Electricity price hike

[ProDave]

Before these recent price rises I was considering switching to Octopus go.  At the time I was about to press the button, it would have given me a slightly cheaper price than the standard day rate, a very slightly lower daily charge, and of course the 5p for a few hours at night.

 

It was my dislike of getting a smart meter that made me hesitate.

 

I find if I switched to go now, my day rate would be higher so there is no incentive to switch to what would increase my bills.

[AliG]

I have calculated that my price on Intelligent Octopus will average out to around 19p so roughly 10% cheaper than the current cap that I have moved to in the last week.

 

Then looking at the price spikes I though I should be doing this as it would also lock in my price for the next year and the cap will almost certainly rise further.

 

I will see if they email back with a higher price. There is no sign of that on their website.

 

The more I think about it, the person I spoke to was entirely unhelpful.

 

I explained what I wanted to do and she said that the government guidance was not to move as it would cost me more. I said that be cheaper on Intelligent Octopus. Then she said prices had just gone up and she couldn't tell me what they were, I had to email. Meanwhile a loud alarm started to blare in the background. She was desperate to get me off the phone.

[epsilonGreedy]

Anyone care to guess where the unit price will go if the military standoff in the Ukraine turns hot?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/dec/16/is-vladimir-putin-preparing-to-invade-ukraine-podcast

 

As I type 52% of the UK's electricity is generated with gas, 6% from wind and 13% from European interconnects.

 

What worries me most is that a nice little war is just the political tonic for a beleaguered President Biden.

[AliG]

It poses a very interesting moral question.

 

People are saying let's have sanctions against Russia and we cannot use the new pipeline due to Ukraine.

 

What happens when their gas bill goes up 2 or 3-fold?

 

Should we worry more about pensioners here who cannot turn on their heating or people in Ukraine.

 

Of course it is a bit like borrowing money from the mafia. Once you start dealing with criminals it always comes back to bite you. Europe should not be beholden to Russia for gas, but we are, so we have to accept that for the moment.

 

 

[ProDave]

The UK is pursuing a "green energy at all cost" strategy.  By that I mean it looks almost certain the Cambo oil / gas field will not go ahead "because it's not green" so as the North Sea reserves continue to decline, we will increasingly be bidding higher to import foreign oil and gas in a diminishing supply market.  But it's okay, we are not the ones causing this as we refused to take any more out of the ground. 

 

Imho we should push ahead with Cambo on the "energy security" principle, while still pursuing the drive to cleaner alternatives.

[epsilonGreedy]

7 minutes ago, AliG said:

It poses a very interesting moral question.

 

People are saying let's have sanctions against Russia and we cannot use the new pipeline due to Ukraine.

 

 

It is a geopolitical dilemma but I do not see the moral dimension. The drive towards Zero Carbon will eventually eliminate this dependency, until then why would we worry about which pipe Russia chooses to deliver gas to us.

 

16 minutes ago, AliG said:

Of course it is a bit like borrowing money from the mafia. Once you start dealing with criminals it always comes back to bite you.

 

 

I worry more about the Mafia running Her Majesty's Government and their £100 billion money printing collusion with the Bank of England. Borrowing against the future of unborn babies will end in tears. 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The UK is pursuing a "green energy at all cost" strategy. 

You can read all about it here.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html

 

Seem to remember the UK has had 3 years worth of gas left, for the last 15 years.

[epsilonGreedy]

7 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The UK is pursuing a "green energy at all cost" strategy.  By that I mean it looks almost certain the Cambo oil / gas field will not go ahead "because it's not green" ...

 

 

On a similar theme we should keep the last remaining coal generation capacity available for years but I fear the climate change lobby will demand its destruction. At present we routinely spin up 2GW of coal generation capacity when the wind is having a slow day.

 

Over the next 6 months two more nuclear stations will close for good due to engineering defects at those plants, think that amounts to 1.5GW of lost capacity.