Energy Prices
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Cuprajake I watched it despite disliking James O’Tvvat immensely. Fortunately Martin didn’t give him a chance to speak.
I was just thinking about commercial energy prices, the amount that pub has been quoted, It might actually be cheaper to get a big commercial quiet run generator and power from that…. Those ones that look like half a caravan on a towed trailer. Make hardly any noise.
Diesel usage is astronomical for large generators. The big commercial ones use around 100 litres per hour.
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Well, having spent a few days thinking abound it, yesterday I ordered one of these
https://burley.co.uk/product/ambience-4121/
The big advantages are:
We have no flue so covers that
Instant heat if we have power cuts
100% burn efficiency
We have a fixed rate of 4.38 on gas so even running on full which is unlikely, the cost is 15.3p per hour @3.5 kw output. We have 3 radiators in the room we sit in. We can turn them down to 1, turn the heating off during the day on 4 of the other 5 rads and at night to take the chill off the part of the house we are going to sleep in put the heating on as needed. That sounds a bit vague but until it is fitted we will not actually know. Once fitted I will cover costs etc
dfk41 We will need photos and videos of it working, or it didn’t happen….you can show off the remote control as well.
£700M nuclear plant commitment in Suffolk days before stepping down. He could have done that earlier!
A care home company who usual bill for it’s homes is 90k have been quoted 1mil
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Cuprajake A care home company who usual bill for it’s homes is 90k have been quoted 1mil
That’s ridiculous!!
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I’m no fan of Tony Blair, but he warned about this in 2006/7. he foresaw this type of crisis and wanted Nuclear to become 40% of the UK energy mix, together with renewables.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-britain-nuclear-idUSL1573861220070215
The judge is now Sir Jeremy, we are busy blaming the current government, when actually we need to look hard at the hidden forces that worked to deny us Nuclear power. We wouldn’t have had this problem had the courts not decided how our country should be run. Later various groups many funded by fossil fuel companies and Nick Clegg ensured we wouldn’t have much nuclear, if any.
……hence todays mess
I often hear the green lobby trotting out fusion power…trust me it won’t be in our lifetimes, or our kids lifetimes, if ever!
P.S. Fossil fuel funds green energy and anti nuclear, because they know green energy absolutely ensures we have to continue using fossil fuels whilst twisting things to pretend we’re net zero.
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I just had one positive thought about winter coming and energy prices. We’re all probably a bit wary of running our coffee machines in the summer, and they only make the house warmer which we don’t want, all that energy is effectively wasted. Of course in winter we want the house to be warmer so leaving our coffee machine on all day is not the problem it is in summer, all that heat energy transfers back into the house where it’s actually wanted.
Something positive to think about him otherwise horrible energy situation.
That’s the good thing about the cold days, the efficiency of many appliances becomes less relevant (unless the produce things like hot water which goes down the drain while it’s above freezing)
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£170 B rescue plan to freeze energy prices cap is being prepared! Hmm…costing, credibility and the how aspects are to be worked out. The fiscal deficit / open-market operations is the obvious route.
With a promise to roll back the NI hikes, I am thinking if a long-dated bond offering to the rich businesses, the fund managers and the public is an attractive option. 🤔
I’m wondering what this means for my fixed-rate, should I actually bin it and go back to the price cap? Will they let us down, u turn in three months and bung up the prices?
till jan i have read… but then till 2024 so dunno
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It’s all up in the air. I think Oct rise is done and dusted. I doubt the government will cap at current levels, although I think they should.
As far as the sustainability of this measures is concerned, it rests crucially on the chances of a snap election and the outcome of it. I would expect a snap election early next year, if the year end is not possible.
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LMSC rests crucially on the chances of a snap election and the outcome of it. We should see a snap election early next year, if the year end is not possible
I actually think they would be very stupid to go for a snap election. Mind you perhaps they will believe their own sizzle just like Theresa May did….and that didn’t work out so well. One benefit of an 80 seat majority, they can push policies through. A coalition won’t do anything. As far as the energy issues, there’s a lot needs doing… especially getting rid of net 0 and the banning of petrol vehicles.
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DavecUK I actually think they would be very stupid to go for a snap election. Mind you perhaps they will believe their own sizzle just like Theresa May did….and that didn’t work out so well. One benefit of an 80 seat majority, they can push policies through. A coalition won’t do anything.
She doesn’t have the people’s mandate. Having been elected as a new PM, she should seek one, IMO. I do not know, if she will go that path.
No UK government will drop the net zero commitment for one simple reason - keeping it doesn’t commit them to do anything immediately but dropping it almost certainly would. All the big polluters were happy to sign up to it for this reason. Remember the target is 2050, governments realise that they can spin this and act any way they want for a good 20 years, by which point better options will be available.
Spot on by Russel Brand here:
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LMSC She doesn’t have the people’s mandate. Having been elected as a new PM, she should seek one, IMO. I do not know, if she will go that path.
We vote for our MP though, not the prime minister. If this wasn’t the case, no prime minister would ever be removed from office by their own party, as it would be political suicide? Theresa may, Gordon Brown, Nicke Clegg in the Coalition, none of them were elected by the people. I guess for it to be any other way, we would need a constitution change and a presidential system, like the USA?
LMSC the new PM should do the same thing!
I am sure Labour, Lib Dems and the SNP will be calling for her to do just that, every day for the next few years. After all they asked for Boris to resign almost every day of his premiership… “will the prime minister resign”, and the other favourite “will the prime minister apologise”.
For me there is simply too much politics in politics now from all parties. I would love to see decisions being made for the good of the whole country for a change. I didn’t vote for decades, then I started voting, now I wonder why bother.
DavecUK May misread the situation and thought she could improve on her very slim majority by calling an election. She reduced it. Boris realised that the influences on the Commons did not reflect the feeling of the nation and so, one day, Corbyn woke up and thought, I can win an election today! Thank god for that one! If anyone likes a larf, please watch this but do not be pseudo offended afterwards
Boris got his election call spot on. truss has the mandate to rule because the Conservatives have the mandate. Right now the shambles of a political system can sense blood for a short period of time. They know that if Truss comes out punching and is successful, her honeymoon period will destroy their chances now of an election. There is no point in truss having endured a leadership battle to throw it away quickly
This is an interesting read - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uk-energy-crisis-time-split-power-market-michael-liebreich/
So what they are saying is clear as mud, and now with the queen passing all parliament business is closed for 10days.
This is apparently the average is 12000kw of gas and 2900kw electricity, which I find really low, I’d say I’m fairly low use, all our lights are led and we’re out most of the day with work/school. We use 300 units of electric a month.
So my bill is still going over £3k a year.
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Cuprajake The other bit I find interesting is:
- Estimated cost of the rescue package over 2 winters: £130 billion
- Estimated windfall profit for energy companies during same period: £170 billion
- Ms Truss: “To look at everything through the lens of redistribution is wrong"
This smells of dooh nibor
ive just been told, truss used to work for shell? not sure if true?
torries wont bite the hand that feeds, they will let the commoners deal,
the scary thing is (having spoke with a family member) not alot of people under stand the units thing, she was saying she cant spend more than £2500, i explained the units, she currently uses 4000kwh a yr on electric, so she will pay a lot more than £2500
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CoyoteOldMan Total nonsense matey. The Labour party are politicking as usual. the 170 figure quoted is not for the UK but global profits. The best estimate for the UK over 2 years is an excess profit if £40 billion. It is already taxed at 65% so that leaves approximately £14 billion
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Cuprajake I think this and some other posts reflect the general misinformation people are provided with from all sides. This includes all politicians, government departments, advertising companies, large corporates etc. We are positively bombarded with misinformation dressed up to look real, or complicated maths to prove a point which is erroneous. I personally hate this, and I really don’t know how the British public can make any rational decisions when presented with all sorts of misinformation. I remember when I was working I had a team many were graduates and virtually none of them could work out percentages! E.g how to calculate 18% of 346 was beyond their capability. One with a 1st told me he hadn’t studied maths.
Basic statistics was also beyond them…so how does the general public have any chance of understanding some of this stuff.
Jake’s comment about the energy price cap is well-made, the price cap is not a meaningful number to the majority of people, they’re even having to have it explained, this isn’t the maximum they will pay. So I wonder why was ofgem ever allowed to quote the price cap in this way, why didn’t it just set a unit price for gas and electricity and the standing charge. That’s something everybody would have understood. Why won’t successive governments, and the Civil service change this. If I was ruler of the UK, it’s one of the first things I would change.
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Cuprajake truss used to work for shell? not sure if true?
That much is true, though it was a fair amount of time ago (her first post-Uni job from 1996 to 2000, qualifiying as a Management Accountant in the meantime - hardly a power broker, but people have careers). As is true that the wife of an ex-BP exec donated £100k to support her leadership campaign. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-donors-helped-bankroll-new-pm-drfz0qg96
dfk41 Total nonsense matey.
It’s the Treasury’s own estimate, and I would not exactly call Bloomberg a “Labour-friendly” source
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/uk-predicts-up-to-170-billion-excess-profits-for-energy-firms
The firms are based in the UK, and are expected to report those profits in the UK. The so-called analysis by GBN (hardly an unbiased outlet) is flawed as it mixes expected pre-tax profits with after tax profits to reach the sensationalistic claims of “overestimate of 1214%” - no, mate, you cannot compare apples (windfall pre-tax profits in 2023 and 2024) with pears (his incorrect “estimate” of after-tax 2022 profits); to start with, the tax rate of 65% doesn’t apply to all profits at the moment (only those coming from UK and continental shelf oil/gas). Secondly, 2021 (and 2022) numbers, which is where he gets the 40 billion from, are not particularly relevant to 2023-24 estimates, which is where the TREASURY’s estimate of £170 billion comes from.
The Twitter screenshot from Joe Armitage (“Lead UK Political Analyst at GC”) is not sourced and does not come from someone I regard as authoritative - but in any case does not contain relevant numbers; it’s a time series of revenues from UK and continental shelf exploration from 2009 to 2021, not clear referring to which firm(s), and an estimate of cost and other income based on industry standards, not audited figures.
I cannot find the Treasury’s estimates anywhere, despite Armitage’s claim that “a semi-competent browser” could (i.e. clearly not him, since he’s only posting something that is vaguely related), which is not surprising, since Bloomberg claim these are not published and have been leaked to them, so I wonder what that spreadsheet is, or how relevant to the rest of Tommy Slick’s “analysis” (very much in quotes). It would take me about 30 seconds to produce a similar spreadsheet showing whatever number we would like… and it would be a bit better than what he is using to ‘support’ his claims.
Energy regulator Ofgem has said it will continue to announce the cap on household energy prices, despite the Government saying it would guarantee lower bills for customers.
*Ofgem said that it plans to still make the announcements every three months, as it continues to regulate how much energy suppliers can charge for their services. Suppliers will then submit part of their regulated bill to each household, and the remainder to the Government.
Following a query from the PA news agency, the regulator said: “The price cap still has a role in limiting profits in domestic retail and setting a maximum level suppliers can charge whether that level is subsidised or not”. It added that it will continue to announce the price cap over the next two years.
ScottishPower chief executive Keith Anderson told PA: "This whole scheme is being introduced on the basis that the price cap remains and the methodology doesn’t change The price cap becomes the reference price as to what we charge.
“So the £2,500 that was announced gets converted into a unit cost and everyone will get the bill based on their usage. I then put a submission into the central system that takes that usage and the differential between the £2,500 unit cost, and the cap at £3,500, and I get a cheque back for that differential.”
He said that suppliers would continue buying and hedging energy in line with the way the price cap works. In effect the price cap then becomes a cap which limits how much the Government will need to pay, rather than the amount that households must pay.*
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Two the people having arguments about energy companies excess profits and the so called evidence being presented, please stop now. None of the numbers being used are correct, it’s not based in what’s UK taxable and it tries to predict the future. It’s all pure politics of the highest order.
This thread is about energy prices, our experience, hints and tips we may have for eachother to save, fix, get deals, including using our machines more effectively. Sure, we can extend it to UK energy security and how we might solve it, nuclear, wind, solar etc. But keep it apolitical because it is, all governments, civil servants and politicians got us where we are today. Not just UK ones either…it’s taken them over 40 years to do this. And it’s the same for most of the other really big problems
re machines - im thankful the evo heats quickly
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Cuprajake An old chestnut that does the rounds regularly on HB is that it’s cheaper to keep the machine on, than turn it on off when you don’t need it. You will see all sorts of complicated reasons. Man math etc.
The truth is, there is not a single situation or duration where turning the machine off when you are not using it, does not save energy. If there was, you would be able to create an over unity device.
The real issue is one of convenience. "I want a coffee, I now have to wait 30 to 35 more minutes, or longer for some machines. With the Evo, that 15 minute wait seems even less because you would need 2 minutes to grab a cup, select your coffee grund and dose it.
As for ANY steam boiler, switch it off once you have finished. If you need a latte 20 minutes later it will warm up very fast.
Heat is a 4th power law, double the temp 4 times the heat loss (it’s like wind resistance). Hence the steam boiler being an important one.
If you can wrap a tea towel around the group of a machine you’re leaving on…do so.
DavecUK I switch the boilers off and wrap a tea towel on the group when I switch the machine off during the day, so that when I turn the machine on again it warms up a bit faster - the boilers themselves only take 7 minutes to warm up from 25 degrees, so I turn them on later.
I’ve been thinking that - unless I’m experimenting with different brewing temperatures - I’d like something a bit more permanent and insulating than a tea towel - a wood box or a 3-d plastic shell? If others are interested, maybe we can make a small lot.
(BTW - double the temp, 16 times the heat loss according to Stefan-Boltzmann)
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CoyoteOldMan (BTW - double the temp, 16 times the heat loss according to Stefan-Boltzmann)
Quite correct, shows how important it is. Of course that’s for a perfect black body. In an espresso machine it works out about 4 times. You can try it out yourself..set your Evo group to, 46C (if it will go that low) measure power consumption once in the steady state, then up it to 92 and remeasure…I’ll bet it’s about 4 times more power?
An interesting experiment for someone…. challenge thrown out there 😀
Here is an interesting e-mail I got from British gas, because I’m on a fixed Tariff and like many of you may be wondering what to do as the price cap might be slightly better. @Cuprajake I suspect all the energy companies with fixed price tariffs may be doing something similar…the missive I received is below.
Hello
As you may have heard in the news, the new prime minister has announced the Energy Price Guarantee. This means the average household cost of energy will be capped at £2,500 per year from the 1st October. And will be frozen at this rate for the next two years.
What happens next
You’re currently on a fixed price tariff, so the Energy Price Guarantee will protect you in the same way that it protects customers on a standard variable tariff. We’re just working through the detail, and what this means for you. So, keep an eye out for an email from us.
At the moment, our customer service advisors don’t have any further information. So, the best thing to do is to wait for us to contact you or log in to your online account to find your latest tariff information.
You can keep up-to-date with the latest information on the energy market by visiting our dedicated web page, energy market news.