Ofgem scam

[JohnBishop]

Hi All,

  Can someone explain to me this Soviet-era Ofgem energy capping?
This Ofgem scam is getting funnier every year.
"Important information about your energy tariff. Good news - energy prices are going down. Ofgem has announced that energy rates will be going down again this autumn. The good news is that from 1st October 2023 you’ll be paying less for your energy."
The annual costs GO DOWN by about £16 !!!!

It's not even worth to change to their fixed rates that require smart meters. Do you bother?

This information is as worth as a spam email.

They want people on their toes all the time waiting what Bank Of England is going to announce re the interest rates (now it's like twice a month) and what Ofgem is going to announce re energy prices.

Wonder why the people with pitchforks and torches are not yet assembling.
Actually I know why people don't have pitchforks and torches. I think time to make some.

Edited September 23, 2023 by JohnBishop

[Temp]

When energy prices spiked Ofgem raised the cap but not as high as they should. They kept it artificially low to protect people. It was explained at the time that this would mean it was kept higher for longer when energy prices fall.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Temp

[SteamyTea]

It is still pretty cheap when you think about it, 3.6 MJ for 30p.

A Big Mac has 2.06 MJ and it costs £4.59.

Tesco Red Lentils have 0.322 MJ in 80g, that works out at 30p, for an eleventh of the energy company content, and you have to boil them up at home.

[JohnBishop]

the whole thing was and it still is rigged. What was prior to Ofgem's increased interventionism was in fact a fake open market / capitalism.
The other thing to explain is why they don't subsidise gas but electricity knowing most people are on gas?

No point switching to other providers to save £7 or to a fixed tariff to save £16.

They could simply create one state electricity and gas provider and call it BSRR Power or Ofgem rather than run this pretend market.

Same with the banking but it will come to that everyone will have a slave bank account with BoE directly.

Edited September 23, 2023 by JohnBishop

[JohnBishop]

2 hours ago, Temp said:

When energy prices spiked Ofgem raised the cap but not as high as they should. They kept it artificially low to protect people. It was explained at the time that this would mean it was kept higher for longer when energy prices fall.

 

 

when I hear such people telling me they are protecting me it's time to run.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, JohnBishop said:

whole thing was and it still is rigged.

I don't think it is rigged at all.

The retail side is very low margin, and in a lot of cases, run at a loss.

Ill conceived privatisation, which is highly regulated for quality of service i.e. you cannot supply an inferior product (say 180V with frequency between 20 and 90 Hz) was doomed to failure.

A few years back, there was a lot of dual fuel' deals, all this really saved the supplier was a bit of admin.  Oddly though, as I am not on a he gas grid, I got a discount because I was excluded from the better deal.

All a (expletive deleted)ing nonsense.

If I had gas, my electricity standing charge would be double my usage price.  Standing charges have got out of control.

[Gone West]

12 hours ago, JohnBishop said:

They could simply create one state electricity and gas provider

Ahh, the good old days. In my view all utility providers should be non profit making.

[Dave Jones]

the fix is a hell of a lot more nuclear to cover the existing and projected baseload for next 100 years.

 

No more gov cash wasted on windmills until the nukes are done.

 

Price parity between gas and electric once the nukes come online.

[JohnMo]

1 minute ago, Dave Jones said:

No more gov cash wasted on windmills until the nukes are done.

In Scotland we have been on a a zero CO2 grid for the last week (of me monitoring), using mostly offshore wind. Today our grid mix is 89.2% wind and rest from hydro. So not exactly wasted. Where I live has zero wind today, but offshore there is, hence being able to produce most of Scotland's energy needs.

 

Trouble with nuclear it takes about decades in planning, decades to build, costs mega money, and you are left with 1000s of years worth of lethal waste materials. And that's because if it goes wrong, it can go very wrong. A wind farm on the other hand can take a couple of years from start to finish and full production.

 

Wind will have outages due to no wind, the turbines can be taken off line for maintenance one at a time, nuclear, is likely to offline annually for mainland inspection, so nothing is on-line all the time.

[JohnMo]

14 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

Price parity between gas and electric once the nukes come online.

Biggest dream ever, never happen, as nuclear is possibly the most expensive energy we have.

[PeterW]

13 hours ago, JohnBishop said:

They could simply create one state electricity and gas provider

And it would go up … one thing the state is not good at is running industries such as energy, just look at the mess Nottingham got into with Robin Hood Energy..!

 

I would make the grid / network government owned and then the providers can have a race to the bottom line with unit prices - has no-one clocked that standing charges have doubled in 5 years ..?? It’s added £200 to most bills quietly .. 

[JohnMo]

1 minute ago, PeterW said:

has no-one clocked that standing charges have doubled in 5 years

Yep - That is the real scam. It should be part of the unit cost, you use more kWh you pay a bigger proportion.

[Dave Jones]

22 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

In Scotland we have been on a a zero CO2 grid for the last week (of me monitoring), using mostly offshore wind. Today our grid mix is 89.2% wind and rest from hydro. So not exactly wasted. Where I live has zero wind today, but offshore there is, hence being able to produce most of Scotland's energy needs.

 

Trouble with nuclear it takes about decades in planning, decades to build, costs mega money, and you are left with 1000s of years worth of lethal waste materials. And that's because if it goes wrong, it can go very wrong. A wind farm on the other hand can take a couple of years from start to finish and full production.

 

Wind will have outages due to no wind, the turbines can be taken off line for maintenance one at a time, nuclear, is likely to offline annually for mainland inspection, so nothing is on-line all the time.

 

wind is pointless its not guaranteed. Bit like getting on a flight with a random amount of fuel.

 

Yes nice to have ONCE baseload is covered.

[Dave Jones]

23 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Biggest dream ever, never happen, as nuclear is possibly the most expensive energy we have.

 

that's because its state controlled. anything involving the unsackables will be costly and useless.

 

There are no other options to nukes until fission is ever sorted.

[Conor]

7 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

 

that's because its state controlled. anything involving the unsackables will be costly and useless.

 

There are no other options to nukes until fission is ever sorted.

Our company works (design)  on nuclear projects. We're winding up and shifting (same with oil and gas) to renewables and transmission infrastructure because there's no future in nuclear in Europe. Every aspect of it is difficult and expensive, and is getting more so each year. Getting planning permission can take decades and cost hundreds of millions alone. Nuclear is heavily subsidised, as the real production cost is something like 10x conventional production.  If you want a nuclear centred power grid, then you need to back in time by about 30years and start working on it. 

[Dave Jones]

7 minutes ago, Conor said:

Our company works (design)  on nuclear projects. We're winding up and shifting (same with oil and gas) to renewables and transmission infrastructure because there's no future in nuclear in Europe. Every aspect of it is difficult and expensive, and is getting more so each year. Getting planning permission can take decades and cost hundreds of millions alone. Nuclear is heavily subsidised, as the real production cost is something like 10x conventional production.  If you want a nuclear centred power grid, then you need to back in time by about 30years and start working on it. 

 

explain how to cover baseload with renewables not producing ?

[Onoff]

17 hours ago, JohnBishop said:

The annual costs GO DOWN by about £16 !!!!

 

Costs more to send the letters out! 😂

[Conor]

4 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

 

explain how to cover baseload with renewables not producing ?

If I knew that, I wouldn't be wasting time on an internet forum 🤣

 

 

(The biggest challenge isn't generation, it's the distribution network, load distribution, storage, resilience etc.)

[ProDave]

Why is yours only going down £16?  Mine is going down 8% which at my annual usage is about £150

[Dave Jones]

1 hour ago, Conor said:

If I knew that, I wouldn't be wasting time on an internet forum 🤣

 

 

(The biggest challenge isn't generation, it's the distribution network, load distribution, storage, resilience etc.)

 

exactly. nukes are the only current  option and we should have 50+ plants up and running now but of  course the elected morons couldn't sort it.

[Marvin]

1 hour ago, Conor said:

(The biggest challenge isn't generation, it's the distribution network, load distribution, storage, resilience etc.)

The biggest challenge is storage. We produce all of our home and EV needs, if only we could install a practical storage system. In the UK the average energy loss through distribution is 8%.

 

The 4 main energy demands we have are building heating, hot water, cooking and the EV. (however the EV is more like a mobile energy store for us).

 

Back to the original subject:

 

So to save us from high energy bills the decision is to borrow money at the highest interest rate for 14 years to put off paying until future dates when one way or another we will then have to pay the original amount and interest. Lovely.

 

The pot that this money comes out of is the taxpayers: yours and mine. Meanwhile, this handout strategy, whilst most needed for some, will become an expectation when something unexpected happens.

 

What happened to the idea of a hand up rather than a hand out. Yes it maybe too late for this winter, but what about the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and on and on. Reacting to the symptoms and not the cause! Dah!

 

Too many people, businesses and countries have borrowed too much.

 

 

[Dave Jones]

2 minutes ago, Marvin said:

The biggest challenge is storage. We produce all of our home and EV needs, if only we could install a practical storage system. In the UK the average energy loss through distribution is 8%.

 

The 4 main energy demands we have are building heating, hot water, cooking and the EV. (however the EV is more like a mobile energy store for us).

 

Back to the original subject:

 

So to save us from high energy bills the decision is to borrow money at the highest interest rate for 14 years to put off paying until future dates when one way or another we will then have to pay the original amount and interest. Lovely.

 

The pot that this money comes out of is the taxpayers: yours and mine. Meanwhile, this handout strategy, whilst most needed for some, will become an expectation when something unexpected happens.

 

What happened to the idea of a hand up rather than a hand out. Yes it maybe too late for this winter, but what about the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and on and on. Reacting to the symptoms and not the cause! Dah!

 

Too many people, businesses and countries have borrowed too much.

 

 

 

i think electric cars can help big time with this. Vehicle to grid. 

[Marvin]

1 minute ago, Dave Jones said:

 

i think electric cars can help big time with this. Vehicle to grid. 

We already run our own charging system for the EV, however there are particular requirements to make this work:

 

The EV has a range of about 250 to 300 miles. (large storage)

It does about 5000 miles a year.(low milage)

When home the EV is plugged in all the time. (often home all day)

The charger is the 3kW type. (low and slow charging)

The charger will only charge if the PV produces at least 2.5kW during winter or 3kW during summer, unless overridden. (control system)

We have a 5.12kW PV system.(large PV array)

Based on the Isle of Wight(one of the sunniest areas in England) 

 

Therefore our car would not help with the grid as we do not charge during the night 99% of the time (only twice last year).

 

However if there was a system where everybody plugged there vehicle in when they parked in say a carpark, allowing excess energy to charge the vehicles, this would be a great benefit. Now that would work. But this will need the powers that be to deal with the problem and not the cause.    

[Marvin]

3 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

the fix is a hell of a lot more nuclear to cover the existing and projected baseload for next 100 years.

 

No more gov cash wasted on windmills until the nukes are done.

 

Price parity between gas and electric once the nukes come online.

Actually the simple fix is to stop producing children, oh and wait.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Marvin
further thought

[Marvin]

42 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

exactly. nukes are the only current  option and we should have 50+ plants up and running now but of  course the elected morons couldn't sort it.

The only problem with nuclear power is the containment of waste and the fallout from a power plant destruction. I think we have to make smaller power plants that if destroyed will not kill the human race. How this would work I do not know, but if this can be achieved then it will gain my vote.