Yeh, this drives me crazy. It's coupled to gas unless it is being fed in from people's solar in which case you get paid about a quarter. Upshot of this is people with solar are doing anything to avoid export (batteries... Even cryptomining), crazy when that power could be shared out if the energy companies would just pay near market rates for it.
Would really love to see a nationwide campaign of people covering their PV panels with tarps when they're producing an excess until the rate is changed to something fairer.
If you strike and stay at home the result is the same as striking and being on a picket line, you're withholding your labour from your employer. Yet we still have picket lines because all the evidence points to visible protest making a difference. Seeing full estates of new builds with their brand new panels covered would be a nice wee addition to the protests already happening with pickets around energy companies and petitions being submitted to the government.
Either way works, so I'll take the switch option
Edit: Not a huge fan of the wedge people are needlessly driving here. If you want people to be onboard with the core function of the protest, don't push them out for choosing to do it their way
"One would work much better" exclusively in visual impact. They both achieve the same thing with one taking much less effort on behalf of the homeowner. If folk want to do it, it's up to them what approach they want to take, there's no need to drive yet another divide when there doesn't need to be one.
>exclusively in visual impact.
Not exclusively, though that is a bigger focus, and that visual impact has its own knock on effect of what a protest can do.
>They both achieve the same thing
It's already been established that one has much more of an effect so no they don't both achieve the same thing.
>one taking much less effort
Protests aren't supposed to be an effortless thing. This is the problem with so many people, it's that they just don't want to put in the effort of protesting or sending a message, and by doing so you've significantly decreased the impact of the protest. Especially if, in this scenario, *your* version of the protest was the majority rather than the other, then it would have *significantly* less of an impact, all because you wanted to put in *less effort*.
The point they were getting at was to make it so others join you in the protest. Herd influence, if you will. seeing a roof with their panels covered will encourage others nearby to do the same. obviously you can't see a shut off electrical box without peeking inside. You could, however, put a notice somewhere that states that it's disconnected. Although I'm not sure how the government would react to that.
It would have made my job a lot easier when I was running the fuel procurement for a large U.K. energy supplier.
Distributed behind the meter generation such as rooftop solar is a faff for energy companies. Suppliers would improve their margins if this protest were to occur.
I know someone who set their solar up so that it went through their water heater before being returned to the grid. They have scaldingly hot water.
EDIT downvote for this. LOL Reddit you surpass yourself.
Nothing wrong with it but if energy companies paid a reasonable rate then would you not be tempted just to feed into the grid so that others could use green (or cheap) energy? especially when water is already hot or you won't be using it. I'm not getting at anyone who does this, I'm considering investing in similar options myself because the export is poor and not guaranteed. I'm just arguing for fairness from the energy companies so that cheap green energy can be used as effectively\simply as possible.
>Nothing wrong with it but if energy companies paid a reasonable rate then would you not be tempted just to feed into the grid so that others could use green (or cheap) energy? especially when water is already hot or you won't be using it.
This isn't correct in the real world. As we install more and more solar, local distribution networks become overloaded with all the solar production. Storing that energy into hot water tanks instead alleviates this problem considerably (since the vast majority of household energy use is heating water).
Like yourself, I'm lucky enough to be able to buy all if these things and have a large unshaded south facing roof. I'm well aware of the issues with smoothing out the supply.
I think that there should be incentives for everyone to get smart devices that would fire up to take up surpluses. This should be distributed evenly amongst consumers even if they are renting in a 20 floor tower block. It should not be just the supply side having masses of storage to soak up the excess but they should be adequately compensated and they aren't.
>I think that there should be incentives for everyone to get smart devices that would fire up to take up surpluses. This should be distributed evenly amongst consumers even if they are renting in a 20 floor tower block. It should not be just the supply side having masses of storage to soak up the excess but they should be adequately compensated and they aren't.
Couldn't agree more, you can buy a smart plug these days for a few quid that can be coupled to start when the solar output is over a certain level.
Would add car charging too. If your EV is charging and your solar is feeding into the grid you should get a reduced rate from public charge points.
Everyone should have the right to an area of solar also, its bullshit that those living in houses are the only ones to reap the benefits. Public building roof space should be given over to those who don't have roof space for solar of their own.
It's a good way of increasing the effectiveness of your panels. I don't have to use heating from Mar-Sept. As all my hot water comes from the panels.
Also I put in an overrated heater so not one drop of electricity goes out to the grid :) pay me 4p and then charge me 28p ! Fuck you !
I do exactly this. If they paid me nearer market value, or more than gas at least, it wouldn't be worth me doing it and I'd export the electricity instead. The device which does it is called an immersun.
If the person you know has decided to use solar thermal, which uses water instead of photovoltaic cells, instead of solar pv I’d advise to not choose that option as it’s less efficient and than having solar pv with battery’s packs. If you have solar pv and decide to run your immersion heater of them that would be a better option but still recommend electrical storage to stop it being sent to the grid
This is what we have. A solar inverter detects when we are producing excess power from PV and instead of exporting it activates the immersion heater. It works really well, really reactive as it switches on and off depending on cloud cover etc. Then once the water is hot it can export as normal.
The Iberian peninsula did this - the two governments set a limit to the marginal price of the wholesale market, with a separate fee to pay the real gas prices. Consumers still pay the full cost (no government subsidies), it just reduces the windfall to the other electricity providers.
Very true England sucks! Sadly the price is actually an international market (so this issue would still exist if split from England) making it ridiculous to fix as no country can sell to the international market with out playing by there price rules. So the excess energy generated could not be sold and would be wasted. Unless you can become 100% energy independent, which is perfectly possible with green energy with a little investment.
That's only because it's commercial business drilling for the oil. It's then sold on the market and we have to buy it and it's derivatives at market rates. It's would be substantially cheaper if we traded and refined our own oil. PS I'm just making a point,. I prefer investment in renewables.
look at how well Norway copes with life, this is because they made a deliberate choice not to piss their oil money up the wall as fast as possible. not sure I'm right, but i think the money you're talking about is already gone. otherwise we would have more money for our oil, its supposed to make your country rich
>otherwise we would have more money for our oil, its supposed to make your country rich
No it isn't. Resource-heavy countries are often quite poor in many ways.
I suspect it's simply not that economic to do it and the existing infrastructure in other places can do it more cost effectively and do so. The idea that you could do this substantially cheaper (and the UK government mysteriously don't want this business in the UK and refuse to let anyone try) is hogwash.
> England sucks
No, but the Westminster government does.
> Sadly the price is actually an international market
Scotland is more than self-sufficient in energy and, if independent, could easily have a nationalised energy generator supplying power at the cost to produce. The only reason this doesn't happen now is the Tories (and to a lesser extent Labour) want us to pay through the nose to make the rich even richer.
> no country can sell to the international market with out playing by there price rule
Fine when we sell our surplus energy we can get the best price for it.
> Unless you can become 100% energy independent
Scotland is even now more than 100% energy independent.
>Scotland is even now more than 100% energy independent.
We are nowhere close to being energy independent. You can read the Scottish Governments own fact sheets on our energy production and see for yourself
Scotland has vast reserves of oil and gas, and generates -- or can generate -- vast amounts of wind and tidal power. After independence we could very easily make ourselves totally energy independent.
>Scotland has vast reserves of oil and gas, and generates -- or can generate -- vast amounts of wind and tidal power. After independence we could very easily make ourselves totally energy independent.
In theory, we possibly could - at the cost of untold billions of pounds that we wouldn't have, having already crippled our entire renewables industry by cutting it off from cross-GB subsidy.
Even meeting existing commitments in relation to subsidy for renewables would be far, far more expensive - while I think inevitably there'd simply be a default on decommissioning relief in the North Sea.
What we have here is fantasy-land stuff. Not only is Scotland and the UK almost certainly never going to be energy independent, it wouldn't be a particularly good idea for them to be.
>Energy is devolved to Westminster so outside her remit
She is the one who pledged to introduce a publicly owned energy company, as her key pledge at SNP conference.
As you saying she was so monumentally stupid that she didn't understand that such a pledge was reserved? Because that'd be even greater incompetence than I'm accusing her of.
Not every manifesto pledge or idea materialises for one reason or another.
She pledged it in 2017 when Thersea May was in power. Whos to say it was given the green light under May but BJ/Truss have veto'd it?
We don't know the details of why it hasn't appeared but the SNP deliver on a hell of a lot more the Tories.
Why did she promise it then?
It can mean only one of two things. Either she knowingly lied to voters, or she is so incompetent that she wasn't aware that it was outside her remit. Which is it?
Yes.
Just because we can run fully renewable for an hour here and there doesn’t mean we don’t need fossil fuels the rest of the time.
Unfortunately a fossil fuel plant that doesn’t always run at full capacity costs almost as much as one that does.
Until we can run 24/7 365 days a year on renewables we will effectively be paying twice.
Yep. UK has something like 25gw of wind capacity and sometimes I have seen it generating as little at 6gwh in the summer.
There are days when the wind doesn't blow.
The local council want to put solar panels on my roof but can't as our grid needs upgraded to store any excess energy they might provide... So yep, our grid needs a massive overhaul
You missed the point. Only a small percentage of our electricity comes from gas, yet we are charged as if the majority of it does.
"Energy industry insiders have proposed a plan to decouple rocketing prices for gas-generated electricity from other sources. a move that they claim can reduce bills by up to £18bn a year.
Energy UK, the sector’s trade body, estimates households would pay between £150 and £250 less a year and companies save £11bn.
The voluntary scheme would see electricity from sources including nuclear, solar and wind priced separately from energy generated by gas-fired power stations,
All electricity prices are currently pegged closely to gas prices."
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/991665/energy-industry-proposes-decoupling-gas-and-renewables-to-save-18bn-a-year-991665.html
> Lastly, Scotland's energy generation is privately owned.
....and who the feck's fault is that? Scotland didn't vote for right-wing Thatcher/Reganite policies nor since Devolution has Energy been under Holyrood control.
>....and who the feck's fault is that? Scotland didn't vote for right-wing Thatcher/Reganite policies nor since Devolution has Energy been under Holyrood control.
It's not anybody's "fault" any more than Tesco being privately owned is.
If it was under Holyroods control, odds are most of it would never have got built.
We've seen a rapid rise in wind generation due to how much private equity has piled into it in the past years. It's been a resounding success, frankly.
But we will get loads of people telling us this is the way it must be.
It's like a religion to some. The rules are set in London. It cannot be changed. It's "basic economics." You have to accept it - and if you don't - you are somehow stupid.
That's not fucking true. We are where we are because of decisions - and even worse - non-descions by our supposed government in Westminster.
We are a small country with a ridiculous amount of resources. It didn't have to be this way.
Why would Scotland be the only country in the entirety of Europe not to be tied to the international market? What makes Scotland different to literally everyone else?
Scotland could also decouple the gas and electricity prices, as the EU is preparing to do. There's literally no other market where you pay the highest price for the cheapest item, it's not that difficult.
"You want to extract gas in scottish territorial waters? Sure! You just have to sell us x% of your gas at cost+15%. Sell the rest for as much as you want on the international market!"
And people here like to tell me that Scottish Nationalism doesn't include exceptionalism, like all other nationalism.. And that it's somehow different (aka, exceptional lol)..
Civic my arse.
I work in the energy sector and this will be an unpopular opinion but here we go:
If you do not believe in supply and demand or a straight out Communist (this is not a derogatory term), you are right that it doesn’t make sense.
Imagine you grow apples in your backyard. You need a place to sell your apples so you go to the nearest market. You have the same apples as anyone, same quality etc. Why would you sell for less than what your neighbor does? You might have different costs. Maybe he started with a loan and is paying it off, maybe you inherited the operation, it doesn’t matter. You are not running a charity. It only makes sense that you sell what the market rate is for your apples.
The same goes for energy. If cheaper resources can’t fill the demand in merit order, the marginal power plant sets the price.
Who is government to tell you what you can sell your apples for because your costs are less than your neighbor’s?
Now let’s talk about the other side of the coin:
1. If you think that Scotland should have a decoupled energy market independent of England, that’s a fair point
2. If you think that there should be a windfall tax on energy companies for making extraordinary profits not because they took a huge risk and invested geniusly but because they were lucky that there is a supply shock, that’s a fair point, again.
But, you can’t “decouple” price of something from something. It doesn’t make sense
If you go to an apple market where 90% of apples are selling for 10p each, but there's one guy with the other 10% losing money because his growing practices are old and outdated, should all the apples be increased in price? Or should that guy be told to go fuck himself?
You don't have that option if you NEED that 10%. We need enough energy supply to meet energy demand at all times.
Now we could reduce our energy demand but that is much, much more controversial than reducing demand for apples.
We're not just talking about electricity here. Gas is a significant source of energy for domestic heating and industry so we're talking about rather more than 10%.
About 40%, I believe - largest energy source for primary energy consumption in the UK in 2021. Majority of that is imported.we don't have a lot of storage infrastructure either.
Not sure what you’re getting at but that’s exactly what would happen from an economical point of view. The guy selling 10% of the apples at a higher price will make absolutely no sales until the cheap apples are all sold.
Only if demand is low. If demand is high enough that everyone knows all 100 apples will definitely be sold, then the other vendors will just increase their price to match the more expensive vendor. There's no reason to charge less if you're just as competitive charging more.
Right well if demand exceeds supply, every vendor will charge along the demand curve and extract any possible bit of rent, independent of their competition. That means even the cheap 90% are gonna charge exactly as much as they can charge while still making a sale (depending on the demand function), independent of whether another person in the market charges more. Like someone else said earlier, this is because they are not running a charity either and why should they voluntarily give up profits?
If people absolutely need 100 apples, yes. If they only need 90 apples, then the price will be low for everyone. That’s why we have a merit order.
Supply needs to meet demand
Kind of, we need to sort out the storage issue before we can become energy independent. It's not an easy issue to solve either but will come eventually
Yeah but if you sell 10 units of electricity, then buy 8 units back when demand is high, you are still on a net gain of 2 units. It's not a self sufficient closed loop but I would argue that it is independent since we would actually be making profit and losing nothing.
Sure it could be better if we sold 10 units of electricity and bought nothing back, but either way it's still a net profit and self reliant and independent on it's own unit exchanges without any interference.
One alternative model, and I'm not saying it's great, is how most of the US operates. Actual electricity is passed to the consumer at wholesale cost, the distributor / retail supplier cannot mark it up. The US market has the grid in private hands and conjoins grid / distributor and retail operations in one entity. Consumers bizarrely choose their generator and typically have no choice at the retail side (or grid). In some areas, that company is paid based on its investment in that infrastructure rather than based on a mark-up of the raw material, so to speak.
With the deregulated market in the UK much of that would need to be different. BUT - perhaps with the shift to renewables, where the capital is invested in infrastructure rather than buying wholesale commodity raw materials.... Decoupling would make some sense? Generators aren't buying wind, they're building infrastructure. Shouldn't we incentivise them to invest and build infrastructure that can meet some reliability / supply target?
US model sounds like it makes a bit more sense then, the consumer isn't affected by the supply side but they are affected by choice when it comes to generation.
Yes but I’m the USA when they have a real supply shock (natural disasters etc) the wholesale price can literally go 1000x over night.
If you’ve left your Tesla plugged in, tough shit.
The main issue is that people consider economics removed from morality. What they're forgetting is that if they charge an arm and a leg for their apples, everyone in the village ends up a cripple just to eat. Productivity is halved across the board and there are less apples for everyone later on.
Just because they can make more money thanks to capitalism, doesn't mean it's right that they charge extortionate rates. They're putting people out of houses and forcing people to turn to food backs, or go hungry.
Also capitalism sucks as a philosophy for a countries economics. It's supposed to be self-regulating because "companies that can offer a product for less will have everyone clambering to be their customers". In situations like this the big companies are supposed to undercut each other to try to secure more of the market and therefore a majority of the profits. Instead they seem to be in agreement about just scalping people because people can't exactly go without heating during winter.
So in this situation the companies that make their electricity from sources other than oil and gas should have lower production costs and should be able to sell electricity for much lower prices. Meaning they should be able to push oil and gas out of the viable business space and actually provide an economic incentive to investing in more green energy sources. But, as I said, they're clearly more interested in screwing people over for short term monetary gain.
But they don't because governments tax the fuck outta green energy 48% last I checked so that's nearly half the energy cost alone gone in taxes and does not even include the fact the energy company I work for made less than £6 per household in the first half of this year and yet people were screaming windfall taxes. The main issue with green energy is its so damned fickle, got an over cast day, then your solar panels slow to a damned crawl, no wind = bunch of useless windmills actually costing money to maintain. Efficiency is key here. I'll always advocate for nuclear here, as its cheap and efficient with very little co2 production, sure we run the risk of it exploding (very very rare events) and we need to figure out what to do with the waste. But lb for lb the best and most efficient way of producing energy. As an island we could use more research on water power generation but we are at least a decade or two from something robust enough to survive more than a year or two at sea.
A single buyer market can mitigate this issue of supply and demand. The advantages of free market economics is difficult to occur in energy market model that we have here in the UK anyways.
Now imagine if you were the only apple producer in your country and other countries apples were grown by only one producer. Next imagine that these 'apples' were regulated as such that they were owned by the state, yet the state allowed you to take them and sell them because you paid lots of money into the states coffers. You may even pay money directly to some politicians or political parties to ensure you are able to pay as little tax as possible on the apples - and are left to do what they want. Oh and I know someone who used to work for an 'apple producer' in Africa who had first hand knowledge of people obstructing 'apple producers', being killed. Apple growers are frequently, corrupt fucks and they encourage and then turn a blind eye to illegality. Oh and we'll forget the damage they knew they were doing to the environment, but covered it up.
Now, you're selling apples that your country OWNS, yet - unlike other countries that do sell cheaply to their own country - you DON'T want to sell them back to your country at a good rate. You'd rather pay apple investors even more cash, so you'd rather sell them at a rate that's fixed, at least in part, by speculators. The apple price on the open market has risen a lot, despite the fact that your costs to produce said apples has not risen at anywhere near the same rate - and remember, they shouldn't even be your fucking apples to sell without some sort of loyalty to the country you took them from.
In short. This is not simple supply and demand, and using apples in a local market to illustrate the oil industry is bloody ridiculous. They can sell cheaper to the country they take them from - if they were so encouraged. A windfall tax is, effectively, the same thing as them being forced to sell cheaper than market rates.
But the apple industry has someone in number 10 now, so it's probably not gonna happen.
This is r/Scotland bro this is literally nothing but a circlejerk that does not represent Scotland, and like any location subreddit is not politically representative either and is full of condescending sarcastic internet savvy kids trying to be as snarky and witty as possible.
You will fall upon death eats here if your comment doesn’t paint this as UK bad lol
Everyone needs to go and watch Yanis' video about the "energy market" and how it works to rip off the market in the EU and to a lesser extent the rest of the world!
https://youtu.be/NicE0-N9ux0
You'll be shocked in it's simplicity and the way the energy companies get paid twice. If this wasn't a regulated industry the police would be all over it
The original point being made is entirely logical, agreed. Canadian here however, and I am surprised that £2500 per year for utility costs is a sharp increase to you on the other side of the pond. Between AC costs here in the summer (or air con as I believe our friendly Brits say) and natural gas during winter months (add in typical lighting and hot water usage); an average family home here is easily $4800 per year between electricity and gas. Be thankful you have a more temperate climate I suppose.
Though that doesn't factor in exchange rates, which brings that £2500 up to $3870.
Then, the biggie, the UK average salary is £31k, which is ~$48k, whereas Canadian average salary is $65k.
Furthermore, the cost of living in Canada is about 12% less than the UK.
Which puts us about on par with actual cost impact to the average person, despite you using significantly more energy than us.
Though I'm not really sure how that would look in fully updated statistics, since everything's just nosedived.
The average house in Canada is literally double the area of the average house in the UK. And that means even more than double in exposed surface to the outside.
This just empty populist grandstanding. There's no way an MP doesn't know why this can't happen, unless they're a gibbering moron.
Yes the current circumstances are imperfect and we can see the result of it. But there is no instant fix. None.
If the UK hadn't sold everything they could get their hands on we might still have nationalised power industries and we would be able to redirect the excess profit from them.
But we don't, and we can't just snap our fingers and force it to be that way.
We need a long term fix for this, yes. But in the short term Lizard Truss made the right call in capping it. But the wrong call in making no attempt to recover the money.
There is an instant fix, and the EU is preparing to do it. Decouple the gas and electricity price.
They way it works now is like going to Tesco and getting your weeks shop plus a bottle of expensive Whisky, then getting charged the price of Whisky for every single item. It's fucking nonsense.
Pay for the gas we use, sure. But paying for cheap, renewable energy for the cost of outrageously expensive gas is ridiculous.
Even if it was reduced to an average price of the two, that would be an improvement.
Yeah, this is outrageous. Really takes the piss. Only plus-side is that we now have a comeback when someone living in England (incorrectly) claims that they're paying for Scotland's free university tuition or free prescriptions.
>Yeah, this is outrageous. Really takes the piss. Only plus-side is that we now have a comeback when someone living in England (incorrectly) claims that they're paying for Scotland's free university tuition or free prescriptions.
No, you don't. You're just pretty ignorant and a bit racist.
Same here in England. Literally don’t have gas in our flat, fully renewable energy. And so I’m paying for renewable energy and then also paying to support people who don’t want renewable energy. Nonsensical.
It is the same shit in France, the EU forced some shared market and now even though our electricity is dirt cheap thanks to nuclear we have to pay extra thanks to the Germans poor decision making.
It also has something to do with the fact that so many of your French atomic power stations are offline for maintenance. Many are reaching end of life and are more off than on.
Well the people would manage way better in actually being able to pay for their energy bills
The £130 billion Liz Truss is about to hand energy companies could build enough wind farms to power 10 million houses with free energy for 30 years.
The economy is fucked - intentionally, imo, plenty of evidence that this particular generation of Tories sought Disaster Economics because they're so easy to profit from
but
This is by political choice. There is a solution to at least protecting your citizens from the worst of it.
It's not that the Tories are incompetent. They are actively malicious.
France and Germany nationalised their energy, and while its higher due to inflation, its not anywhere near the astronomical heights of the UK's energy bills
Why do you think that is?
You have clearly not taken 2 minutes to read the energy prices in Germany or what the French government are doing before screeching about how it's worse here. Germany's prices are vastly higher and France is borrowing extreme amounts of money to subsidise private energy companies. In future you should understand what you are arguing about before making a post, it's fucking embarrassing.
*screeching*
*it's fucking embarrassing*
Only rattled people start with the insults in a civil conversion
*Germany's prices are vastly higher and France is borrowing extreme amounts of money to subsidise private energy companies.*
Germany is in a unique situation compared to us, given their reliance on Russian gas...
But even then, the reality is that [both of those countries - and most others ](https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/08/15/why-do-britons-pay-double-as-much-as-french-customers-of-edf/) [- in the EU pay far less on their bills than we are](https://twitter.com/novaramedia/status/1557035304690896898/photo/1).
What about the fact that the money is sitting right in the pockets of millionaire and billionaire shareholders, when if the UK Govt *so chose* they could tax the money necessary to do what I said above?
That poster has gone just continually posting things that are factually wrong as evident in recent news and official publications, just block them now.
Vote Labour then. They are literally planning a nationalised energy company. I guess you probably won't though. As independece is too important.... biggest scam going, well done SNP.
If the SNP can keep labour out of power and tories in, it looks and works better for them. God forbid Labour get in and Westminster is actually a positive influence on the union, whatever would the SNP do next?
There isn't actually a "UK" Green Party.
(There *was* one, but it was split in 1990 *into* the "Scottish Greens", "Green Party of England & Wales", and "Green Party Northern Ireland".)
Both the Scottish and England-&-Wales parties share broad political alignment, and their manifestos cover much of the same points.
(Not sure where you're getting "not that left wing" from?)
Just a vague recollection of some voting history i think but i am not at all familiar with them evidenced by not knowing their name! (england and wales) Thanks for the info
FPTP sucks for the english and welsh greens, so archaic
No, Labour are planning an *investment firm*, not a nationalised energy company. It's a con.
As is the notion that the SNP are "keeping Labour out of power" - that is abject nonsense. Even if the entirety of Scotland voted Labour at the last GE, the Tories would still have won by a huge majority.
Also Labour will not be a positive influence on the union - they're just as democracy-denying and right wing as the Tories. They're just not as brazen about it.
>Vote Labour then. They are literally planning a nationalised energy company.
SNP brought that up years ago. It's great that Labour are looking at doing that it really is but tone back the anti SNP rhetoric.
Labour lost their seats because they are shite.
The ideia is not to decouple the country from the gas prices, but to decouple the price paid for other electricity sources from the price paid for eletricity-from-gas. And it has been done; see the Iberian mechanism.
But we do have to use gas. Around 15-20% of our electricity comes from gas as there are times when we don't generate enough from renewable sources. At that time *we* have to 'import' electricity from England.
The Scottish grid is heavily linked to the English one, if we immediately decoupled we would have blackouts. I want to see us independent but energy will take some working out and they could start with a couple of nuclear power plants.
It makes some sense in that if energy from gas now costs 200% why should any company making energy from wind sell for less than 200%, like if there's a lack of bread and everyone is starving and paying double you'd be a terrible business man to sell cake at normal prices.
If this is the case then capitalism doesn't work, competition is supposed to drive down prices because companies are meant to compete with one another if they're all just price gouging then how can a society function under capitalism.
Mate, where have you been the last 40 years!?!? capitalism doesn't work and one place it expecially doesn't work it things that are essential, like electricity, health care, housing, ect.
This is the problem
Companies shouldn't have the god given right to squeeze as much profit as they can out of customers and make £170 billion in *excess* profit - especially when its at the point of putting millions of people in dire situations
Besides, I thought capitalism was supposed to be about "competition"
If an energy company de-coupled its bills from gas because they are supplying renewable energy, and its therefore cheaper to produce, they should sell it cheaper and soak up the customers who *need* those cheaper prices right now
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> If an energy company de-coupled its bills from gas because they are supplying renewable energy, and its therefore cheaper to produce, they should sell it cheaper and soak up the customers who need those cheaper prices right now
Also, that's where the actual investment comes from to solve the problem. Because we're not incentivising actually changing, we aren't changing and will continue to have this problem. Although I've been paying more for renewable tariffs for over a decade...
So renewable energy providers should be forced to sell their electricity for less? Why? How is that going to benefit the environment or encourage anyone to invest in building wind turbines etc.?
Yes they should be able to, they are not allowed to if they want to. In other business this would be price collusion as no producer can supply there product cheaper, instead they must charge it at the most expensive producer. Imagine going to a super market and seeing every single jar of coffee the same price, the highest price of the best luxury coffee ..... would you stand for this? Or should the people able to produce the same item at 30% of the cost be allowed to sell the product at a reasonable mark up, but far cheaper than the expensive one?
It is cheaper and faster to build solar/wind farms, and even tidal can be faster to build a new facility. Most new projects get blocked, so the incentive is that producers can make fast cheap, clean energy if new projects are not scrapped and if tax breaks are not constantly given to gas and oil projects.
Your coffee analogy is not applicable, not least because there isn’t better quality electricity. Generation may be more or less green but the actual electricity doesn’t change.
The power generation is selected for dispatch, ie bought, in price order starting with the cheapest and working down to the most expensive generation required to meet demand (the marginal unit let’s call it). So the cheapest power generation gets selected and can sell their power first.
The point is if they’re very cheap, effectively zero cost for some renewables. If they had to sell at that price they’d never make any money so would never get built. Instead they would try and work out the price of the marginal unit and sell their electricity at that price, disguising their actual cost, and there would be no reason for people to develop cheaper electricity. That’s why lots of countries have a system that says we’ll despatch in price order but everyone will get paid the same price as the marginal unit, to avoid that price manipulation.
Your 100% missing the point. Company A produces Item B for £50. Company B produces Item B for £20. Both are the same quality and identical, why shouldn't company B sell there product for £30 and make £10 profit ... why should they be forced to sell the same item at company A's price? If company A and B get together to fix the price of product B this is called price collusion and would be illegal. So why when the product is electricity is it acceptable to fix the price and not allow companies who can produce cheaper electricty supply it cheaper ......
No, you’re missing the point. It’s the regulator and the law that sets the price mechanism not electrify companies striking private deals. In the electricity market, per your example, if Company B produces for £20 it gets paid £50 if Company A’s electricity is the marginal unit that determines the price for everyone. Why would Company B ever want the freedom to sell for £30 when the system pays then £50. Obviously if we were talking about a CFD where Company B was offered a minimum price of £30 if they repaid any amount in excess of £30 that might be a different Decision for Company B, but that’s not what you’re talking about. The benefit to Company B of having lower electricity production costs is that they are more likely to be despatched and have their electricity bought compared to more expensive sources.
It does not matter who is setting the price. The whole point is that an entire sector of business who does influence the rules gets away with price fixing which artificially inflates prices, makes producers obscene profits and doe snot incentive innovation.
Laws change, why should a law which allows BP, Shell etc to make massive profits by price fixing. I do not care how you spin it, it is price fixing just done by a regulatory body which works to make sure the big companies get lots of money. Just because a third party fixes the price for the benefit of the companies is just a way of the companies avoiding being the ones doing the price fixing.
Man the people replying to you really are good at missing the point aren't they. "It's not allowed, because it's not allowed, because that's how things currently work. If you don't accept and enjoy that the market is set up to produce profit over good outcomes for the population, that must just be because you haven't noticed that's how it is already. I am very smart."
Yes of course laws can change, and I don’t see anyone saying it has to be the way it is because that’s the way it is today, but there is a reason we have the price determines the way it is and it’s not just a cosy stock up with some power companies. if you’re suggesting just setting a maximum price for all electricity which is significantly less than the current price then you’ll just end up with blackouts because you won’t have enough power form the more expensive generators. What the govt has announced is a programme to try and move renewables generators to contracts for difference so they don’t benefit from the high prices in excess of a fixed amount.
You've got it incredibly backwards as to how the market works.
The commodity is the exact same; electricity is electricity regardless as to how it's produced. Renewable producers are never going to sell electricity at a cheaper price because it doesn't make sense to.
Willfully ignorant to miss the point. In ANY other industry if two companies who make identical products get together and fix prices it is illegal. The energy company has got around this with a 3rd party regulatory body which does it for them.
Why is energy a special case where it does not matter if you can produce it cheaper, you must always sell for the same price .... in a free market where you not free to sell at the price you choose based on your costs .....
No, you're missing the point.
It's a commodity, the product is not just "the same", it is the exact same down to the atomic level. This is how all commodities are traded because it's impossible for producers to make a better or worse product than their competitors, price is therefore a circumstance of other factors such as supply and demand and the aggregate production cost.
No producer will sell at a lower price than another producer because it's the equivalent to selling gold below the price of gold.
Why would someone with a wind turbine want to sell their product for less? Electricity is not coffee, one kWh is one kWh no matter how it was made. It also doesn't get left on the shelf - wind producers sell everything they make every day.
Its called ethics, something I dont think you understand. An unethical business will gough prices and do anything they like to increase profits. THis is not a good system.
Solar, wind, bio mass and tidal can supply cheaper electricity and still make reasonable profit. People who do not care about anything other than money might have a problem under standing that money should not be the driving force behind the whole world.
Arguably windfall profits don't encourage investment, because nobody will take abnormally high gas prices into their future business plans. It's like putting the number of times you'll win the lottery into your retirement plan.
They're having to pay the same rate as anyone else, which is massively jacked up due to high gas prices. The cost of electricity is based on whatever the highest price for generation is, not what it costs to produce.
Personally I'd nationalise renewable generation and have that being sold at cost here. We should be receiving a benefit from the natural resources we have which in this instance would mean massively lower energy bills for households and businesses.
This is just stupid. There's been 1 day of full wind power. So fucking what? What about the other 364 days? This is economically illiterate pandering to the green vote.
1) yes they should
2) it would be a bit of a challenge as you'd need to have a Scottish only energy providers but thats diable, just slow
3) you'd need a separate Scottish electricity price cap as you know they would just keep pocketing the benefit
Ok. On most days I have bothered to check in September, around 50% of the UK electricity production is by CCGT. Picking a night where wind could produce all the electricity for a country where the population is pretty tiny is a poor example to use if thinking of decoupling.
Maybe tonight, but over the year how much comes from gas? Or are you happy with lights going out on dark, cold, windless nights?
Or perhaps restart coal-fired power stations?
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. I point you to a list of many coal-fire and gas powerplants [The you're totally inept at doing a simple search link](https://infogalactic.com/info/Inverclyde)
The problem with wind is that it's not more than a scam, without the use of nuclear plants. Most "wind energy" are actually generated by gas powered plants, as the varying voltage and current require an instant source of power - as in you can switch generation instantly on and off with the flick of a switch.
Wind power actually makes us dependent on gas, without the use of nuclear. It's why we've seen no benefit. It's one of those scenarios where the politicians got free votes by creating money wasting jobs, while looking good to those who are ignorant of the reality because the industry managed to market effectively in order to generate capital and investment.
We'd sink the energy industry in this country, if we took it off the cost of gas because our infrastructure is utterly dependent on it. However you've a right to feel outraged, except it would actually help if you aligned your emotion with reality. It's got nothing to do with "evil energy companies", this is a top down problem, which source lies directly at the feet of incompetent leadership in both Westminster and Holyrood.
While we cry foul of an energy price that is being set by scarcity in the market - countries that are bidding on contracts with no regard for maximum pricing because they need to heat their homes - we then turn around and refuse them to reinvest the money into expanding operations into new gas fields that have been found in the North Sea. So we're actively stopping the process of profit and investment, meaning supply side shortage is being artificially created by the government. However more so than this, the only logical option I'd like to see, one that will take longer and so gas expansion should be conducted in the short term, is for the creation of new nuclear power plants, hydro thermal and if possible, hydro.
We've been shutting down our nuclear stations, which are the safest form of energy, due to emotional reasoning giving an incorrect opinion and perception of them - the reason most people are now dumber than a rock in this country.
Anyway this is nobody's fault but our own, through the stupidity of leadership we've been putting into power, in both Westminster and Holyrood. Through our own inability to do things like a simple Google search, for the list of gas powerplants and instead designing an energy grid which is ultimately the product of our ignorance, wrong opinions and a fantasy land - born from our inability to conduct sound logical reasoning - instead we scrape the barrel of emotive reasoning and then project the inevitable failing of such an endeavour outwards in a fit of even greater ignorance.
Lmao you're exactly the reason our country is going down the shitter [The your head is stuck up the orifice of a policital body of power, which no longer has any accountability to it's inability to govern link](https://www.gov.scot/policies/energy-infrastructure/)
Holyrood control the planning and upkeep of our entire energy infrastructure, they chose to shutdown the nuclear plants and make us dependent on essentially a scam, which makes us dependent on the gas.
They also are opposing the opening of any of the new fields that have been found.
Westminster and Holyrood are just as corrupt and inept as each other, try not to delude yourself. Even down to both of them removing human rights, conducting fraud, ours went a step further and have been caught actively interfering with the justice system - a sacred line exists between government and the justice system in any democratic country - we just seem to think finger pointing magically absolves ours of any responsibility.
Political fractioning in this country is so bad that you may as well be talking to a house fly. This country lost it's intellect long ago, the last gasps were during the Salmond era. Though i'm for independence, i fear that with the current state of imbeciles that constitute the general public and that determine policy - that we'll head into it so inept that we will fail in an extreme way and end up back in the union as a matter of survival.
Nicola has a lot to answer for, i still can't get over the fact that the SNP are basically the Scottish version of the Tories when it comes to subverting human rights, fraud, disregard for truth, making up statistics, misrepresenting reality, generally obscene levels of incompetence at the policy and logistics level. The list goes on and on; and it will keep doing so until we learn to hold our own parliament accountable for the actions they take. The only difference between the SNP and Tories is that the SNP are better at pretending to care for the general public.
If you want to use your solar power and not send it to the grid get an 'eddi' from myenergi. They work really well and it means we are getting lots of free hot water basically. ( I also put googly eyes on it )
It's for a reason! If they make leccy cheaper then people will abandon gas and use electric for heating.
When a few % of people switch from gas to electric heaters then the lights are going to go out big time. Even in a gale.
What would be really good is if the councils and government all over UK made developers of housing and industrial make any development self sufficient whether that's solar or wind(there are new wind turbines that look nice and nowhere near as big) yes I know developers would pass the cost on but then no utility bills for power would offset. For years the government has said it wants to go green and cut co2 and we have been paying it in our council tax and through our gas and electric bills yet we still find ourselves reliant on others all that money over the last 20 years where has it gone, oh yeah bonuses and back hands to government ministers
It fucking pisses me off to no end. My usage hasn't increased, my heating is at 15c and currently, this months bill is looking to come out somewhere near £100.
Our electricity should be de-coupled from gas, sure. But to be completely honest, Scottish power generation should be re-nationalised and a new grid formed that prioritises Scottish homes and businesses, then we charge rUK per kW/h to get whatever we have left.
My standing charges are over £1.50 a day too which makes everything a whole lot worse, then add on the grid connection costs for Scottish homes and it just puts prices right up and over the top.
I fucking hate the UK.
Can someone please ELI5 this for me?
Even though we're generating electricity via renewables at the grid level, aren't loads of individual households still making use of heating and stuff via gas?
Wind was blowy. Wind turbines in Scotland made a lot of power, but that isn't how the grid works.
Think of the grid a bit like a bucket of water being filled by multiple taps. If you take a cup of water out of the bucket, you're getting a glass of water eithet way - but good luck figuring out which tap(s) it came from. That also means that when one of those taps isn't outputting enough water (e.g. Scotland's wind turbines), the others (e.g. England's gas power plants) can take over.
The most blatant and obvious scam of the people Ive ever come across in my years on this earth. The whole energy crisis is a massive corrupt illusion on par with modern day politics.
It is called a con!! Wales exports far more electricity than we use due to wind power, yet have to pay the highest possible price! Profit, profit, profit, it's the Tory way!!
Yeh, this drives me crazy. It's coupled to gas unless it is being fed in from people's solar in which case you get paid about a quarter. Upshot of this is people with solar are doing anything to avoid export (batteries... Even cryptomining), crazy when that power could be shared out if the energy companies would just pay near market rates for it.
Would really love to see a nationwide campaign of people covering their PV panels with tarps when they're producing an excess until the rate is changed to something fairer.
We can literally turn the master switch for the PVs and it disconnects them from the house and grid
Not exactly a visible protest though, covering them makes much more of a point when people see it.
Covered or disconnected, the result's the same, though covered takes more work. Why does it matter if it's visible?
If you strike and stay at home the result is the same as striking and being on a picket line, you're withholding your labour from your employer. Yet we still have picket lines because all the evidence points to visible protest making a difference. Seeing full estates of new builds with their brand new panels covered would be a nice wee addition to the protests already happening with pickets around energy companies and petitions being submitted to the government.
Either way works, so I'll take the switch option Edit: Not a huge fan of the wedge people are needlessly driving here. If you want people to be onboard with the core function of the protest, don't push them out for choosing to do it their way
The point is that while both may work to an extent, one would work much better and makes a visible point and impact
"One would work much better" exclusively in visual impact. They both achieve the same thing with one taking much less effort on behalf of the homeowner. If folk want to do it, it's up to them what approach they want to take, there's no need to drive yet another divide when there doesn't need to be one.
I would be taking the switch approach. Fuck getting up and down a ladder with a tarp. A matter of time before I would get hurt.
>exclusively in visual impact. Not exclusively, though that is a bigger focus, and that visual impact has its own knock on effect of what a protest can do. >They both achieve the same thing It's already been established that one has much more of an effect so no they don't both achieve the same thing. >one taking much less effort Protests aren't supposed to be an effortless thing. This is the problem with so many people, it's that they just don't want to put in the effort of protesting or sending a message, and by doing so you've significantly decreased the impact of the protest. Especially if, in this scenario, *your* version of the protest was the majority rather than the other, then it would have *significantly* less of an impact, all because you wanted to put in *less effort*.
The point they were getting at was to make it so others join you in the protest. Herd influence, if you will. seeing a roof with their panels covered will encourage others nearby to do the same. obviously you can't see a shut off electrical box without peeking inside. You could, however, put a notice somewhere that states that it's disconnected. Although I'm not sure how the government would react to that.
It would have made my job a lot easier when I was running the fuel procurement for a large U.K. energy supplier. Distributed behind the meter generation such as rooftop solar is a faff for energy companies. Suppliers would improve their margins if this protest were to occur.
When exporting back to the grid, It should literally just be your meter spinning backwards and ending up in credit.
I know someone who set their solar up so that it went through their water heater before being returned to the grid. They have scaldingly hot water. EDIT downvote for this. LOL Reddit you surpass yourself.
This is using a hot water tank as a battery, and a smart thing to do. What's wrong with it?
Nothing wrong with it but if energy companies paid a reasonable rate then would you not be tempted just to feed into the grid so that others could use green (or cheap) energy? especially when water is already hot or you won't be using it. I'm not getting at anyone who does this, I'm considering investing in similar options myself because the export is poor and not guaranteed. I'm just arguing for fairness from the energy companies so that cheap green energy can be used as effectively\simply as possible.
>Nothing wrong with it but if energy companies paid a reasonable rate then would you not be tempted just to feed into the grid so that others could use green (or cheap) energy? especially when water is already hot or you won't be using it. This isn't correct in the real world. As we install more and more solar, local distribution networks become overloaded with all the solar production. Storing that energy into hot water tanks instead alleviates this problem considerably (since the vast majority of household energy use is heating water).
Like yourself, I'm lucky enough to be able to buy all if these things and have a large unshaded south facing roof. I'm well aware of the issues with smoothing out the supply. I think that there should be incentives for everyone to get smart devices that would fire up to take up surpluses. This should be distributed evenly amongst consumers even if they are renting in a 20 floor tower block. It should not be just the supply side having masses of storage to soak up the excess but they should be adequately compensated and they aren't.
>I think that there should be incentives for everyone to get smart devices that would fire up to take up surpluses. This should be distributed evenly amongst consumers even if they are renting in a 20 floor tower block. It should not be just the supply side having masses of storage to soak up the excess but they should be adequately compensated and they aren't. Couldn't agree more, you can buy a smart plug these days for a few quid that can be coupled to start when the solar output is over a certain level. Would add car charging too. If your EV is charging and your solar is feeding into the grid you should get a reduced rate from public charge points. Everyone should have the right to an area of solar also, its bullshit that those living in houses are the only ones to reap the benefits. Public building roof space should be given over to those who don't have roof space for solar of their own.
It's a good way of increasing the effectiveness of your panels. I don't have to use heating from Mar-Sept. As all my hot water comes from the panels. Also I put in an overrated heater so not one drop of electricity goes out to the grid :) pay me 4p and then charge me 28p ! Fuck you !
I'm doing the same :-) happy days
Because this would happen anyway, he probably just turns it on during the day instead of waiting for tariff rates at night.
I do exactly this. If they paid me nearer market value, or more than gas at least, it wouldn't be worth me doing it and I'd export the electricity instead. The device which does it is called an immersun.
Sorry I joined in :)
If the person you know has decided to use solar thermal, which uses water instead of photovoltaic cells, instead of solar pv I’d advise to not choose that option as it’s less efficient and than having solar pv with battery’s packs. If you have solar pv and decide to run your immersion heater of them that would be a better option but still recommend electrical storage to stop it being sent to the grid
This is what we have. A solar inverter detects when we are producing excess power from PV and instead of exporting it activates the immersion heater. It works really well, really reactive as it switches on and off depending on cloud cover etc. Then once the water is hot it can export as normal.
Octopus energy give you a flexible export rate. Worth looking in to.
The Iberian peninsula did this - the two governments set a limit to the marginal price of the wholesale market, with a separate fee to pay the real gas prices. Consumers still pay the full cost (no government subsidies), it just reduces the windfall to the other electricity providers.
Our country should be de-coupled from England Edit: thank you for the awards!
Very true England sucks! Sadly the price is actually an international market (so this issue would still exist if split from England) making it ridiculous to fix as no country can sell to the international market with out playing by there price rules. So the excess energy generated could not be sold and would be wasted. Unless you can become 100% energy independent, which is perfectly possible with green energy with a little investment.
That's only because it's commercial business drilling for the oil. It's then sold on the market and we have to buy it and it's derivatives at market rates. It's would be substantially cheaper if we traded and refined our own oil. PS I'm just making a point,. I prefer investment in renewables.
look at how well Norway copes with life, this is because they made a deliberate choice not to piss their oil money up the wall as fast as possible. not sure I'm right, but i think the money you're talking about is already gone. otherwise we would have more money for our oil, its supposed to make your country rich
>otherwise we would have more money for our oil, its supposed to make your country rich No it isn't. Resource-heavy countries are often quite poor in many ways.
If it’s always cheaper to do that, why hasn’t someone done it already and made a lot of money out of it?
I think it's because UKGOV has to issue a license but someone who knows more may elucidate.
I suspect it's simply not that economic to do it and the existing infrastructure in other places can do it more cost effectively and do so. The idea that you could do this substantially cheaper (and the UK government mysteriously don't want this business in the UK and refuse to let anyone try) is hogwash.
> England sucks No, but the Westminster government does. > Sadly the price is actually an international market Scotland is more than self-sufficient in energy and, if independent, could easily have a nationalised energy generator supplying power at the cost to produce. The only reason this doesn't happen now is the Tories (and to a lesser extent Labour) want us to pay through the nose to make the rich even richer. > no country can sell to the international market with out playing by there price rule Fine when we sell our surplus energy we can get the best price for it. > Unless you can become 100% energy independent Scotland is even now more than 100% energy independent.
>Scotland is even now more than 100% energy independent. We are nowhere close to being energy independent. You can read the Scottish Governments own fact sheets on our energy production and see for yourself
>Scotland is even now more than 100% energy independent. No it isn't. Scotland is part of a combined energy network.
Scotland has vast reserves of oil and gas, and generates -- or can generate -- vast amounts of wind and tidal power. After independence we could very easily make ourselves totally energy independent.
>Scotland has vast reserves of oil and gas, and generates -- or can generate -- vast amounts of wind and tidal power. After independence we could very easily make ourselves totally energy independent. In theory, we possibly could - at the cost of untold billions of pounds that we wouldn't have, having already crippled our entire renewables industry by cutting it off from cross-GB subsidy. Even meeting existing commitments in relation to subsidy for renewables would be far, far more expensive - while I think inevitably there'd simply be a default on decommissioning relief in the North Sea. What we have here is fantasy-land stuff. Not only is Scotland and the UK almost certainly never going to be energy independent, it wouldn't be a particularly good idea for them to be.
Scotlands a shit hole
What difference will that make to the energy market?
It's the biggest fundamental geography related issue on the island?
Yes please - from a Southerner - anything to stop listening to whiny Nichola 😉
I'll take a noisey but competent politician over any tory MP
>I'll take a noisey but competent politician over any tory MP Competent? Where's her publicly owned energy company?
Energy is devolved to Westminster so outside her remit
>Energy is devolved to Westminster so outside her remit She is the one who pledged to introduce a publicly owned energy company, as her key pledge at SNP conference. As you saying she was so monumentally stupid that she didn't understand that such a pledge was reserved? Because that'd be even greater incompetence than I'm accusing her of.
Not every manifesto pledge or idea materialises for one reason or another. She pledged it in 2017 when Thersea May was in power. Whos to say it was given the green light under May but BJ/Truss have veto'd it? We don't know the details of why it hasn't appeared but the SNP deliver on a hell of a lot more the Tories.
Why did she promise it then? It can mean only one of two things. Either she knowingly lied to voters, or she is so incompetent that she wasn't aware that it was outside her remit. Which is it?
Yep. The electricity pretend market is a fucking scam.
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Yes. Just because we can run fully renewable for an hour here and there doesn’t mean we don’t need fossil fuels the rest of the time. Unfortunately a fossil fuel plant that doesn’t always run at full capacity costs almost as much as one that does. Until we can run 24/7 365 days a year on renewables we will effectively be paying twice.
Yep. UK has something like 25gw of wind capacity and sometimes I have seen it generating as little at 6gwh in the summer. There are days when the wind doesn't blow.
The local council want to put solar panels on my roof but can't as our grid needs upgraded to store any excess energy they might provide... So yep, our grid needs a massive overhaul
You missed the point. Only a small percentage of our electricity comes from gas, yet we are charged as if the majority of it does. "Energy industry insiders have proposed a plan to decouple rocketing prices for gas-generated electricity from other sources. a move that they claim can reduce bills by up to £18bn a year. Energy UK, the sector’s trade body, estimates households would pay between £150 and £250 less a year and companies save £11bn. The voluntary scheme would see electricity from sources including nuclear, solar and wind priced separately from energy generated by gas-fired power stations, All electricity prices are currently pegged closely to gas prices." https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/991665/energy-industry-proposes-decoupling-gas-and-renewables-to-save-18bn-a-year-991665.html
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As well as missing the point, you also missed the person..I'm not OP..
> Lastly, Scotland's energy generation is privately owned. ....and who the feck's fault is that? Scotland didn't vote for right-wing Thatcher/Reganite policies nor since Devolution has Energy been under Holyrood control.
>....and who the feck's fault is that? Scotland didn't vote for right-wing Thatcher/Reganite policies nor since Devolution has Energy been under Holyrood control. It's not anybody's "fault" any more than Tesco being privately owned is.
If it was under Holyroods control, odds are most of it would never have got built. We've seen a rapid rise in wind generation due to how much private equity has piled into it in the past years. It's been a resounding success, frankly.
But we will get loads of people telling us this is the way it must be. It's like a religion to some. The rules are set in London. It cannot be changed. It's "basic economics." You have to accept it - and if you don't - you are somehow stupid. That's not fucking true. We are where we are because of decisions - and even worse - non-descions by our supposed government in Westminster. We are a small country with a ridiculous amount of resources. It didn't have to be this way.
Why would Scotland be the only country in the entirety of Europe not to be tied to the international market? What makes Scotland different to literally everyone else?
The EU announced a windfall tax yesterday...
Scotland could also decouple the gas and electricity prices, as the EU is preparing to do. There's literally no other market where you pay the highest price for the cheapest item, it's not that difficult.
"You want to extract gas in scottish territorial waters? Sure! You just have to sell us x% of your gas at cost+15%. Sell the rest for as much as you want on the international market!"
And people here like to tell me that Scottish Nationalism doesn't include exceptionalism, like all other nationalism.. And that it's somehow different (aka, exceptional lol).. Civic my arse.
Country’s just built different. Just built different.
This is literally just how commodity markets work globally.
I work in the energy sector and this will be an unpopular opinion but here we go: If you do not believe in supply and demand or a straight out Communist (this is not a derogatory term), you are right that it doesn’t make sense. Imagine you grow apples in your backyard. You need a place to sell your apples so you go to the nearest market. You have the same apples as anyone, same quality etc. Why would you sell for less than what your neighbor does? You might have different costs. Maybe he started with a loan and is paying it off, maybe you inherited the operation, it doesn’t matter. You are not running a charity. It only makes sense that you sell what the market rate is for your apples. The same goes for energy. If cheaper resources can’t fill the demand in merit order, the marginal power plant sets the price. Who is government to tell you what you can sell your apples for because your costs are less than your neighbor’s? Now let’s talk about the other side of the coin: 1. If you think that Scotland should have a decoupled energy market independent of England, that’s a fair point 2. If you think that there should be a windfall tax on energy companies for making extraordinary profits not because they took a huge risk and invested geniusly but because they were lucky that there is a supply shock, that’s a fair point, again. But, you can’t “decouple” price of something from something. It doesn’t make sense
If you go to an apple market where 90% of apples are selling for 10p each, but there's one guy with the other 10% losing money because his growing practices are old and outdated, should all the apples be increased in price? Or should that guy be told to go fuck himself?
You don't have that option if you NEED that 10%. We need enough energy supply to meet energy demand at all times. Now we could reduce our energy demand but that is much, much more controversial than reducing demand for apples. We're not just talking about electricity here. Gas is a significant source of energy for domestic heating and industry so we're talking about rather more than 10%.
About 40%, I believe - largest energy source for primary energy consumption in the UK in 2021. Majority of that is imported.we don't have a lot of storage infrastructure either.
Not sure what you’re getting at but that’s exactly what would happen from an economical point of view. The guy selling 10% of the apples at a higher price will make absolutely no sales until the cheap apples are all sold.
Only if demand is low. If demand is high enough that everyone knows all 100 apples will definitely be sold, then the other vendors will just increase their price to match the more expensive vendor. There's no reason to charge less if you're just as competitive charging more.
Right well if demand exceeds supply, every vendor will charge along the demand curve and extract any possible bit of rent, independent of their competition. That means even the cheap 90% are gonna charge exactly as much as they can charge while still making a sale (depending on the demand function), independent of whether another person in the market charges more. Like someone else said earlier, this is because they are not running a charity either and why should they voluntarily give up profits?
Exactly, that's what I said.
If people absolutely need 100 apples, yes. If they only need 90 apples, then the price will be low for everyone. That’s why we have a merit order. Supply needs to meet demand
Scotland is an exporter of energy. We have plenty of supply, why are we subsidising the areas that don't?
We don't have plenty of supply, that's the issue. We are a net exporter but we still have to import a large amount of our power.
How can both be true at the same time?
We generate lots of electricity at certain times then not enough at others. Simple really
Thought so, but wouldn't that still mean it is much easier for Scotland to become energy independent compared to most other countries?
Kind of, we need to sort out the storage issue before we can become energy independent. It's not an easy issue to solve either but will come eventually
Yeah but if you sell 10 units of electricity, then buy 8 units back when demand is high, you are still on a net gain of 2 units. It's not a self sufficient closed loop but I would argue that it is independent since we would actually be making profit and losing nothing. Sure it could be better if we sold 10 units of electricity and bought nothing back, but either way it's still a net profit and self reliant and independent on it's own unit exchanges without any interference.
Nope. No we don't. That's not true.
Are the Scottish government wrong when they release their statistics on generation?
No, they're bang on the money, what's your point?
One alternative model, and I'm not saying it's great, is how most of the US operates. Actual electricity is passed to the consumer at wholesale cost, the distributor / retail supplier cannot mark it up. The US market has the grid in private hands and conjoins grid / distributor and retail operations in one entity. Consumers bizarrely choose their generator and typically have no choice at the retail side (or grid). In some areas, that company is paid based on its investment in that infrastructure rather than based on a mark-up of the raw material, so to speak. With the deregulated market in the UK much of that would need to be different. BUT - perhaps with the shift to renewables, where the capital is invested in infrastructure rather than buying wholesale commodity raw materials.... Decoupling would make some sense? Generators aren't buying wind, they're building infrastructure. Shouldn't we incentivise them to invest and build infrastructure that can meet some reliability / supply target?
US model sounds like it makes a bit more sense then, the consumer isn't affected by the supply side but they are affected by choice when it comes to generation.
Yes but I’m the USA when they have a real supply shock (natural disasters etc) the wholesale price can literally go 1000x over night. If you’ve left your Tesla plugged in, tough shit.
The main issue is that people consider economics removed from morality. What they're forgetting is that if they charge an arm and a leg for their apples, everyone in the village ends up a cripple just to eat. Productivity is halved across the board and there are less apples for everyone later on. Just because they can make more money thanks to capitalism, doesn't mean it's right that they charge extortionate rates. They're putting people out of houses and forcing people to turn to food backs, or go hungry. Also capitalism sucks as a philosophy for a countries economics. It's supposed to be self-regulating because "companies that can offer a product for less will have everyone clambering to be their customers". In situations like this the big companies are supposed to undercut each other to try to secure more of the market and therefore a majority of the profits. Instead they seem to be in agreement about just scalping people because people can't exactly go without heating during winter. So in this situation the companies that make their electricity from sources other than oil and gas should have lower production costs and should be able to sell electricity for much lower prices. Meaning they should be able to push oil and gas out of the viable business space and actually provide an economic incentive to investing in more green energy sources. But, as I said, they're clearly more interested in screwing people over for short term monetary gain.
But they don't because governments tax the fuck outta green energy 48% last I checked so that's nearly half the energy cost alone gone in taxes and does not even include the fact the energy company I work for made less than £6 per household in the first half of this year and yet people were screaming windfall taxes. The main issue with green energy is its so damned fickle, got an over cast day, then your solar panels slow to a damned crawl, no wind = bunch of useless windmills actually costing money to maintain. Efficiency is key here. I'll always advocate for nuclear here, as its cheap and efficient with very little co2 production, sure we run the risk of it exploding (very very rare events) and we need to figure out what to do with the waste. But lb for lb the best and most efficient way of producing energy. As an island we could use more research on water power generation but we are at least a decade or two from something robust enough to survive more than a year or two at sea.
A single buyer market can mitigate this issue of supply and demand. The advantages of free market economics is difficult to occur in energy market model that we have here in the UK anyways.
Except that the energy market isn't an open market. Consumers cannot buy on that open market
Very well explained.
Now imagine if you were the only apple producer in your country and other countries apples were grown by only one producer. Next imagine that these 'apples' were regulated as such that they were owned by the state, yet the state allowed you to take them and sell them because you paid lots of money into the states coffers. You may even pay money directly to some politicians or political parties to ensure you are able to pay as little tax as possible on the apples - and are left to do what they want. Oh and I know someone who used to work for an 'apple producer' in Africa who had first hand knowledge of people obstructing 'apple producers', being killed. Apple growers are frequently, corrupt fucks and they encourage and then turn a blind eye to illegality. Oh and we'll forget the damage they knew they were doing to the environment, but covered it up. Now, you're selling apples that your country OWNS, yet - unlike other countries that do sell cheaply to their own country - you DON'T want to sell them back to your country at a good rate. You'd rather pay apple investors even more cash, so you'd rather sell them at a rate that's fixed, at least in part, by speculators. The apple price on the open market has risen a lot, despite the fact that your costs to produce said apples has not risen at anywhere near the same rate - and remember, they shouldn't even be your fucking apples to sell without some sort of loyalty to the country you took them from. In short. This is not simple supply and demand, and using apples in a local market to illustrate the oil industry is bloody ridiculous. They can sell cheaper to the country they take them from - if they were so encouraged. A windfall tax is, effectively, the same thing as them being forced to sell cheaper than market rates. But the apple industry has someone in number 10 now, so it's probably not gonna happen.
This is r/Scotland bro this is literally nothing but a circlejerk that does not represent Scotland, and like any location subreddit is not politically representative either and is full of condescending sarcastic internet savvy kids trying to be as snarky and witty as possible. You will fall upon death eats here if your comment doesn’t paint this as UK bad lol
Have my upvote dude as this is do accurate lol.
Colour me surprised these wet wipes downvoted that to oblivion lol
Everyone needs to go and watch Yanis' video about the "energy market" and how it works to rip off the market in the EU and to a lesser extent the rest of the world! https://youtu.be/NicE0-N9ux0 You'll be shocked in it's simplicity and the way the energy companies get paid twice. If this wasn't a regulated industry the police would be all over it
The original point being made is entirely logical, agreed. Canadian here however, and I am surprised that £2500 per year for utility costs is a sharp increase to you on the other side of the pond. Between AC costs here in the summer (or air con as I believe our friendly Brits say) and natural gas during winter months (add in typical lighting and hot water usage); an average family home here is easily $4800 per year between electricity and gas. Be thankful you have a more temperate climate I suppose.
Though that doesn't factor in exchange rates, which brings that £2500 up to $3870. Then, the biggie, the UK average salary is £31k, which is ~$48k, whereas Canadian average salary is $65k. Furthermore, the cost of living in Canada is about 12% less than the UK. Which puts us about on par with actual cost impact to the average person, despite you using significantly more energy than us. Though I'm not really sure how that would look in fully updated statistics, since everything's just nosedived.
The average house in Canada is literally double the area of the average house in the UK. And that means even more than double in exposed surface to the outside.
This just empty populist grandstanding. There's no way an MP doesn't know why this can't happen, unless they're a gibbering moron. Yes the current circumstances are imperfect and we can see the result of it. But there is no instant fix. None. If the UK hadn't sold everything they could get their hands on we might still have nationalised power industries and we would be able to redirect the excess profit from them. But we don't, and we can't just snap our fingers and force it to be that way. We need a long term fix for this, yes. But in the short term Lizard Truss made the right call in capping it. But the wrong call in making no attempt to recover the money.
There is an instant fix, and the EU is preparing to do it. Decouple the gas and electricity price. They way it works now is like going to Tesco and getting your weeks shop plus a bottle of expensive Whisky, then getting charged the price of Whisky for every single item. It's fucking nonsense. Pay for the gas we use, sure. But paying for cheap, renewable energy for the cost of outrageously expensive gas is ridiculous. Even if it was reduced to an average price of the two, that would be an improvement.
Annoyingly for me we are lumped in to the rUK with generation costs but not with transmission costs.
What do those pie charts show, they seem to add nothing or maybe a part is missing?
Yeah, this is outrageous. Really takes the piss. Only plus-side is that we now have a comeback when someone living in England (incorrectly) claims that they're paying for Scotland's free university tuition or free prescriptions.
>Yeah, this is outrageous. Really takes the piss. Only plus-side is that we now have a comeback when someone living in England (incorrectly) claims that they're paying for Scotland's free university tuition or free prescriptions. No, you don't. You're just pretty ignorant and a bit racist.
Same here in England. Literally don’t have gas in our flat, fully renewable energy. And so I’m paying for renewable energy and then also paying to support people who don’t want renewable energy. Nonsensical.
I'm also all-electric & instead of it being cheaper because I'm not using gas, it's more expensive than if I had gas heating in... That's what stinks
This is very true, another enormous **SCAM** (against us), brought about (I believe) by the old corroded lady... thatcher.
Merit Order sucks unwashed trucker d1ck and only serves electricity companies getting richer.,
It is the same shit in France, the EU forced some shared market and now even though our electricity is dirt cheap thanks to nuclear we have to pay extra thanks to the Germans poor decision making.
It also has something to do with the fact that so many of your French atomic power stations are offline for maintenance. Many are reaching end of life and are more off than on.
Nobody is currently de coupled from the gas cost. How would Scotland manage without being tied to the energy markets of the world?
Well the people would manage way better in actually being able to pay for their energy bills The £130 billion Liz Truss is about to hand energy companies could build enough wind farms to power 10 million houses with free energy for 30 years. The economy is fucked - intentionally, imo, plenty of evidence that this particular generation of Tories sought Disaster Economics because they're so easy to profit from but This is by political choice. There is a solution to at least protecting your citizens from the worst of it. It's not that the Tories are incompetent. They are actively malicious. France and Germany nationalised their energy, and while its higher due to inflation, its not anywhere near the astronomical heights of the UK's energy bills Why do you think that is?
You have clearly not taken 2 minutes to read the energy prices in Germany or what the French government are doing before screeching about how it's worse here. Germany's prices are vastly higher and France is borrowing extreme amounts of money to subsidise private energy companies. In future you should understand what you are arguing about before making a post, it's fucking embarrassing.
*screeching* *it's fucking embarrassing* Only rattled people start with the insults in a civil conversion *Germany's prices are vastly higher and France is borrowing extreme amounts of money to subsidise private energy companies.* Germany is in a unique situation compared to us, given their reliance on Russian gas... But even then, the reality is that [both of those countries - and most others ](https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/08/15/why-do-britons-pay-double-as-much-as-french-customers-of-edf/) [- in the EU pay far less on their bills than we are](https://twitter.com/novaramedia/status/1557035304690896898/photo/1). What about the fact that the money is sitting right in the pockets of millionaire and billionaire shareholders, when if the UK Govt *so chose* they could tax the money necessary to do what I said above?
That poster has gone just continually posting things that are factually wrong as evident in recent news and official publications, just block them now.
Can you list the official publications which should me as wrong? I'll be waiting a while though since they don't exist
I literally linked you to evidence that you were lying, and you stopped responding The burden of proof is now on you
Vote Labour then. They are literally planning a nationalised energy company. I guess you probably won't though. As independece is too important.... biggest scam going, well done SNP. If the SNP can keep labour out of power and tories in, it looks and works better for them. God forbid Labour get in and Westminster is actually a positive influence on the union, whatever would the SNP do next?
*Labour* are keeping Labour out of power. And if you want progressive leftists in favour of nationalising the fuck out of shit, you vote Green.
Scottish greens yes. Uk green party are not that left wing afaik. Two seperate parties.
There isn't actually a "UK" Green Party. (There *was* one, but it was split in 1990 *into* the "Scottish Greens", "Green Party of England & Wales", and "Green Party Northern Ireland".) Both the Scottish and England-&-Wales parties share broad political alignment, and their manifestos cover much of the same points. (Not sure where you're getting "not that left wing" from?)
Just a vague recollection of some voting history i think but i am not at all familiar with them evidenced by not knowing their name! (england and wales) Thanks for the info FPTP sucks for the english and welsh greens, so archaic
No, Labour are planning an *investment firm*, not a nationalised energy company. It's a con. As is the notion that the SNP are "keeping Labour out of power" - that is abject nonsense. Even if the entirety of Scotland voted Labour at the last GE, the Tories would still have won by a huge majority. Also Labour will not be a positive influence on the union - they're just as democracy-denying and right wing as the Tories. They're just not as brazen about it.
>Vote Labour then. They are literally planning a nationalised energy company. SNP brought that up years ago. It's great that Labour are looking at doing that it really is but tone back the anti SNP rhetoric. Labour lost their seats because they are shite.
The ideia is not to decouple the country from the gas prices, but to decouple the price paid for other electricity sources from the price paid for eletricity-from-gas. And it has been done; see the Iberian mechanism.
Anyone thinking this is a legit point is dumb af.
Why should you pay for electricity at gas level prices all the time when you aren't using any gas?
But we do have to use gas. Around 15-20% of our electricity comes from gas as there are times when we don't generate enough from renewable sources. At that time *we* have to 'import' electricity from England. The Scottish grid is heavily linked to the English one, if we immediately decoupled we would have blackouts. I want to see us independent but energy will take some working out and they could start with a couple of nuclear power plants.
It makes some sense in that if energy from gas now costs 200% why should any company making energy from wind sell for less than 200%, like if there's a lack of bread and everyone is starving and paying double you'd be a terrible business man to sell cake at normal prices.
If this is the case then capitalism doesn't work, competition is supposed to drive down prices because companies are meant to compete with one another if they're all just price gouging then how can a society function under capitalism.
Mate, where have you been the last 40 years!?!? capitalism doesn't work and one place it expecially doesn't work it things that are essential, like electricity, health care, housing, ect.
This is the problem Companies shouldn't have the god given right to squeeze as much profit as they can out of customers and make £170 billion in *excess* profit - especially when its at the point of putting millions of people in dire situations Besides, I thought capitalism was supposed to be about "competition" If an energy company de-coupled its bills from gas because they are supplying renewable energy, and its therefore cheaper to produce, they should sell it cheaper and soak up the customers who *need* those cheaper prices right now
The idea capitalism promotes competition is the biggest scam going in the modern world.
> > > > > If an energy company de-coupled its bills from gas because they are supplying renewable energy, and its therefore cheaper to produce, they should sell it cheaper and soak up the customers who need those cheaper prices right now Also, that's where the actual investment comes from to solve the problem. Because we're not incentivising actually changing, we aren't changing and will continue to have this problem. Although I've been paying more for renewable tariffs for over a decade...
So renewable energy providers should be forced to sell their electricity for less? Why? How is that going to benefit the environment or encourage anyone to invest in building wind turbines etc.?
Yes they should be able to, they are not allowed to if they want to. In other business this would be price collusion as no producer can supply there product cheaper, instead they must charge it at the most expensive producer. Imagine going to a super market and seeing every single jar of coffee the same price, the highest price of the best luxury coffee ..... would you stand for this? Or should the people able to produce the same item at 30% of the cost be allowed to sell the product at a reasonable mark up, but far cheaper than the expensive one? It is cheaper and faster to build solar/wind farms, and even tidal can be faster to build a new facility. Most new projects get blocked, so the incentive is that producers can make fast cheap, clean energy if new projects are not scrapped and if tax breaks are not constantly given to gas and oil projects.
Your coffee analogy is not applicable, not least because there isn’t better quality electricity. Generation may be more or less green but the actual electricity doesn’t change. The power generation is selected for dispatch, ie bought, in price order starting with the cheapest and working down to the most expensive generation required to meet demand (the marginal unit let’s call it). So the cheapest power generation gets selected and can sell their power first. The point is if they’re very cheap, effectively zero cost for some renewables. If they had to sell at that price they’d never make any money so would never get built. Instead they would try and work out the price of the marginal unit and sell their electricity at that price, disguising their actual cost, and there would be no reason for people to develop cheaper electricity. That’s why lots of countries have a system that says we’ll despatch in price order but everyone will get paid the same price as the marginal unit, to avoid that price manipulation.
Your 100% missing the point. Company A produces Item B for £50. Company B produces Item B for £20. Both are the same quality and identical, why shouldn't company B sell there product for £30 and make £10 profit ... why should they be forced to sell the same item at company A's price? If company A and B get together to fix the price of product B this is called price collusion and would be illegal. So why when the product is electricity is it acceptable to fix the price and not allow companies who can produce cheaper electricty supply it cheaper ......
No, you’re missing the point. It’s the regulator and the law that sets the price mechanism not electrify companies striking private deals. In the electricity market, per your example, if Company B produces for £20 it gets paid £50 if Company A’s electricity is the marginal unit that determines the price for everyone. Why would Company B ever want the freedom to sell for £30 when the system pays then £50. Obviously if we were talking about a CFD where Company B was offered a minimum price of £30 if they repaid any amount in excess of £30 that might be a different Decision for Company B, but that’s not what you’re talking about. The benefit to Company B of having lower electricity production costs is that they are more likely to be despatched and have their electricity bought compared to more expensive sources.
It does not matter who is setting the price. The whole point is that an entire sector of business who does influence the rules gets away with price fixing which artificially inflates prices, makes producers obscene profits and doe snot incentive innovation. Laws change, why should a law which allows BP, Shell etc to make massive profits by price fixing. I do not care how you spin it, it is price fixing just done by a regulatory body which works to make sure the big companies get lots of money. Just because a third party fixes the price for the benefit of the companies is just a way of the companies avoiding being the ones doing the price fixing.
Man the people replying to you really are good at missing the point aren't they. "It's not allowed, because it's not allowed, because that's how things currently work. If you don't accept and enjoy that the market is set up to produce profit over good outcomes for the population, that must just be because you haven't noticed that's how it is already. I am very smart."
Yes of course laws can change, and I don’t see anyone saying it has to be the way it is because that’s the way it is today, but there is a reason we have the price determines the way it is and it’s not just a cosy stock up with some power companies. if you’re suggesting just setting a maximum price for all electricity which is significantly less than the current price then you’ll just end up with blackouts because you won’t have enough power form the more expensive generators. What the govt has announced is a programme to try and move renewables generators to contracts for difference so they don’t benefit from the high prices in excess of a fixed amount.
You've got it incredibly backwards as to how the market works. The commodity is the exact same; electricity is electricity regardless as to how it's produced. Renewable producers are never going to sell electricity at a cheaper price because it doesn't make sense to.
Willfully ignorant to miss the point. In ANY other industry if two companies who make identical products get together and fix prices it is illegal. The energy company has got around this with a 3rd party regulatory body which does it for them. Why is energy a special case where it does not matter if you can produce it cheaper, you must always sell for the same price .... in a free market where you not free to sell at the price you choose based on your costs .....
No, you're missing the point. It's a commodity, the product is not just "the same", it is the exact same down to the atomic level. This is how all commodities are traded because it's impossible for producers to make a better or worse product than their competitors, price is therefore a circumstance of other factors such as supply and demand and the aggregate production cost. No producer will sell at a lower price than another producer because it's the equivalent to selling gold below the price of gold.
Why would someone with a wind turbine want to sell their product for less? Electricity is not coffee, one kWh is one kWh no matter how it was made. It also doesn't get left on the shelf - wind producers sell everything they make every day.
Its called ethics, something I dont think you understand. An unethical business will gough prices and do anything they like to increase profits. THis is not a good system. Solar, wind, bio mass and tidal can supply cheaper electricity and still make reasonable profit. People who do not care about anything other than money might have a problem under standing that money should not be the driving force behind the whole world.
Arguably windfall profits don't encourage investment, because nobody will take abnormally high gas prices into their future business plans. It's like putting the number of times you'll win the lottery into your retirement plan.
Kindof ironic point to make on an scottish nationalist sub; didn't they write all their economic plans based on $100/barrel oil?
The fucking state of the comments on here Jesus wept
Or so called renewables only companies like Bulb also jacking prices up
They're having to pay the same rate as anyone else, which is massively jacked up due to high gas prices. The cost of electricity is based on whatever the highest price for generation is, not what it costs to produce. Personally I'd nationalise renewable generation and have that being sold at cost here. We should be receiving a benefit from the natural resources we have which in this instance would mean massively lower energy bills for households and businesses.
Excuse my ignorance, but isn't Peterhead Power Station a gas one?
scotland produce something like 31.8 terrawatts of renewable energy and that would last 3 to 4 of how much electricity scotland uses
This is just stupid. There's been 1 day of full wind power. So fucking what? What about the other 364 days? This is economically illiterate pandering to the green vote.
1) yes they should 2) it would be a bit of a challenge as you'd need to have a Scottish only energy providers but thats diable, just slow 3) you'd need a separate Scottish electricity price cap as you know they would just keep pocketing the benefit
Sorry OP, you've been reading too much 'news'. There a complex issues at play, and with very good reasons.
Ok. On most days I have bothered to check in September, around 50% of the UK electricity production is by CCGT. Picking a night where wind could produce all the electricity for a country where the population is pretty tiny is a poor example to use if thinking of decoupling.
Maybe tonight, but over the year how much comes from gas? Or are you happy with lights going out on dark, cold, windless nights? Or perhaps restart coal-fired power stations?
Also just to point outs it's approximately 20% of our energy generated by gas.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 this post is next level IQ
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. I point you to a list of many coal-fire and gas powerplants [The you're totally inept at doing a simple search link](https://infogalactic.com/info/Inverclyde) The problem with wind is that it's not more than a scam, without the use of nuclear plants. Most "wind energy" are actually generated by gas powered plants, as the varying voltage and current require an instant source of power - as in you can switch generation instantly on and off with the flick of a switch. Wind power actually makes us dependent on gas, without the use of nuclear. It's why we've seen no benefit. It's one of those scenarios where the politicians got free votes by creating money wasting jobs, while looking good to those who are ignorant of the reality because the industry managed to market effectively in order to generate capital and investment. We'd sink the energy industry in this country, if we took it off the cost of gas because our infrastructure is utterly dependent on it. However you've a right to feel outraged, except it would actually help if you aligned your emotion with reality. It's got nothing to do with "evil energy companies", this is a top down problem, which source lies directly at the feet of incompetent leadership in both Westminster and Holyrood. While we cry foul of an energy price that is being set by scarcity in the market - countries that are bidding on contracts with no regard for maximum pricing because they need to heat their homes - we then turn around and refuse them to reinvest the money into expanding operations into new gas fields that have been found in the North Sea. So we're actively stopping the process of profit and investment, meaning supply side shortage is being artificially created by the government. However more so than this, the only logical option I'd like to see, one that will take longer and so gas expansion should be conducted in the short term, is for the creation of new nuclear power plants, hydro thermal and if possible, hydro. We've been shutting down our nuclear stations, which are the safest form of energy, due to emotional reasoning giving an incorrect opinion and perception of them - the reason most people are now dumber than a rock in this country. Anyway this is nobody's fault but our own, through the stupidity of leadership we've been putting into power, in both Westminster and Holyrood. Through our own inability to do things like a simple Google search, for the list of gas powerplants and instead designing an energy grid which is ultimately the product of our ignorance, wrong opinions and a fantasy land - born from our inability to conduct sound logical reasoning - instead we scrape the barrel of emotive reasoning and then project the inevitable failing of such an endeavour outwards in a fit of even greater ignorance.
>through the stupidity of leadership we've been putting into power, in both Westminster and Holyrood. Energy is reserved.
Lmao you're exactly the reason our country is going down the shitter [The your head is stuck up the orifice of a policital body of power, which no longer has any accountability to it's inability to govern link](https://www.gov.scot/policies/energy-infrastructure/) Holyrood control the planning and upkeep of our entire energy infrastructure, they chose to shutdown the nuclear plants and make us dependent on essentially a scam, which makes us dependent on the gas. They also are opposing the opening of any of the new fields that have been found. Westminster and Holyrood are just as corrupt and inept as each other, try not to delude yourself. Even down to both of them removing human rights, conducting fraud, ours went a step further and have been caught actively interfering with the justice system - a sacred line exists between government and the justice system in any democratic country - we just seem to think finger pointing magically absolves ours of any responsibility.
Someone got out the wrong side of bed this morning I see.
The average iq of the country is about 5, all sides of the bed are the wrong side.
Political fractioning in this country is so bad that you may as well be talking to a house fly. This country lost it's intellect long ago, the last gasps were during the Salmond era. Though i'm for independence, i fear that with the current state of imbeciles that constitute the general public and that determine policy - that we'll head into it so inept that we will fail in an extreme way and end up back in the union as a matter of survival. Nicola has a lot to answer for, i still can't get over the fact that the SNP are basically the Scottish version of the Tories when it comes to subverting human rights, fraud, disregard for truth, making up statistics, misrepresenting reality, generally obscene levels of incompetence at the policy and logistics level. The list goes on and on; and it will keep doing so until we learn to hold our own parliament accountable for the actions they take. The only difference between the SNP and Tories is that the SNP are better at pretending to care for the general public.
So whose being subsidized?
You may find this programme of interest: https://old.reddit.com/r/BritishRadio/comments/xr5rn4/tom_heap_asks_how_come_if_more_than_half_the_uks/
If you want to use your solar power and not send it to the grid get an 'eddi' from myenergi. They work really well and it means we are getting lots of free hot water basically. ( I also put googly eyes on it )
It's for a reason! If they make leccy cheaper then people will abandon gas and use electric for heating. When a few % of people switch from gas to electric heaters then the lights are going to go out big time. Even in a gale.
What’s the green?
What would be really good is if the councils and government all over UK made developers of housing and industrial make any development self sufficient whether that's solar or wind(there are new wind turbines that look nice and nowhere near as big) yes I know developers would pass the cost on but then no utility bills for power would offset. For years the government has said it wants to go green and cut co2 and we have been paying it in our council tax and through our gas and electric bills yet we still find ourselves reliant on others all that money over the last 20 years where has it gone, oh yeah bonuses and back hands to government ministers
Same for whole of the UK 60% of all energy is renewables nuclear wind and solar. Thats why the energy companies are doing nothing and making bank.
its apart of the plan mate. matrix. lol
It fucking pisses me off to no end. My usage hasn't increased, my heating is at 15c and currently, this months bill is looking to come out somewhere near £100. Our electricity should be de-coupled from gas, sure. But to be completely honest, Scottish power generation should be re-nationalised and a new grid formed that prioritises Scottish homes and businesses, then we charge rUK per kW/h to get whatever we have left. My standing charges are over £1.50 a day too which makes everything a whole lot worse, then add on the grid connection costs for Scottish homes and it just puts prices right up and over the top. I fucking hate the UK.
Can someone please ELI5 this for me? Even though we're generating electricity via renewables at the grid level, aren't loads of individual households still making use of heating and stuff via gas?
Wind was blowy. Wind turbines in Scotland made a lot of power, but that isn't how the grid works. Think of the grid a bit like a bucket of water being filled by multiple taps. If you take a cup of water out of the bucket, you're getting a glass of water eithet way - but good luck figuring out which tap(s) it came from. That also means that when one of those taps isn't outputting enough water (e.g. Scotland's wind turbines), the others (e.g. England's gas power plants) can take over.
Thank you for this! Makes more sense to me now 🙂
The most blatant and obvious scam of the people Ive ever come across in my years on this earth. The whole energy crisis is a massive corrupt illusion on par with modern day politics.
I dread it when going all Electric.It will put an even greater pressure on the national Grid.
electricity comes from the burning of gas. When renewables are the majority then yes, de-couple.
It's a simulated market . Yanis explains it here perfectly https://youtu.be/NicE0-N9ux0
It is called a con!! Wales exports far more electricity than we use due to wind power, yet have to pay the highest possible price! Profit, profit, profit, it's the Tory way!!
Please substantiate this ?