Why are UK electricity bills so expensive? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#41

Post by riversflow » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #5

baggy_trough wrote: post #3

29p / kWh doesn't hold a candle to PG&E costs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's ironic that it's quite a bit cheaper to use natural gas here, since we're supposed to convert to electricity to save the planet.

The cost of bailing out owners of burnt down homes in Paradise, CA worth $0 for $700k is rolled into every San Francisco PG&E bill.

That's just factually incorrect. Paradise was forced to take PGE stock (at some unrealistic valuation) as a repayment. The settlement is years in the rear view mirror now. I actually live in the area and meet people from Paradise. Most people involved got absolutely shafted and the money is mostly going to lawyers and accountants in San Francisco. Surprise.

PGE costs have gone up because the state's Public Utilities Commission and many of our leaders in Sacramento are in bed with PGE. PGE has been vastly underinvesting in infrastructure development and maintenance for the last 50 years, which is at least partially the PUC's fault by letting them take profits instead of forcing them to either lower rates or reinvest. The Camp Fire shined a light on the neglect, now they have to play catch up on 50 years of deferred maintenance in many quite remote areas.

Local Sacramento ABC Station actually does some decent investigative report on this. If you are interested there is a fair amount of content to go through, as they started the investigation in 2022, the series is called Fire Power Money.

Link here https://www.abc10.com/search?q=fire+power+money

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#42

Post by logicchains » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:30 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #10

samatman wrote: post #6

Third option not discussed: have the military leverage its existing nuclear reactor competency to build a fleet of nationalized nuclear power generation stations. I'm not saying that they should tile the island with submarine-scale reactors, I'm saying that their supply chain for building those knows how to build nuclear power stations. The only thing which makes this prospect expensive, is the lack of political will…

And how exactly would adding more of the most expensive way to generate power help reduce costs? See: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2024/may/24/...

Empirically it doesn't seem that way given countries with nuclear power have cheaper electricity than those without. It's especially illustrative to compare power costs in France and Germany before and after Germany closed all its nuclear plants.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#43

Post by bowsamic » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

hughes wrote: post #35

Is 906 GBP (~1100 USD) typical for a household? That seems outrageously high.

Yes

Type | yearly usage | average annual cost

Low (flat or 1-bedroom house / 1-2 people) | 1,800 kWh | £669.95

Medium (3-bedroom house / 2-3 people) | 2,900 kWh | £943.36

High (5-bedroom house / 4-5 people) | 4,300 kWh | £1,291.34

source: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-bill.html

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#44

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

coretx wrote: post #30

jstanley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do you need smart meters at the level of individual houses? Wouldn't putting them on substations get the same benefit with much less cost?

Yes, but those don't help manipulate consumer behavior and awareness.

Apparently the UK government estimated that in 2016 and 2019 the average household saved £11 on their bill due to this feedback from smart meters. This page estimates the cost at £15 so 2/3rds is recovered just from that effect.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#45

Post by semi-extrinsic » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

tehlike wrote: post #7

baggy_trough wrote: post #3

29p / kWh doesn't hold a candle to PG&E costs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's ironic that it's quite a bit cheaper to use natural gas here, since we're supposed to convert to electricity to save the planet.

For reference, I think we get around 60-65c/kWh here... I sometimes hangout on /r/homelab, and people are talking about their 600-700W homelab setup. That would cost about 300-350$/month here.

People are screaming from the rooftops here when we occasionally hit 15 c/kWh in winter. In August this year our electricity cost was $15 for the whole house. Hydropower is nice like that.

My homelab in the basement is running an old Dell R730. It draws 200-300W depending on load. I could get something much more efficient, but then I would need to run a space heater in that room for most of the year...

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#46

Post by vel0city » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #25

tristor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit of color on that, since those homes weren't worth $0 until PG&E caused a fire that burnt them down by neglecting required maintenance.

Did PG&E cause the fire? They are legally obligated to serve those customers. It would be safer if they simply didn’t do that no? Wait till you read the facts behind this $41m bailout for 20 homes in one of the richest burbs of LA: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-... You could argue that nobody should be living in a place guaranteed to be destroyed, whether by landslides or wildfires, but…

> This buyout program provides a viable pathway forward for our most vulnerable community members

> Hong estimates that his home would have been worth about $3.6 million two years ago

Yeah, this person who was able to afford a $3.6M home sure sounds like "our most vulnerable" people. He needs a bailout for making a poor decision on buying that house in a place prone to landslides. Not the hungry kids in our schools whose parents can't afford/won't provide healthy meals.

We got money for millionaires but not hungry kids and people with chronic medical needs.

> "We’re committed to staying,” Reeves, 81, said. “We’re pretty financially committed now.”

> They are weeks into a major renovation after a fissure forced apart rooms in their home.

Their home is constantly being torn apart by the ground and yet they're committed to staying. Insanity.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#47

Post by cogman10 » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #20

tehlike wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way it's subsidizing people in the country side.

No, it's making people whole for real monetary and property damages caused by PG&E's negligence. It's the settlement of a lawsuit, because PG&E was negligent and caused damage. Whether those people rebuild in Paradise, CA or move somewhere else with the money they received from the settlement is an entirely different proposition. This is not "subsidizing people in the country side". PG&E fucked up and now they have t…

I'm not saying PG&E shouldn't pay out, they were directly responsible.

But I will say that Paradise was in a bad state prior to the fire, simply nobody knew how bad. While a wildfire like that wasn't guaranteed, they were just one bad lightning strike away from the same disaster.

Funding FEMA, forest management services, and wildfire fighters something that isn't always prioritized and it should be.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#48

Post by euroderf » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #8

Yeah the "network costs" bit should probably have a caveat about how they are a natural monopoly and are absolutely rinsing the UK for profits. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/20/unite-union... "Supplier costs and margins" probably should take a fair bit of the blame too. When Thatcher privatised the UK energy industry to make it "competitive", they basically created an entire complex web of middlemen.…

I remember reading in the UK papers about one of the first water companies to privatize. The very first act of the board was to vote themselves a BIG pay raise.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#49

Post by RobotToaster » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

amiga386 wrote: post #37

IshKebab wrote: post #8

Yeah the "network costs" bit should probably have a caveat about how they are a natural monopoly and are absolutely rinsing the UK for profits. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/20/unite-union... "Supplier costs and margins" probably should take a fair bit of the blame too. When Thatcher privatised the UK energy industry to make it "competitive", they basically created an entire complex web of middlemen.…

It's an interesting rathole to go down. On the one hand, there are private equity firms buying power stations and deliberately turning them off to reduce supply, knowing that National Grid will call them in a few hours paying them an even higher rate to turn them back on... but also those operators get detected and, months later, fined out the wazoo by the regulator for pulling a stunt like that. https://www.theguard…

> but also those operators get detected and, months later, fined out the wazoo by the regulator for pulling a stunt like that.

The ones that were detected were fined, we don't know how much of that goes on but more subtly.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#50

Post by wat10000 » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #25

tristor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit of color on that, since those homes weren't worth $0 until PG&E caused a fire that burnt them down by neglecting required maintenance.

Did PG&E cause the fire? They are legally obligated to serve those customers. It would be safer if they simply didn’t do that no? Wait till you read the facts behind this $41m bailout for 20 homes in one of the richest burbs of LA: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-to-... You could argue that nobody should be living in a place guaranteed to be destroyed, whether by landslides or wildfires, but…

They did cause the fire.

You could certainly argue that some sort of fire was inevitable, and that the fire would have been much less damaging if people hadn’t built their houses in such bad places.

But the law doesn’t really care about that. You can’t avoid liability by arguing what would have happened or what should have happened. If your negligence causes a fire and that fire destroys a house, you’re liable for it regardless.