Energy prices through the roof

[Riedquat]

1 hour ago, skomer said:

Largely unreported but looking  at Gridwatch today  https://gridwatch.co.uk/ 6% of our energy generation is currently going to France via the  IC and IC2 interconnectors at the moment.
Been this way for the past few months now due to issues with French nuclear. If prices are at a record in France and Germany does this mean UK are earning a lot from the French?

Current gridwatch

Also noticed that it says we normally import electricity from France in the summer.

[Blobsy]

Enjoy!

 

[skinnylattej]

3 hours ago, kzb said:

5S originated in Japan.  Don't know who invented JIT.  They should've been taken out and shot really.

J.i.T. was developed by Toyota, and for a volume manufacturing plant is a godsend, reduces stock and space needed to hold stock, enhances capability and flexibility, and with good partners makes a significant reduction in costs.

Not so good when there's a war.

[Riedquat]

1 hour ago, skinnylattej said:

J.i.T. was developed by Toyota, and for a volume manufacturing plant is a godsend, reduces stock and space needed to hold stock, enhances capability and flexibility, and with good partners makes a significant reduction in costs.

Not so good when there's a war.

JiT is just another way of being cheap and nasty.

[kzb]

3 hours ago, skomer said:

Largely unreported but looking  at Gridwatch today  https://gridwatch.co.uk/ 6% of our energy generation is currently going to France via the  IC and IC2 interconnectors at the moment.
Been this way for the past few months now due to issues with French nuclear. If prices are at a record in France and Germany does this mean UK are earning a lot from the French?

Good question.  The wind energy has picked up a lot today.  If we are exporting that to the French, are we British still paying the subsidy on it?  I'd like to know that.

[kzb]

1 hour ago, skinnylattej said:

J.i.T. was developed by Toyota, and for a volume manufacturing plant is a godsend, reduces stock and space needed to hold stock, enhances capability and flexibility, and with good partners makes a significant reduction in costs.

Not so good when there's a war.

Not so good with customs delays either.

[AThirdWay]

5 hours ago, kzb said:

If they paid me to do it, I'd do it.  My problem is we are expected to fund this stuff for ourselves.

You are looking at maybe £30-£40k on average for insulation retrofit so that it is not ruinous to run the heat pump.  Then £20k as you say for the solar panels and heat pump.  Perhaps the whole package could be delivered for about £50k in a mass production environment.

There are, what, 28 million households, so 28 million x £50k = £1.4 trillion.

This will be added to the debt pile left to future generations, but nobody bothers about that any more.  I have to add we could build 55 Hinkley Pt C's for that money, but never mind bring it on.  If they want to make these mods to my house and it is free for me then I am all for it.

 

I did suggest that the government pay for it, as it is on par with the money spent to bail out the banks... 30m x £20k =£600bn. I'm fairly sure future generations will thank us more for that £600bn debt than giving £500bn to the banks, or building 20x Hinkley Pt C's. That's if it comes in at £30bn, which I doubt! Electricity generated by Hinkley has been estimated to be THE most expensive (before the current madness of course), so they'll have that government debt AND a massive energy bill to pay for!

Insulation is down to the owners/occupiers, they've got to make SOME effort.

 

[Gbob]

At the moment there's practically no incentive from the govt to install green energy solutions in the home beyond the money you save off your bills in the (very) long run. The old feed in tariff got scrapped in favour of new export tariffs set by the energy companies that only pays pennies. And there is no grant or subsidy for solar panels. Just a £5000 grant for a heat pump providing you meet all the criteria and jump through all the hoops. Again, reduced from the previous more generous scheme. 

There really needs to be a grant or significant interest free loan to help people pay for the up front costs.

For the average family, the total cost of 'going green' (solar, heat pump, insulation, electric car) currently is completely unaffordable. 

[hotblack42]

We just used £80 of gas over 2.5 months after  a 40% tariff increase & £78 of electricity in June.

Only 2 of us in 830 sq ft Bungalow, but we have plenty of appliances including a mahoosive vertical Siemens freezer, dual fuel range cooker & a 250 sq. ft insulated cabin.

Thing is, we gutted the Bungalow & insulated it to the max - walls, under floor, loft. Plus LEDs everywhere.

Probably going solar, but the first quote was silly - £21.5k for 6kw & power wall 2 failover, so don't feel very motivated now.

Doubling our annual energy bill from here is still less than £3k which doesn't seem that excessive for all those appliances, lighting & warmth TBH.

Buying an EV may change the dynamic though.

[Sour Mash]

8 hours ago, Dogsy said:

Enjoy!

 

Yes, he's got a knack for laying it out in a well digested and easy to understand form.

 

This should hopefully open a few eyes but the idiots who think you can somehow just ignore oil with 'new technology' aren't really open to reality and facts:

https://peakoilbarrel.com/the-energy-transition/

.. just to meet energy demands  a couple of decades down the line we will need non-fossil sources to produce as much total energy as fossil fuels do today on top of continuing to use whatever fossil fuels are available at that time.  The idea that we're going to ditch fossil fuels in the next few years is downright infantile.

 

[kzb]

5 hours ago, AThirdWay said:

I did suggest that the government pay for it, as it is on par with the money spent to bail out the banks... 30m x £20k =£600bn. I'm fairly sure future generations will thank us more for that £600bn debt than giving £500bn to the banks, or building 20x Hinkley Pt C's. That's if it comes in at £30bn, which I doubt! Electricity generated by Hinkley has been estimated to be THE most expensive (before the current madness of course), so they'll have that government debt AND a massive energy bill to pay for!

Insulation is down to the owners/occupiers, they've got to make SOME effort.

 

The required insulation costs in the region of £40k.  You have to almost rebuild the thing.

Then I have to apply to the council to reduce the kerb (across a green verge) and revise the garden into a car charging station.   There is no guarantee the council will give permission, and if the do, how much will it cost for the property revision.

Then I need solar panels and battery storage.  I do think there is a problem here in Britain because the power is generated exactly when we need it the least.  But hey if they put it in for me great.

If they'd pay for all this for me I'd go along with it.

 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

..and little money to pay the energy bills 

Most only have £500 of savings says Lloyds boss

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057301

[btd1981]

11 hours ago, hotblack42 said:

£21.5k for 6kw & power wall 2 failover, so don't feel very motivated now

Sounds pretty good really. The way things are going it should pay for itself after a couple of years.

[AThirdWay]

11 hours ago, kzb said:

The required insulation costs in the region of £40k.  You have to almost rebuild the thing.

Then I have to apply to the council to reduce the kerb (across a green verge) and revise the garden into a car charging station.   There is no guarantee the council will give permission, and if the do, how much will it cost for the property revision.

Then I need solar panels and battery storage.  I do think there is a problem here in Britain because the power is generated exactly when we need it the least.  But hey if they put it in for me great.

If they'd pay for all this for me I'd go along with it.

 

Generation and insulation are two different things. Agreed, to get the best out of micro-generation good insulation is desirable, but not essential. Given the diverse housing in the UK, I would imagine the only way to fairly finance this would be a flat grant/loan, but it's a separate issue imo. 

EV's are a different issues and, as has been publicized recently, can act as storage devices themselves. This could reduce the dependency on any required grid storage facilities. Difficult to make a call on that given the fast moving development of possible fuel alternatives for vehicles. No point developing a grid based on EV battery storage if we move to hydrogen....

As mentioned earlier, a system where you can either subscribe to a newly developed storage grid OR buy your own storage system and opt out could be possible?

Unless we get a government controlled by the Greens, I can't see there being a proposal for government to do it all for you, you'll have to make some effort.

[markyh]

18 hours ago, Glenn said:

 

For the average family, the total cost of 'going green' (solar, heat pump, insulation, electric car) currently is completely unaffordable. 

All they need is a Hot water bottle and leccy blanket each for winter, dress warm indoors too, like we did in the 70's. I never had GCH as a young child, just one open coal fire in the 1800's single brick terraced house.  

[yelims]

18 hours ago, hotblack42 said:

We just used £80 of gas over 2.5 months after  a 40% tariff increase & £78 of electricity in June.

Only 2 of us in 830 sq ft Bungalow, but we have plenty of appliances including a mahoosive vertical Siemens freezer, dual fuel range cooker & a 250 sq. ft insulated cabin.

Thing is, we gutted the Bungalow & insulated it to the max - walls, under floor, loft. Plus LEDs everywhere.

Probably going solar, but the first quote was silly - £21.5k for 6kw & power wall 2 failover, so don't feel very motivated now.

Doubling our annual energy bill from here is still less than £3k which doesn't seem that excessive for all those appliances, lighting & warmth TBH.

Buying an EV may change the dynamic though.

Wow that’s more than double I paid two years ago here in Ireland €10k with 2.5k returned from government for installation of 4.8kw panels and 6kwh battery, I believe the powerwall is overpriced 

at these prices you wouldn’t break even before the battery dies and efficiency goes down 20% in 20 years of panels 

keep in mind if you have electric car or phev the batteries in them could be topped up when you have a surplus removing need for large home battery

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by yelims

[markyh]

41 minutes ago, yelims said:

 

and efficiency goes down 20% in 20 years of panels 

 

You really believe that?  a 4% decline in PV Panel generation efficiency per year? So do we have any evidence of all the Panels fitted in 2010 are now all producing 48% less leccy on a clear sunny day in June than in 2010? Should my 2019 panels not be producing 12% less now in 2022?   How strange they produce the exact same 3.68kw peak 11am-1pm on a clear sunny day in Summer. 

Or are you suggesting in 2030 all 2010 panels that were fine in 2029 will immediately drop 80% in their generation ability the next year once 20 year old. 

Why did my Italian panel maker give a 25 year warranty then? Seems daft. 

[Confusion of VIs]

On 06/07/2022 at 13:58, skomer said:

Largely unreported but looking  at Gridwatch today  https://gridwatch.co.uk/ 6% of our energy generation is currently going to France via the  IC and IC2 interconnectors at the moment.
Been this way for the past few months now due to issues with French nuclear. If prices are at a record in France and Germany does this mean UK are earning a lot from the French?

Current gridwatch 

 

Yes huge profit from all that Wind and Solar. 

The French have lots of long term issues with their Nuclear plants, cracks, not enough cooling water (Climate Change) and new plants running the almost standard +10yrs late and over budget.

If they had invested half the cash so far spent on their massively delayed and still unfinished Flamanville plant on wind and solar they would already have 5GW of carbon free power up and running. 

Solar should have been a no brainer as it delivers power during the day when it is needed to fill in the peak load shortfall.      

[yelims]

32 minutes ago, markyh said:

You really believe that?  a 4% decline in PV Panel generation efficiency per year? So do we have any evidence of all the Panels fitted in 2010 are now all producing 48% less leccy on a clear sunny day in June than in 2010? Should my 2019 panels not be producing 12% less now in 2022?   How strange they produce the exact same 3.68kw peak 11am-1pm on a clear sunny day in Summer. 

Or are you suggesting in 2030 all 2010 panels that were fine in 2029 will immediately drop 80% in their generation ability the next year once 20 year old. 

Why did my Italian panel maker give a 25 year warranty then? Seems daft. 

You read that wrong, Just checked and it’s down to 85% after 25 years faster if near sea 

https://www.bisol.com/

the battery be dead after 10 years ish 

Edited July 7, 2022 by yelims

[Confusion of VIs]

 

3 minutes ago, yelims said:

You read that wrong, Just checked and it’s down to 85% after 25 years

https://www.bisol.com/

the battery be dead after 10 years ish 

Current panels do much better than that around 0.6% per year is pretty standard but some are much better. 

My Sunpower panel warranty guarantees they will lose no more than 8% over 25yrs.

You should only be buying LFP batteries for storage, as well as being cheaper they have a projected life of +40yrs and even when charging to 100% and discharging to empty.

I am holding off buying for a couple of years as the prices will come down far more rapidly than the saving I would make by buying now.      

[Confusion of VIs]

On 06/07/2022 at 13:58, skomer said:

Largely unreported but looking  at Gridwatch today  https://gridwatch.co.uk/ 6% of our energy generation is currently going to France via the  IC and IC2 interconnectors at the moment.
Been this way for the past few months now due to issues with French nuclear. If prices are at a record in France and Germany does this mean UK are earning a lot from the French?

Current gridwatch 

 

Yes huge profit from all that Wind and Solar. 

The French have lots of long term issues with their Nuclear plants, cracks, not enough cooling water (Climate Change) and new plants running the almost standard +10yrs late and over budget.

If they had invested half the cash so far spent on their massively delayed and still unfinished Flamanville plant on wind and solar they would already have 5GW of carbon free power up and running. 

Solar should have been a no brainer as it delivers power during the day when France needs to power fill in their peak load shortfall. 

[yelims]

5 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Yes huge profit from all that Wind and Solar. 

The French have lots of long term issues with their Nuclear plants, cracks, not enough cooling water (Climate Change) and new plants running the almost standard +10yrs late and over budget.

If they had invested half the cash so far spent on their massively delayed and still unfinished Flamanville plant on wind and solar they would already have 5GW of carbon free power up and running. 

Solar should have been a no brainer as it delivers power during the day when France needs to power fill in their peak load shortfall. 

If you take a drive from Calais to Paris you will see nothing but giant windmills for most of the way 

except you need a 1000 of them to replace a nuclear plant and then they only produce 25% of time near advertised capacity at random 

Germany spent 4x France on renewables (1 trillion on Energiewende) and still multiples of France for carbon intensity and reliant on Russians

Edited July 7, 2022 by yelims

[Confusion of VIs]

15 hours ago, kzb said:

The required insulation costs in the region of £40k.  You have to almost rebuild the thing.

Then I have to apply to the council to reduce the kerb (across a green verge) and revise the garden into a car charging station.   There is no guarantee the council will give permission, and if the do, how much will it cost for the property revision.

Then I need solar panels and battery storage.  I do think there is a problem here in Britain because the power is generated exactly when we need it the least.  But hey if they put it in for me great.

If they'd pay for all this for me I'd go along with it.

 

So your plan is to do nothing apart from continually moaning about energy prices, parroting out of date info produced by the fossil fuel schils and expecting someone else to pay for you to improve your house. 

[kzb]

26 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

So your plan is to do nothing apart from continually moaning about energy prices, parroting out of date info produced by the fossil fuel schils and expecting someone else to pay for you to improve your house. 

It won't just be me either.  There will be millions of us.  Forcing £50k costs onto all households will be electoral suicide.

BTW, I am not out of date, I am ahead of the curve.  No-one has come out with a half way feasible plan for net zero yet.  You certainly haven't, if anyone parrots anything it is you.  You keep parroting marketing material at us.

[winkie]

No way will there be net zero anywhere soon as long as GDP growth is the priority.......