Energy network owners have made £3.9bn ‘excess profit’ from higher bills, says report

[Alan Ambrose]

Energy network owners have made £3.9bn ‘excess profit’ from higher bills, says report | Energy industry | The Guardian

 

The companies may have made up to £3.9bn more because Ofgem overestimated their borrowing costs as interest rates began to climb, the report calculated. It found that Ofgem allowed regional network companies to recover these costs from household bills even though many were able to secure fixed-rate terms on some of their borrowing which helped them to avoid the impact of rising interest rates.

[Bramco]

3 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

It found that Ofgem allowed regional network companies to recover these costs from household bills

Should read.

It found Ofgem allowed regional network companies to bolster their profits by not passing these savings onto clients household bills....

 

There fixed that.

Edited February 20 by Bramco

[JohnMo]

Possibly a bit more profit when electric and gas prices go up soon.

[ToughButterCup]

I've read the article.

Might this be another of those Lying with Statistics articles with spin and mendacity by omission interleaved in the paragraphs?

 

For example, there's no mention of Dividends paid out - but private investment of £100 billion  is. 

Here's some fireside reading I recommended to my U/G students. How to Lie with Statistics  Been in print as long as I've been alive.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

Here's some fireside reading I recommended to my U/G students. How to Lie with Statistics

It is really quite hard to lie with statistics as long as your audience understands the rules.

Statistics is only counting, and if people do not understand counting then it is best to exclude them from decision making.

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Statistics is only counting, and if people do not understand counting then it is best to exclude them from decision making.

A bid radical for a liberal democracy though. 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

really quite hard to lie with statistics as long

No it isn't. People just manipulate to suit their own ends, always have always will.

 

Lie, damn lies and statistics comes to mind. People will see through it, if they look hard enough, but most people will take it at face value - global warming for example. One set of data, two options.

[SteamyTea]

16 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

No it isn't. People just manipulate to suit their own ends, always have always will.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd

[Roger440]

8 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Energy network owners have made £3.9bn ‘excess profit’ from higher bills, says report | Energy industry | The Guardian

 

The companies may have made up to £3.9bn more because Ofgem overestimated their borrowing costs as interest rates began to climb, the report calculated. It found that Ofgem allowed regional network companies to recover these costs from household bills even though many were able to secure fixed-rate terms on some of their borrowing which helped them to avoid the impact of rising interest rates.

 

Surprised? No.

 

So bills will be coming down then? Err, no to that too. And so the never ending increases in electricity prices keep on coming.

 

I was crunching the numbers on generating my own power with solar, batteries and a (proper) gen set. Currently not cost effective, but we are not that far away now. Another 20-30% increase and it will make sense. Madness for a developed country.

 

One wonders how bad it has to get before something happens and people start demanding action. 30p, 40p, 50p per kWh?

 

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Roger440 said:

was crunching the numbers on generating my own power

Pump gasoline is £1.40/litre, so 14p/kWh (approx).

An ICE engine should give about 25% mechanical energy, and 30% usable thermal energy (ish).

So 55% usable (if used right), so 22p/kWh.

Add in a heat pump and that number goes down, add on solar, and it comes down even more.  Storage needs to be both thermal and electrical.

And that is using pump prices.

 

The big mistakes people make with ICE generators is people think they are like cars i.e. variable power.  Static engines are best run as fixed speed, fixed power.  They also tend to size them for maximum load, that is what the storage takes car off.

 

Capital costs is what really scares people.

[JohnMo]

22 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

ICE engine should give about 25% mechanical energy, and 30% usable thermal energy (ish).

So 55% usable (if used right

Those figures sound correct. Run it on gas the emission at tail pipe go down. Running costs should also drop also.

 

Trouble is using or storage of excess heat, to make numbers work well. Big swimming pool sized thermal store. Pull heat out via water source heat pump. CoP of 6 or 7 should be doable.

 

[Roger440]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Pump gasoline is £1.40/litre, so 14p/kWh (approx).

An ICE engine should give about 25% mechanical energy, and 30% usable thermal energy (ish).

So 55% usable (if used right), so 22p/kWh.

Add in a heat pump and that number goes down, add on solar, and it comes down even more.  Storage needs to be both thermal and electrical.

And that is using pump prices.

 

The big mistakes people make with ICE generators is people think they are like cars i.e. variable power.  Static engines are best run as fixed speed, fixed power.  They also tend to size them for maximum load, that is what the storage takes car off.

 

Capital costs is what really scares people.

 

I priced up usin red diesel, so a bit over half the costs you used. Which helps significantly.

 

Yes, capital costs if you just buy a turnkey set up is significant. No need for that. Found a big silenced, low hours, Kubota genset for £4k. Second hand solar panels are a tenner a pop now. Just the batteries to fund. Maybe a small domestic set plus a EV too for some proper capacity.

 

That im even thinking about shows how messed up things are........................ But i cant keep paying for electricity at current prices as a releatively heavy consumer. Something has to give. 

[Roger440]

52 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

 

 

Trouble is using or storage of excess heat, to make numbers work well. Big swimming pool sized thermal store. Pull heat out via water source heat pump. CoP of 6 or 7 should be doable.

 

 

I like that idea.

[SteamyTea]

7 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Trouble is using or storage of excess heat, to make numbers work well. Big swimming pool sized thermal store.

That comes down to the thermal loads needed by the building.  Yesterday I used a total of 8 kWh, 2 kWh was probably running the washing machine and cooking supper, 3 to 4 of them was DHW.  So 3 to 4 kWh for heating.  Could store that in a 100 lt water cylinder.

As I said earlier, the big mistake it that people think that the systems need to be large, it is not inter-seasonal storage, it is just buffering.

[JohnMo]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That comes down to the thermal loads needed

I was thinking the opposite direction, where to dump lots of heat energy given off by the generation. 25% of the energy is electric then you have 50+% of heat you could use.

 

So if you have 10kWh of battery to charge, you would have 20kWh of heat energy going free (from engine coolant), so you keep it in a useful temperature range 35 to 80 degs that's about 400L. Or thick screed UFH could also be used to buffer instead of into water. If air cooled you arrange the coolant air to be directed towards an ASHP condenser fan, and let the ASHP turn that low grade heat into useful heat, with a good CoP.

 

If you want to extract the exhaust heat that can be done also, with a heat exchanger or two.

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, JohnMo said:

If you want to extract the exhaust heat that can be done also, with a heat exchanger or two.

You can't extract too much thermal energy from an ICE, they stop working.

I don't know the exact amount, probably varies between fuel types and loads, but it is not going to be greater than 50% of the available thermal energy.

 

Ideally an ICE needs to be run between maximum torque and maximum power to be most efficient, so batch charging would be the way to run one, not slow and steady.

[JohnMo]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You can't extract too much thermal energy from an ICE, they stop working.

Granted, but coolant flow cooling needs to be done, so just making use of a waste product. PHE instead of water to air HE.

 

Exhaust cooling needs some control, but no different from a VW beetle and air cooled Porsche which used exhaust heat exchangers and blow air through it for vehicle heating. Just blow through exhaust heat exchanger and point the warm air in the direction of the ASHP fan.

 

Just have to be careful you don't mess up the exhaust scavenging effect, by extraction of too much heat.

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, JohnMo said:

I was thinking the opposite direction, where to dump lots of heat energy given off by the generation. 25% of the energy is electric then you have 50+% of heat you could use.

 

So if you have 10kWh of battery to charge, you would have 20kWh of heat energy going free (from engine coolant), so you keep it in a useful temperature range 35 to 80 degs that's about 400L. Or thick screed UFH could also be used to buffer instead of into water. If air cooled you arrange the coolant air to be directed towards an ASHP condenser fan, and let the ASHP turn that low grade heat into useful heat, with a good CoP.

 

If you want to extract the exhaust heat that can be done also, with a heat exchanger or two.

Hmmm,given I have a barn to heat as well, and that my only realistic option is oil, that much waste heat, collected, in a huge tank, would massively skew the figure in favour of self generation. Even without attempting to use the exhaust heat. If said genney was IN the barn, you would capture still more, ie, that which is radiated off the engine block. Time for some more number crunching.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

VW beetle

I had a 1200, did about 25 miles to the gallon.

And smelt of gasoline when I turned the heater on.

 

Just about to drive back from Buckinghamshire. At over 60 MPG. How things have changed.

[JohnMo]

Just now, SteamyTea said:

smelt of gasoline

Maybe a hole in the heat exchanger or a petrol leak?

 

I had one also. Definitely got a more than 25mpg. But yes things have changed.

 

My beetle has also changed over the years also, owned it for 36 years and 25 years old when I bought it. Now has a space frame and Aprillia RSV 1000cc V twin engine, and doesn't need heating anymore.

[JohnMo]

15 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

genney was IN the barn,

Maybe a little noisy?

[Roger440]

3 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Maybe a little noisy?

 

One wonders how noisy a silenced genset would be inside. Probably too noisy, but would be fine at night.

 

It also would neatly solve my lack of 3 phase for an awful lot less than the  £20k that National Grid want for a connection from a pole 50ft from said barn. In my own field.

 

Edited February 21 by Roger440

[Nickfromwales]

21 hours ago, Roger440 said:

 

I like that idea.

With a 6000sq/ft (iirc) 2.5 storey metal workshop / barn, that swimming pool would be converted to an iceberg PDQ if you went water source HP .
 

“No bueno”. 
 

As for the gen-set providing waste heat for space heating, you’ll just need waaaaay too much, plus it would be relatively low grade heat by the time you go via HEx’s. Would be better if you had that diverted, to flow straight into the UFH loop.

 

I think you’re just sliding the problem around, between these potential solutions, and you’ll just end up chewing through some oil. 
 

If you recall, I suggested installing 2-3x the requisite capacity for oil storage so you can bulk purchase when prices drop low during summer.

 

If you run the gen-set then you’d just absorb the waste heat via a low loss header or buffer tank with extra tappings. From that buffer you also feed some hydronic fan heaters (second hand commercial units x2 in opposite corners of the barn) to provide heat on tap. Use the heat as you occupy the building vs heat a slab maybe more sensible?

 

Add UFH if you want to use it when it’s Baltic outside, happy that you choose comfort / warmth vs cost effectiveness.

 

Also, zone the workshop floor to only heat 1/4, or 1/2, or 3/4 as per the area your actually working in to minimise heat energy consumption.  

 

At that point, honestly, it would prob be cheaper to use a big ASHP to lift the temp of the concrete slab by 5 or 7°C. May be a candidate for a DIY overlay system, but (again iirc) I suggested getting the slab concrete routered to take the pipes direct. No chance THAT slab is ever coming up lol. 
 

Once you solved that, tap off the system to feed the cottage, or with the cheaper oil, just leave the oil combi service the cottage.

 

How much 3ph do you need? You can get 1ph to 3ph adaptors. 

[Nickfromwales]

@Alan Ambrose

 

Apologies, this thread has been utterly derailed

We are bad people. 

[Roger440]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

With a 6000sq/ft (iirc) 2.5 storey metal workshop / barn, that swimming pool would be converted to an iceberg PDQ if you went water source HP .
 

“No bueno”. 
 

As for the gen-set providing waste heat for space heating, you’ll just need waaaaay too much, plus it would be relatively low grade heat by the time you go via HEx’s. Would be better if you had that diverted, to flow straight into the UFH loop.

 

I think you’re just sliding the problem around, between these potential solutions, and you’ll just end up chewing through some oil. 
 

If you recall, I suggested installing 2-3x the requisite capacity for oil storage so you can bulk purchase when prices drop low during summer.

 

If you run the gen-set then you’d just absorb the waste heat via a low loss header or buffer tank with extra tappings. From that buffer you also feed some hydronic fan heaters (second hand commercial units x2 in opposite corners of the barn) to provide heat on tap. Use the heat as you occupy the building vs heat a slab maybe more sensible?

 

Add UFH if you want to use it when it’s Baltic outside, happy that you choose comfort / warmth vs cost effectiveness.

 

Also, zone the workshop floor to only heat 1/4, or 1/2, or 3/4 as per the area your actually working in to minimise heat energy consumption.  

 

At that point, honestly, it would prob be cheaper to use a big ASHP to lift the temp of the concrete slab by 5 or 7°C. May be a candidate for a DIY overlay system, but (again iirc) I suggested getting the slab concrete routered to take the pipes direct. No chance THAT slab is ever coming up lol. 
 

Once you solved that, tap off the system to feed the cottage, or with the cheaper oil, just leave the oil combi service the cottage.

 

How much 3ph do you need? You can get 1ph to 3ph adaptors. 

 

300sq/ft. Its big, but not THAT big.

 

I wasnt referring to the pool, more the waste heat, as you (and Johnmo) suggest plumbed into a massive tank. Supllemented by an oil boiler.

 

I was coming from a different angle though, ie, my electricity bill is bonkers, therefore looking at generation. "if" i had a genset (and solar and batteries) its still cheaper to buy from the grid. (ignorig a non gen set solution for now) But i hadnt factored in using the waste heat. Which rather changes the calculation.

 

Without that waste heat factor, yes, oil is still probably the way to go. The electrics cant cope with a big ASHP. Not in addtion to everything else. Im not paying £20k for a connection. Thats just silly.

 

For a 2 post lift, demand on start up is too high for a static convertor, Would need to be rotary. Which the manufacturers demand a 60 amp supply. Not do-able. 

 

Zoning of the building is in process, to a point.