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Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

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Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#71

Post by longwave »

jatin101 wrote: post #22

Commercial 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…

This smells like an advert. Over the last year I've spent less money on energy by being on Octopus Tracker (which requires a smart meter) over any fixed tariff.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#72

Post by bfmalky »

nradov wrote: post #31

I find it so weird that UK citizens have often just sort of passively chosen to be poor. Like they still had food rationing for years after WW2. Is there some sort of cultural blind spot which prevents them from understanding that there are better ways to do things?

What a bizarre thing to say.

I guess there are some examples of self sabotage, such as Brexit, but no, on the whole people in the UK do not choose to be poor. Like any nation we are at the mercy of the outcomes of the decisions of our politicians and larger global effects that are out of our control.

Also, there are plenty of wealthy people in the UK. You do know that right? The UK is still around 6th in the nominal GDP rankings, so not quite an economic basket case (yet).

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#73

Post by doctorpangloss »

creato wrote: post #58
tristor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

The cost wasn’t assigned to PG&E. Brother, the CPUC is approving the rate increases to pay back the settlement. You are getting the same electricity today as you did in 2019. The entire cost was assigned to YOU.

There are so many smart people on this forum. How hard is it to understand the spelled-out-in-the-law relationship between your compulsory payment for electricity rising and the cost of the settlements?

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#74

Post by RobotToaster »

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/...

It's only expensive because we build so few, so have to start the design from scratch each time.

If you look at China they design one nuke station and just copy and paste it to reduce costs, since parts can be mass produced.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#75

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jstanley wrote: post #24
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #2

Some 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…

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?

It eliminates the need for staff to manually read them and guarantees they are read correctly every month.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#76

Post by HPsquared »

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 does kind of make sense to have a market for the "generation" side with all the different types of power source that exist now. But the infrastructure is privately owned? That's crazy. Like privatising the motorway network!

They did try with the railway network (Railtrack) which was subsequently renationalised and only the train operating companies being private (and even they, like electricity generating companies, are often state-owned by other countries...).

Handing an entire national network monopoly to a single company is foolish.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#77

Post by doctorpangloss »

jatin101 wrote: post #22

Commercial 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…

This is a deeply flawed but empathetic point of view. Sure, maybe the big bad smart meters are secretly conspiring against you. If things were so simple, why doesn’t someone in the government just negotiate a simple price for everyone? Why have middlemen like you at all?

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#78

Post by AnotherGoodName »

vel0city wrote: post #65
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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% pric…

And then you get some big energy dry spell and rates go to 1,000x their normal price and it starts costing you $20 to run the kettle for a few minutes. Hopefully you noticed that spike in prices ahead of time!

The fixed rates that companies charge just smooth out these variances since they all pay a variable rate behind the scenes. The fixed rate providers will do rolling brownouts if the grid gets to this state to save themselves from ruin. If you're on a variable rate you can choose to cut yourself off in these periods.

Essentially the downside you mention is worse on the fixed rate: On fixed rate you'll have no power at all - the fixed rate providers will cut power completely to protect themselves financially if the grid is in a prolonged period of extreme price (they did this in Texas). On a variable rate you can choose to cut yourself off or not.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#79

Post by hughes »

dukeyukey wrote: post #56
hughes wrote: post #35

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

Annually, that sounds about right.

Oh, I thought this was monthly. The article doesn't specify, and all other bills I've seen are monthly. Do Brits pay annually?

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#80

Post by hnburnsy »

petesergeant wrote: post #33
nradov wrote: post #31

I find it so weird that UK citizens have often just sort of passively chosen to be poor. Like they still had food rationing for years after WW2. Is there some sort of cultural blind spot which prevents them from understanding that there are better ways to do things?

Can you give some examples? Other than the utter twatscape that was Brexit, it’s a pretty competitive country in most ways

Start by looking at the crazy over-regulation that happens to farmers in the UK.
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