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Energy Prices


Captain Howdy
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49 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

What's ludicrous is the UK racing to a 'carbon neutral' footprint when it only contributes 2% of the developed world's output while china accounts for 27% on its own and together with Russia, India, Germany and US etc, build ever increasing numbers of coal fired generating stations.

 

There's also a cost to less well off people. Not everyone can afford £20k+ heat pumps which are very expensive to install, ineffective in all but specially designed new build houses and require a lot more maintenance than gas boilers.

 

It might be a radical thought to you but I think it needs all developed countries to address the issue rather than a small island with a tiny output, force its citizens to bear the brunt while other larger countries go, fuck you.

 

Or maybe you agree with tory 'carbon neutral' policy and forcing less well off people to pay through the nose for less effective heating etc?

 

On the question on fossil fuel, it's an abundant natural resource. Personally, I think the developed world should be looking for ways to make it a cleaner fuel rather than abandon it altogether especially when nuclear fission is still something in the future.

My boiler is getting on a bit, it's a Worcester Combi and has been very reliable (touches wood), but due to it's age I'll have to get a new one sooner or later.

 

The cost of heat pumps is prohibitive, electric boilers will be very expensive to use, which leaves me with gas.

I read somewhere that new gas boilers will be 'hydrogen ready', but as far as I'm aware, no decision has been made as to whether or not hydrogen is going to be the replacement for natural gas.

What or where is the guidance?

 

I'm all for cutting down on carbon emissions, I think it's crucial that it happens for the sake of our children, grandchildren and all future generations, but fucking hell, what an absolute dogs arse they're making of the whole low/zero carbon thing.

 

The infrastructure necessary to achieve their ambitions before they fall foul of the time limits they've set for themselves is nowhere near ready, they haven't even scratched the surface.

 

Electric cars for example. There are very few charging points and yet this is probably going to be the main source of transport for the masses.

I read somewhere that home wallbox chargers are going to be set up so they can't be used at certain times (peak), so just how is this going to work? What if you need to go somewhere, but your battery is flat?

 

Official charge points will be unaffected by this, but where are they? and can you imagine the queue's while cars are connected to them for half an hour while they get to 80% charge?.

 

There are fears every winter that there will be power shortages, how the hell will the national grid cope with the massive extra demand?. 

 

The whole plan looks to have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet, and the clock is ticking.

 

The whole thing is an absolute clusterfuck.

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6 minutes ago, Harry's Lad said:

My boiler is getting on a bit, it's a Worcester Combi and has been very reliable (touches wood), but due to it's age I'll have to get a new one sooner or later.

 

The cost of heat pumps is prohibitive, electric boilers will be very expensive to use, which leaves me with gas.

I read somewhere that new gas boilers will be 'hydrogen ready', but as far as I'm aware, no decision has been made as to whether or not hydrogen is going to be the replacement for natural gas.

What or where is the guidance?

 

I'm all for cutting down on carbon emissions, I think it's crucial that it happens for the sake of our children, grandchildren and all future generations, but fucking hell, what an absolute dogs arse they're making of the whole low/zero carbon thing.

 

The infrastructure necessary to achieve their ambitions before they fall foul of the time limits they've set for themselves is nowhere near ready, they haven't even scratched the surface.

 

Electric cars for example. There are very few charging points and yet this is probably going to be the main source of transport for the masses.

I read somewhere that home wallbox chargers are going to be set up so they can't be used at certain times (peak), so just how is this going to work? What if you need to go somewhere, but your battery is flat?

 

Official charge points will be unaffected by this, but where are they? and can you imagine the queue's while cars are connected to them for half an hour while they get to 80% charge.

 

There are fears every winter that there will be power shortages, how the hell will the national grid cope with the massive extra demand?. 

 

The whole plan looks to have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet, and the clock is ticking.

 

The whole thing is an absolute clusterfuck.

Totally agree with you mate. My original post that someone took exception to, is just another example how some on here and elsewhere deal in absolutes.

 

Racing to carbon neutral by 2030, 2035, whatever is and I'll say it again, is ludicrous when the UK has such a tiny fraction of the output while other nations not only carry on but, pump out even more co2.

 

We, or rather the old girl recycles everything we can. Sometimes the general waste bin has fuck all in it when the binnies come round every 2 weeks. For someone to suggest I shouldnt think nothing should be done is ludicrous. It takes 2 to tango and one doing it on their own doesnt work.

 

The only people pushing heat pumps for the UK are green zealots, heat pump salesmen and Government. They dont give the level of heating most people in the UK would find acceptable unless your home is specially built or adapted to benefit them. The cost is prohibitive for most.

 

I know there's interest in hydrogen but I understand there are cost \ production issues even though it's the most abundant element in the Universe!

 

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21 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Totally agree with you mate. My original post that someone took exception to, is just another example how some on here and elsewhere deal in absolutes.

 

Racing to carbon neutral by 2030, 2035, whatever is and I'll say it again, is ludicrous when the UK has such a tiny fraction of the output while other nations not only carry on but, pump out even more co2.

 

We, or rather the old girl recycles everything we can. Sometimes the general waste bin has fuck all in it when the binnies come round every 2 weeks. For someone to suggest I shouldnt think nothing should be done is ludicrous. It takes 2 to tango and one doing it on their own doesnt work.

 

The only people pushing heat pumps for the UK are green zealots, heat pump salesmen and Government. They dont give the level of heating most people in the UK would find acceptable unless your home is specially built or adapted to benefit them. The cost is prohibitive for most.

 

I know there's interest in hydrogen but I understand there are cost \ production issues even though it's the most abundant element in the Universe!

 

Not to mention how dangerous it is. It's much more explosive than natural gas.

Unfortunately you hear of gas leaks and explosions all too often where people have been killed and houses destroyed. The regularity of these tragedies could be much greater and more severe with hydrogen.

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1 hour ago, Preston Red said:

It's true about using hydrogen. My best mate works for BAXI in the R&D department and they're currently developing boilers to use it, something about it being more efficient, but he says the small explosions that it gave off in the early days were terrifying. An almighty crack.

I heard that some existing boilers can be converted to hydrogen by changing the burners.

There needs to be an awful lot of testing if that's the case.

Something similar to the changeover from coal gas to North Sea gas perhaps, for those old enough to remember.

I'm pretty wary of that to be honest.

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10 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:

I always find it easy to figure out where I sit on the divide of any argument with the simple rule of thumb that whatever John Redwood says I am the polar opposite...

 

 

Is he saying that taxpayers have damaged the energy companies? 


If so, how? By being on furlough is it?

 

Edit - I’ve had a message asking me to sign a petition to get rid of kwasi kwerteng. Never even heard of the cunt. Is it his fault?

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12 minutes ago, belarus said:

Is he saying that taxpayers have damaged the energy companies? 


If so, how? By being on furlough is it?

 

Edit - I’ve had a message asking me to sign a petition to get rid of kwasi kwerteng. Never even heard of the cunt. Is it his fault?


Redwood is saying the plebs should bailout capitalism’s excesses again, shareholders need bonuses and dividends need to be paid, dontcha know.

 

Kwerteng is a moron but this doesn’t fall all on his shoulders, more years of ill thought out policy aimed at taking as much from the system as possible whilst keeping the lights on.

 

This is a perfect storm which shows the glaring lack of foresight these idiots have.

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5 hours ago, Harry's Lad said:

My boiler is getting on a bit, it's a Worcester Combi and has been very reliable (touches wood), but due to it's age I'll have to get a new one sooner or later.

 

The cost of heat pumps is prohibitive, electric boilers will be very expensive to use, which leaves me with gas.

I read somewhere that new gas boilers will be 'hydrogen ready', but as far as I'm aware, no decision has been made as to whether or not hydrogen is going to be the replacement for natural gas.

What or where is the guidance?

 

I'm all for cutting down on carbon emissions, I think it's crucial that it happens for the sake of our children, grandchildren and all future generations, but fucking hell, what an absolute dogs arse they're making of the whole low/zero carbon thing.

 

The infrastructure necessary to achieve their ambitions before they fall foul of the time limits they've set for themselves is nowhere near ready, they haven't even scratched the surface.

 

Electric cars for example. There are very few charging points and yet this is probably going to be the main source of transport for the masses.

I read somewhere that home wallbox chargers are going to be set up so they can't be used at certain times (peak), so just how is this going to work? What if you need to go somewhere, but your battery is flat?

 

Official charge points will be unaffected by this, but where are they? and can you imagine the queue's while cars are connected to them for half an hour while they get to 80% charge?.

 

There are fears every winter that there will be power shortages, how the hell will the national grid cope with the massive extra demand?. 

 

The whole plan looks to have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet, and the clock is ticking.

 

The whole thing is an absolute clusterfuck.

there is a lot of work going on right now to deploy smart meters.  The primary reason for this is not so you can check your bill every 30 minutes, but it is part of a range of measures to facilitate better management of the national electricity supply, and to remove the need to build lots of additional nuclear power stations to manage spikes in demand.  Increasingly, energy storage and management will be propagated to the individual consumer; you can already buy batteries from the likes of Tesla to use at home - charge them when electricity is cheap (overnight), then run the house from them when it's expensive.  The energy companies will be able to offer tariffs that in theory could change every 30 minutes.  People will use automation to 'buy' electricity when its cheap, and potentially, through on-site solar and wind generation, sell electricity back to the grid.  Removing spikes and managing demand is where it's at over the next 5-10 years.  

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13 minutes ago, belarus said:

Edit - I’ve had a message asking me to sign a petition to get rid of kwasi kwerteng. Never even heard of the cunt. Is it his fault?

 

Kwasi Kwarteng is the member of the government that said today that there is no chance that lights will go out, so on that basis I am going to start panic buying candles. 

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55 minutes ago, stringvest said:

there is a lot of work going on right now to deploy smart meters.  The primary reason for this is not so you can check your bill every 30 minutes, but it is part of a range of measures to facilitate better management of the national electricity supply, and to remove the need to build lots of additional nuclear power stations to manage spikes in demand.  Increasingly, energy storage and management will be propagated to the individual consumer; you can already buy batteries from the likes of Tesla to use at home - charge them when electricity is cheap (overnight), then run the house from them when it's expensive.  The energy companies will be able to offer tariffs that in theory could change every 30 minutes.  People will use automation to 'buy' electricity when its cheap, and potentially, through on-site solar and wind generation, sell electricity back to the grid.  Removing spikes and managing demand is where it's at over the next 5-10 years.  

Porn that. 

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9 minutes ago, stringvest said:

there is a lot of work going on right now to deploy smart meters.  The primary reason for this is not so you can check your bill every 30 minutes, but it is part of a range of measures to facilitate better management of the national electricity supply, and to remove the need to build lots of additional nuclear power stations to manage spikes in demand.  Increasingly, energy storage and management will be propagated to the individual consumer; you can already buy batteries from the likes of Tesla to use at home - charge them when electricity is cheap (overnight), then run the house from them when it's expensive.  The energy companies will be able to offer tariffs that in theory could change every 30 minutes.  People will use automation to 'buy' electricity when its cheap, and potentially, through on-site solar and wind generation, sell electricity back to the grid.  Removing spikes and managing demand is where it's at over the next 5-10 years.  

The trouble with smart meters is that the 1st generation of them end up going dumb when you switch, especially with smaller suppliers, who seem to fob you off when you ask for a 2nd generation meter, which makes a mockery of the whole smart meter plan.

 

As for buying a battery to power your house, charge it off peak and doing the same with your car or cars, if every household in the country does this, then doesn't that effectively  do away with off peak electricity?

 

If these are the government's plans, they need to explain them and prepare the people for them, so people can be ready, but as that stands, these measures, logistically,  don't look attainable to me.

 

I could be wrong, these plans have been thought up by much cleverer people than me I should think, but I must admit I don't have much confidence in them.

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When a supplier goes bump and the SoLR process kicks in the other big energy suppliers have to bid for the defunct suppliers customers.  Even if they don’t want them. So if someone like Bulb were to go, BG could be forced to take on 1.7m loss making customers.  They may decide to divvy them up, but even so it’s a massive risk that might drag other businesses down. 

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1 minute ago, Harry's Lad said:

The trouble with smart meters is that the 1st generation of them end up going dumb when you switch, especially with smaller suppliers, who seem to fob you off when you ask for a 2nd generation meter, which makes a mockery of the whole smart meter plan.

 

As for buying a battery to power your house, charge it off peak and doing the same with your car or cars, if every household in the country does this, then doesn't that effectively  do away with off peak electricity?

 

If these are the government's plans, they need to explain them and prepare the people for them, so people can be ready, but as that stands, these measures, logistically,  don't look attainable to me.

 

I could be wrong, these plans have been thought up by much cleverer people than me I should think, but I must admit I don't have much confidence in them.

Your first paragraph describes Stringers job. Well, solving that problem.  I’ve met his team, we’re doomed!!! 

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Just now, Harry's Lad said:

I think we are mate!.

 

I'm really no expert on any of this, it's just things as I see them.

Too much time on my hands I think.

To be fair to him they’ve done an amazing job.  The SMETS 1 meters are being enrolled into the same organisation that runs the SMETS 2 (2nd generation) meters so they’ll keep smart functionality when you switch. 

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2 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

To be fair to him they’ve done an amazing job.  The SMETS 1 meters are being enrolled into the same organisation that runs the SMETS 2 (2nd generation) meters so they’ll keep smart functionality when you switch. 

Mine haven't, not yet anyway. They didn't with my last supplier either, not until the last couple of months before the contract ended which was a bit of a bloody nuisance.

 

 

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1 hour ago, stringvest said:

there is a lot of work going on right now to deploy smart meters.  The primary reason for this is not so you can check your bill every 30 minutes, but it is part of a range of measures to facilitate better management of the national electricity supply, and to remove the need to build lots of additional nuclear power stations to manage spikes in demand.  Increasingly, energy storage and management will be propagated to the individual consumer; you can already buy batteries from the likes of Tesla to use at home - charge them when electricity is cheap (overnight), then run the house from them when it's expensive.  The energy companies will be able to offer tariffs that in theory could change every 30 minutes.  People will use automation to 'buy' electricity when its cheap, and potentially, through on-site solar and wind generation, sell electricity back to the grid.  Removing spikes and managing demand is where it's at over the next 5-10 years.  

Sorry but no, Smart Meters arent for that. National Grid doesnt need SMETS1 or 2 meters to monitor the demand on the grid. National Grid needs to maintain a 50 hertz target as load increases or decreases. It's actually allowed to go down to something like 49.8 hertz and Smart Meters would take too long to feed that info back to NG even on a 30 minute meter read. Incidentally businesses who use over 100,000kw have been on half hour meter reads since before 1998.

 

Smart Meters are all about pricing, switch meter tariffs at point of use, energise \ de energise meters and, also to do away with the legions of meter readers whose employment costs are a big drain on the suppliers.

 

SMETS is a fucking joke and the biggest waste of consumers money.

 

It should be noted most of Europe is getting hit with rocketing prices as reserves are low, partly thanks to Putin 'managing' gas supplies via Gazprom.

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11 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Smart Meters are all about pricing, switch meter tariffs at point of use, energise \ de energise meters and, also to do away with the legions of meter readers whose employment costs are a big drain on the suppli

That’s what he said.  Well, apart from the meter readers.  Which is a bit of a red herring because the guaranteed quality data will allow energy companies to get rid of many many more back office staff than meter readers.  

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