Electricity price hike

[Stones]

Regardless of what the method of generation is, a 'fuel' source is needed - sun, wind, tides, current, water flow (and geography), gas, oil, coal, uranium etc. Where we cannot guarantee a continuous and uninterrupted supply, some form of storage is needed to help smooth out the peaks and troughs.  What strikes me as odd in the push to switch over to more renewables is that there has not been a corresponding investment in storage capacity (or research into developing) of the electricity generated by solar and wind.  @SteamyTea mentioned compressed air storage which I've read a couple of articles on, and on the face of it, could be one of several solutions.  'Green' Hydrogen is another, albeit round trip efficiency isn't great (though that may not really matter if the generated electricity is surplus/excess).

[Lorenz]

There are vehicles out there powered by compressed air or CO2 which is better, but they get little air time. Seems like a good way to store energy commercially.

[epsilonGreedy]

57 minutes ago, Lorenz said:

That is simple, they want to dangle their toes in the Indian Ocean, that has been the same for a long time, so anything they can do to further that aim is no surprise. The question is why rely on a hostile energy partner, for some countries, maybe they have no other option, but surely we do!

 

 

Has does not selling gas further Russia's territorial expansion towards the Indian Ocean? Since their withdrawal from Afghanistan and the breakup of the USSR progress towards the Indian Ocean has been negative.

 

It seems to me that the pipeline would be delivering gas today had there not been 5 years of meddling internal western politics. Way back when Russia took control of the Crimea I remember the UK and the US were berating Germany for planning the new gas link. Ever since the US has been trying to delay and extract facing saving concessions from Russia and Germany before agreeing to drop opposition to the opening of the pipeline.

 

Russia wants income from gas sales and Germany can afford to pay the price, it really should be that simple.

[epsilonGreedy]

40 minutes ago, Lorenz said:

There are vehicles out there powered by compressed air or CO2 which is better, but they get little air time. Seems like a good way to store energy commercially.

 

 

Not really, the concept contests basic thermodynamic physics. Compressing air causes that volume of air to shed heat energy and then on re-expansion extra energy input is required to stop the system frosting up.

 

Imagine a battery that requires special cooling pipes operating when being charged and then needs a hotair gun directed at it when the battery is releasing energy as it discharges.

[Stones]

6 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Has does not selling gas further Russia's territorial expansion towards the Indian Ocean? Since their withdrawal from Afghanistan and the breakup of the USSR progress towards the Indian Ocean has been negative.

 

It seems to me that the pipeline would be delivering gas today had there not been 5 years of meddling internal western politics. Way back when Russia took control of the Crimea I remember the UK and the US were berating Germany for planning the new gas link. Ever since the US has been trying to delay and extract facing saving concessions from Russia and Germany before agreeing to drop opposition to the opening of the pipeline.

 

Russia wants income from gas sales and Germany can afford to pay the price, it really should be that simple.

 

It also wants to weaken it's neighbours, especially Ukraine, so rather than upgrading the existing pipeline through Ukraine and Poland and negotiating better payment deals, it has built a new pipeline it will control. All the new pipeline will do is divert supply from the old to the new.  

[Lorenz]

They have been expanding ever since the break up. They are playing with the EU,  they have the eu pay for new equipment, then ship it over the border to Russia. Now prices have risen they will be making more money, carrot and stick.

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

7 minutes ago, Lorenz said:

They have been expanding ever since the break up.

 

 

Who? Nato?

 

7 minutes ago, Lorenz said:

They are playing with the EU,  they have the eu pay for new equipment, then ship it over the border to Russia.

 

 

Again? Who are you now referring to Germany, Poland or Ukraine?

[Lorenz]

Nato has taken in countries that wanted to join, Russia has annexed areas of other countries against their will, there is a big difference.

 

All of the EU. Factories are built and or machinery  purchased for them with EU funds and then the venture collapses or never works and the place is shipped over the border. Continously milking the EU.

 

Gas is power, carrot and stick.

[epsilonGreedy]

18 minutes ago, Stones said:

 

It also wants to weaken it's neighbours, especially Ukraine, so rather than upgrading the existing pipeline through Ukraine and Poland and negotiating better payment deals, it has built a new pipeline it will control. All the new pipeline will do is divert supply from the old to the new.

  

 

Nope still don't get it. Prevailing opinions currently being offered are:

 

New pipeline to Europe = proof of bad Russia because it is trying to engineer a geo political advantage over NATO

Non operating new pipeline caused by internal western politics = proof of bad Russia

[epsilonGreedy]

3 minutes ago, Lorenz said:

Nato has taken in countries that wanted to join, Russia has annexed areas of other countries against their will, there is a big difference.

 

 

I assume this claim of expansion is confined to the Ukraine?

 

If that is the case consider in a short period of time:

• Ukraine threatened to take back the Russian Black Sea naval base when some notional lease had expired.
• Some in the West started talking about admitting Ukraine to NATO.
• The EU started offering dosh to ferment anti Russian politics in the Ukraine.
• A popular uprising in Ukraine ousted the pro Russian national leader.
• An extreme Ukrainian MP was exposed having a conversation about exterminating Russians.
• Russia stopped supplying heavily subsidized gas to Ukraine and demanded payment at open market prices.
• Ukraine started stealing gas from the pipeline before it got to Europe.
• Russia decided to take back the Crimea which had been Russian since before the United Stated was created.
• Employees of a pro Russian organization in a southern Ukrainian city were surrounded and burnt to death or jumped to their deaths when their building was torched.
• While all of this was going on the West was engineering the fall of the pro Russian Government in Syria. putting at risk their last friendly naval port in the Med.
• Finally they moved on eastern Ukraine that had been ethnically Russian for 100's of years.
• The West decided to the crash the international value of the ruble. 

Would you want your pipeline running through such a country? Germany obviously concurred with Russia, no.

 

[Lorenz]

Russia did a deal, where Crimea was transferred to Ukraine, but Ukraine lost valuable farmland, I have not heard of Russia returning this farmland to Ukraine?

Russia occupied parts of Georgia.

Russia still occupies part of Latvia.

Russia still occupies Kaliningrad which should have been returned to Lithuania,

and so on.. half of Finland

 

 

[oldkettle]

I can only concur with the point @Stones has made - without any finger pointing. There is no new gas - at least based on what I read about it. Whatever comes via Nordstream won't come via Ukraine. There are pipelines to Turkey and China, they have agreed volumes, not even sure whether EU can bid the price up to get a part of what Turkey gets.

It is an unfortunate coincidence this year, true. But it does not mean current long term strategy is good. I personally think it is a complete madness to drop fossil fuels now or in the near future, there is no threat that can't be dealt with cheaper and more efficiently by other means. But it is too late. 

[epsilonGreedy]

2 hours ago, Lorenz said:

Russia did a deal, where Crimea was transferred to Ukraine, but Ukraine lost valuable farmland, I have not heard of Russia returning this farmland to Ukraine?

 

 

I have not heard of that version of history. In my comprehension of Soviet history khrushchev gave away The Crimea in an administrative event 60 years ago. In the heady Sputnik era khrushchev wanted to acknowledge The Ukraine's  contribution to the Soviet success story and engaged in some devolution of regional power to the Ukraine and at the flick of a pen packed the Crimea into the devolution deal. At the time it was inconceivable the USSR would fall apart so chaotically and when it did Ukraine acquired The Crimea as an accidental by-product.

 

Russia moved into the Crimea in the 1700's partly to control the Tartar's who had traded 2 million Slavs in a slave trade that had been running for 200 years prior to the Russian arrival.

 

2 hours ago, Lorenz said:

and so on.. half of Finland

 

 

Well now you are getting silly by picking arbitrary dates from history. Should France as a winner in WWII hand back bits of Germany it acquired? What about Gibraltar or parts of the USA once owned by Mexico? 

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Is it April Fools Day already!

May have been in 1978 when the first large scale one came onstream.

Goggle Salt Caverns and compressed air.

These are not a few old Calor gas bottles pumped up with a Silverline compressor, we are talking 300,000 m³ caverns compressed to 50 bar +.

[AliG]

I think the problem is almost entirely down to Russia.

 

The problem is that is not easy to fix. There's no quick alternative to Russian gas supplies.

 

It is clearly not just a UK problem, although greater reliance on spot markets is making things worse here

 

Prices continue to rise, from what I have read Russia has only booked half the normal volume of gas for October and nothing after that.

 

https://fortune.com/2021/09/25/what-a-modern-energy-crisis-looks-like-and-why-no-country-is-safe/

 

Many other countries have already stepped in to cushion the blow of price rises.

 

There are a lot of people who are going to be really hurt by a £500-1000 increase in their utility bills.

 

In days gone by this kind of thing caused wars.

 

To my mind we should approve the new Russian pipeline whilst making longer term plans to reduce reliance on Russia. There is a story in the papers today about building a combined solar/wind plant in Morocco to supply electricity to the UK. Realistically you need at least 4 or 5 years to put a better long term fix in place. Nuclear capacity being talked about is way too slow to come on stream. I guess allowing fracking in the UK might help a bit.

 

It appears to me, reading the comments from the government, that they do not understand the difference between certainty of supply and the price of gas. The UK imports over half the gas it uses. If you think about it, many European countries must import all of their gas. Very little of the gas we import comes from Russia, so people seem to have decided that supplies are fairly safe. Yes they are, the lights won't go out. But other people who buy Russian gas buy from the same suppliers as the UK - Norway, USA, Qatar etc. Thus if they pay more we pay more. Not buying gas from Russia does not mean we are immune to their actions. The lights might not go out, but people might not be able to afford to turn them on!

 

UK electricity future -

 

 

German Future (In Euros, so the prise is a bit lower than the UK price but headed in exactly the same direction)

 

[ProDave]

I don't suppose LPG is going down in price any time soon?  I need to refill one of my 47Kg cyliners.

[Marvin]

25 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I don't suppose LPG is going down in price any time soon?  I need to refill one of my 47Kg cyliners.

I paid £85 delivered.

[Ferdinand]

My new supplier is .... Octopus.

[Lorenz]

Octopus and Bulb were supposed to being going bust last week.......

[recoveringbuilder]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

I don't suppose LPG is going down in price any time soon?  I need to refill one of my 47Kg cyliners.

We went and bought two last week, still the same price they were last year 

[Lorenz]

We are with Calor gas and it has been costing a fortune, have asked if it was leaking, but they said no. However a couple of months ago they came to check things a few times and replace the anodes. We looked yesterday and it was still at 60%, that is a huge drop in consumption over previous months and looks like it will last into November, it is a couple of months at least since we last had it filled. Last summer we were having to fill it every couple of months and in winter it was costing a hundred a week at least. 

So I am hoping there will not be an increase, but on the face of it, it looks like we will be buying much less of it this year.

[SteamyTea]

8 hours ago, Lorenz said:

Octopus and Bulb were supposed to being going bust last week.......

Octopus has taken over Avro's customers.

That is going to cost them.

[recoveringbuilder]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Octopus has taken over Avro's customers.

That is going to cost them.

It’s octopus I’m with, if I sign up for a new deal it’s 24 months and the unit price has gone up from 15.89 to 25.87 so 10p per unit of a rise, I have 5 days left to make my decision but if I don’t sign up they’ll have to put me on a flexible tariff which is the route I’m thinking I’ll take. Unfortunately because our heating wasn’t working we were having to use the immersion heater for hot water and this has made it look like we are using a lot more than what we really will now that the boiler is working again. I can only wait and see what happens 

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, recoveringbuilder said:

I have 5 days left to make my decision but if I don’t sign up they’ll have to put me on a flexible tariff which is the route I’m thinking I’ll take

I have always stuck with variable tariffs, has not been unknown for EDF to drop my unit price.

Fix the heating.  I am about to push the button on buying an A2AHP to replace my main storage heater.  It has taken a price of 12p/kWh to do this, at 10p/kWh it was not worth spending £350.

[recoveringbuilder]

Yeah the heating engineer was here on Friday putting right his cockups, only time and bad weather will tell if the boiler is fit for purpose