negative at times. Imagine how competitive hour steel making could be if you could do it with zero cost energy. Again, we need to invest now to reap the rewards later - something the UK has conspicuouy failed to do for Decades because of a "but we want it as cheap as possible now" mindset.

Chaos is off topic but my understanding is thr Uk's claim is legally poor - various international courts have found against the UK,so it was always likely that we would struggle to hold onto them. The current scheme, as thought up by thr last government and endorsed by the US assures the UK (and US) foothold in the region. I don't personally like it, I suspect it was done more to curry favour with the US, which is proving to be a pointless waste of time now. But there we go.

Exactly. And don't forget the poor whales driven deaf by offshore wind turbines...... 😁 (Scotland should greenlight an even bigger windfarm offshore a certain golf course and onshore all around it.....)

More or less, yes to all that. The central point is that the UK is a waning FF producer because of geology and not any policy. There is no reversing that. No "give more tax credits" or "allow more drilling" that will increace FF production. The NIMBY's often come up with reasons to be against the various things we need to do. One of those reasons is "claimed change/net zero is a scam, we have plenty of fossil fuels of our lefty government would just let us drill" - that is bollocks. Of course there are other nimby reasons - "thousands of birds will die", "the view", "rare snail/newt/bat once was seen here", "my house price!"

Ah this old chestnut..... Fossil fuels are absolutely vital to modern life for all thr reasons you just mentioned and many more. Which is why it is daft to burn the stuff when we don't need to. Imagine you were a furniture maker and luckily had a nice forest of trees ideally suited for all sorts of furniture projects. It wasn't a huge forest but, if you used it just for making wooden things it would be sufficient and you could trade some of your wood for other wood when you needed a specific wood you didn't have. Now do you heat your workshop with a wood fire, cutting down perfectly usable trees to do so? Do you generate the electricity for your workshop with a wood powered generator? All the whole consuming that valuable resource at a rate that will.empty the forest in less than a decade? Or do you use wind and solar etc to do that, only burning some of your valuable wood over the few winter weeks where the suns nd wind are insufficient, so you can make that resource that you cannot make furniture without last longer?

We're these news articles from sources like the telegraph, times, express, mail? They have a tendency to put the most negative spin on stuff eg quoting costs and not savings "will add £140 to each bill!!" - neglecting the saving element which reduces that to £30 net and so on. And the £400 figure would be if the entire £13bn was split evenly amongst all households and then charge in one year.-again not waht woukd happen even if it was being added to bills. So you brandish comments like "Ed added £300 to everyones bill last week!" When actually you mean "I don't know it it's going on bills but if it did and it was all charged on one year then it would be £300" Incidentally there is good eveidnce not all of the 13bn, if any, is going on bills because some of that is on thr form of 0% loans over several years. That means the money is paid back so thr government only needs to back the loans not actually pay out. The eventual cost woikd be defaults and interest which won't be all of thr loaned out figure.

Not for the individual with the PV. My January bill is looking to be about about half what it would have been otherwise and I'm expecting to drop to zero sometime in March before becoming cash positive. So from my perspective it's lowered my prices. And the fact that my demand from the.grid has been lower will (ever so slightly) lower prices for those still fully on grid due to lower demand.

The high unit price for gas generated electricity itself isn't the issue. As you say, backup capability is expensive - the capital and fixed operating costs have to be amortised over fewer kwh so they will push up the price. Obviously we have to pay that to the gas generators or they will just shut up shop and not be there when we need them. The issue is that the price paid to the backup gas generators (or whoever happens to be the last generator) is paid to all. On the one hand this is good for renewables generators as they get much more for their electricity, up to the strike price, but it does push up the wholesale price somewhat.

Is it your contention that there is vastly more oil and gas accessible in UK territory that even the most optimistic estimates of the oil and gas industry? If so what do you base this on? If not, is it your suggestion that the UK continues to rely on oil and gas for heating, transport and power *and* that we source almost all of that on the world market?

To be fair the cheapest way per kwh to run a gas plant is at near maximum rate, all the time. The capital cost of the plant is spread over more kwh and thr fixed operational costs (staff, insurance etc) is also spread likewise. If you imagine buikding, mantaining and staffing a gas plant that onky produce 1mwh over it's life, it would be very expensive per Mwh! However, even with the higher costs of low utilisation gas, the overall power bill would be lower the more the grid uses cost renewables (solar and onshore wind currently cost the same as a high utilisation gas plant even after excluding carbon costs)

Granted (ha) the issues with grant harvesting will be ongoing but I don't see how you get your claim "Ed just ADDED £300 a year to everyones bills" from? Admittedly information is thin on the ground but it doesn't seem as if this funding comes from bills like the ECO funding did. Indeed the ECO program is being scrapped and the funding that would have come being from the levy on bills will be sourced direct from the treasury. The main source of the funds seems to be the treasury or general taxation rather than bills, so this measure would seem to be reducing the burden of "green stuff" on energy bills. But if you have any links to the contrary please post them

Yes, without some changes to both our physical infrastructure (generation transmission and storage etc) and our regulatory environment prices will remain high and probably rise in the medium to long term. And yes, vested interests are printing cash. I'm not sure what your point is. Staying as now, won't being down prices and will actually increace them. Increacing our reliance on fossil fuels ("cutting the green crap") will likewise increace our exposure to imports and higher prices even more. So we are left with reducing our exposure amd the cheapest way to do that is renewables (specifically solar and onshore wind - but if the public don't want the cheap option they can go for the slightly more expensive option of offshore wind) Like it or not the era of cheap North Sea gas is drawing to a close and we have to deal with it. What is it the right wing snowflakes lime to say? "facts don't care about your feelings"

Sorry, you've mentioned this a couple of times... what are you actually referring to? The infrastructure investment?