Smart Export Guarantee

[Johnnyt]

You'd have thought the providers would be fighting like cats in a sack for cheap electricity.

Has anyone heard of anyone attempting  group approach to a provider?

Why no increases?

 

 

[SteamyTea]

I think the problem is that the quantity of energy from spare domestic properties is relatively small, and not when it is wanted.

And why bother to offer more, they are getting it for 50 quid a MWh, which is slightly higher than the recent (before the silly rises) average price.

[epsilonGreedy]

Out of interest what is the cost of a MWh generated from a gas powered station at the not so transitory peaky gas price?

 

I also note the ominous urgent Government talks this week about more price hikes on the way. Is there any indication where the domestic kWh price moves from £0.20?

[Temp]

54 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I think the problem is that the quantity of energy from spare domestic properties is relatively small, and not when it is wanted.

 

And the admin costs of managing lots of small amounts woukd be high.

[ProDave]

10 hours ago, Temp said:

 

And the admin costs of managing lots of small amounts woukd be high.

IF smart meters were implemented properly, then your supplier would have not only half hourly readings of your usage, but also readings of your export.

 

The admin would be tiny to credit your bill with everything you exported at an agreed rate, say half of your import rate.  There would be no need to "set anything up" or insist you register with some smart export scheme and produce MCS paperwork to do so.  It is silly schemes like that that bury the issue under a ton of paperwork.

 

And when it comes to paying the energy wholesalers, your "usage" would be your import less your export, and that much is what your supplier would pay the wholesaler for.

 

It staggers me how we seem to manage to make something so simple, into such a complicated problem.

[epsilonGreedy]

7 minutes ago, ProDave said:

IF smart meters were implemented properly, then your supplier would have not only half hourly readings of your usage, but also readings of your export.

 

 

There might be some merit in this idea of a flexible FIT to encourage more export at critical times.

 

Apparently during the autumn when the UK experienced little wind generation and the cost of wholesale gas was sky high, the price of a MWH delivered between 5pm and 6pm shot up to £2000+.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/15/wholesale-energy-prices-hit-second-highest-level-in-at-least-three-years 

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, ProDave said:

IF smart meters were implemented properly, then your supplier would have not only half hourly readings of your usage, but also readings of your export.

Energy is sold by the half hour block, but it is sold usually the day before, though there are long term contracts (CfD and so forth).

The generation companies need to know that they can supply the energy that they have sold, or they have to buy from companies that have excess.  When they buy in at short notice, it costs them dear.

So it is not as simple as Net Metering, as it was called before the FiTs came along.  When only half a dozen 'hippies' like our @DamonHD had installed PV, it did not matter what they got paid, or not paid, their cumulative generation was tiny, not enough to affect even the local grid, let alone the national one.

It has to be remembered that the FiTs and the RHI, were set up to encourage the domestic RE sector to expand, not to purely reward householders.  That was where the big mistake was made, and how we got into this nonsense about pay back times and amounts.

Having said that, it did massively expand the sector, you can't fail to see how many plumbers and electricians have 'Renewables' sign written on their vans.

I think one of the mistakes made was not allowing the local DNO's to administer connections i.e. a dynamic list that shows what can be connected and where.  We got into a state where a street can have multiple micro generation installations that cause local problems, and the DNOs are expected to sort it out.  Though we got caught when we installed 16 kW_p on 4 properties in the same street.  The DNO sent us a bill for a few thousand for a new transformer and cabling.