How much does digging a hole or laying a cable cost here in the UK compared to elsewhere? I'm just trying to get a feel for whether things like the transmission/distribution network costs are higher than elsewhere.
Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
51–60 of 353 posts
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#52Commercial energy broker here - the only 2 'real' costs in your price are the wholesale and supplier costs. Choose suppliers that offer a fully-fixed electricity contract, so that made up variable costs such as distribution, network, etc are all factored into the unit rate that the supplier charges you for your contract. Avoid smart meters at all costs. Renewable / green contracts are always a lot more expensive than…
Variable rate smart billing can be amazing if you have the right setup though!
Eg. An electric car that can do V2G with the following;
Power to the grid when Rate > Y and carCharge > 50%
Charge the car when Rate There's various posts on electric car groups where people have the above setup and pull in ridiculous profits. Your typical electric car can output power for a very long time during the ridiculous 10000% price hikes and on the flipside when the price occasionally hits ~0 charging is basically free.
If you have some system of power storage variable rate can make you money.
https://thedriven.io/2024/02/27/australian-evs-could-earn-12...
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure where you've got this idea from. Even "new builds" in the UK, with there questionable building methods (which you may be referring to?) are mostly insulation and incredibly efficient to heat.
The new builds are made of brick and block, and are indeed insulated really well. It's the millions of older houses, particularly Victorian ones, that are made of brick, are not usually insulated well, and are often intentionally draughty.
What would the reason for being intentionally draughty be? The only thing I can think of is if they were burning candles/gas lamps to improve air quality?
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#54The same author wrote the blog post that was on the front page here recently about the plummeting cost of solar [0]. I really like his posts, readable by someone like me who is way below layman on the subject, but I think also pretty interesting to someone with experience in the field.
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
+1
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#56Is 906 GBP (~1100 USD) typical for a household? That seems outrageously high.
Annually, that sounds about right.
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#57Is 906 GBP (~1100 USD) typical for a household? That seems outrageously high.
In a historic home in the Midwest a single month in the depths of of the winter could easily be 700-800 usd.
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Did PG&E cause the fire? Yes. As I recall it, the fire was caused by downed lines that were energized during a dry spell, and the reason the lines were downed was due to negligence around maintaining the C-Hooks holding their high voltage transmission lines. PG&E knew that they needed to be replaced every so often, had a policy that dictated when they needed to be replaced, and then ignored that policy which ultima…
I agree PGE was negligent, but it also doesn't make sense to assign the entire cost of the resulting fire to PGE. The scale of the fire damage was a result of many factors, only some of which are due to PGE. A huge destructive fire was a matter of time. Whether it was caused by PGE, lightning, or an RV tire blowout was a matter of chance.
Or another way to put it, how much liability would you give the RV drivers in these two scenarios?
https://www.kktv.com/2024/07/23/rv-with-blown-tire-sparks-se...
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#59How much does digging a hole or laying a cable cost here in the UK compared to elsewhere? I'm just trying to get a feel for whether things like the transmission/distribution network costs are higher than elsewhere.
The HS2 project is mostly that - and very, very expensive it seems.
Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
#60Some of these are "costs" which reduce costs elsewhere. Smart meters for example, though rollout has hit snags and they've become targets for weird conspiracy theories, they are basically designed to give better real time info on electricity demand which helps with managing the grid. This in theory should save money elsewhere. Similarly for CfD. Yes the government may on net be paying a subsidy to get wind power buil…
Maybe, but the long term planning has been atrocious, millions of smart meters already need replacing because of the 3g switch off.
It's massively wasteful if they are all going to need replacing again in 10 years when 4g is switched off.
Not to mention the concerns about electricity companies remotely forcing meters into prepayment mode or switching off people's electricity supply.