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Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

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Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#111

Post by skippyboxedhero »

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…

They aren't deliberately turning power stations off. We have a renewable system so when those sources aren't generating then we need gas.

All the BBG article proved is the inherent problems with the system that we have. Rather than anyone being blamed for creating that system, rather than anyone being blamed for regulating that system, we get the same politically-motivated nonsense about "evil companies"...this is why we have high electricity costs. There is literally zero political incentive to lower them and, as we have seen, very high political gains from proposing fictional solutions. Guess what? We are still going to be in the exact same place in a few years because we haven't changed the thing causing this (over-reliance on renewables).

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#112

Post by switch007 »

graybeardhacker wrote: post #64

The graph shows the price for 3100 kWh. I'm not sure if that is a very low annual amount or a very very high monthly amount. The average US household uses 10,000 kWh annually ~833 kWh per month. So I'm guessing most Americans reading the article and looking at the interactive graph are thinking either: this is very cheap or very expensive, depending on whether they are assuming it's monthly or annual. In the US the a…

We mostly don't have AC, we have tiny houses, our heating is gas powered. Lots of showers aren't electric either. We don't use huge amounts compared to the US

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#113

Post by benj111 »

oceanplexian wrote: post #97
gnrl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the reason to avoid smart meters?

The security is broken and it broadcasts your information in the clear. I set up a RTLSDR plugged into my laptop in my kitchen and was able to read the energy utilization of my entire neighborhood after about 10min of work.

what information is it actually leaking though?

If someone wanted, they could drive up to my house and see the colour of my door. The fact that someone has always been able to create a database of front door colours isn't inherently a data leak.

A UUID and electricity usage for the past half hour for a house in the general vicinity isn't useful. Even if you could put a name to that UUID, I struggle to think of how that would be a major issue. Especially considering with a thermal camera, and assuming construction details from the age and type of the house, you could already estimate your neighbours energy usage anyway.

Remote shutoff on the other hand....

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#114

Post by ajb »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #44
coretx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no way it only cost £15 in total to install a smart meter. The cost of the meter has to be at least that much and then you have paying a guy to actually install it (which in my case took 3 attempts and caused a gas leak, which took 4 or 5 guys several hours to fix - although hopefully that's unusual).

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#115

Post by monsecchris »

louthy wrote: post #21

> The UK has achieved the fastest rate of grid decarbonisation among advanced economies. A lot of this progress occurred when renewables were still expensive, so we are stuck with a cost hangover. Luckily, renewables are getting much cheaper, so the tradeoffs in future policy are very different. A silver lining at least. I’m old, so won’t see the benefits of this I’m sure, but it’s still nice to know we’ve made some…

It’s so insignificant that at best we might delay the climate catastrophe by a few seconds

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#116

Post by tehlike »

wil421 wrote: post #101
tehlike wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yikes, my rate is $0.0825/kWH in the southern US. Part Nuclear but too much Natural Gas in my opinion.

That's a great rate. My homelab excluding poe stuff I suspect will end up using 300-500W. Not a lot of money but still annoying to be paying.

1. 56G mellanox switch - 35W

2. An old box I made a router - 50W

3. A two node server - 220W each

Replacing (2) with something that idles at 10W Will probably do one node for (3) so got more ram to try out.

I wish we had cheap energy. I could add much more stuff to this lol.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#117

Post by J_McQuade »

graybeardhacker wrote: post #64

The graph shows the price for 3100 kWh. I'm not sure if that is a very low annual amount or a very very high monthly amount. The average US household uses 10,000 kWh annually ~833 kWh per month. So I'm guessing most Americans reading the article and looking at the interactive graph are thinking either: this is very cheap or very expensive, depending on whether they are assuming it's monthly or annual. In the US the a…

3100 kWh is the figure set by the regulator as the representative annual usage used to calculate prices for e.g. tariff comparison between suppliers. It makes sense to use it here.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#118

Post by vixen99 »

smeeger wrote: post #40
jorblumesea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is rich, given you seem to be American.

you have to admit english people have a weird tick when it comes to poverty. you worship poor people. and yes, you guys willingly live like you are poor when you guys are definitely not poor

Not for long I suspect. There has been a rather marked exodus of millionaires from Britain since July as a result of a range of fiscal changes promised by the government. Some significant businesses have decided to relocate. Unrelated to this: now it's been found that a majority of Brits receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. Not a good outlook. Meanwhile it's estimated that the richest 1% of earners already pay 29% of the country’s income tax.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#119

Post by switch007 »

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?

No, the US actively chose to make us poor

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#120

Post by conradludgate »

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?

My energy supplier (Octopus) gives me a tarrif with half-hourly pricing (smart meters in the UK only report with 30 minutes resolution).

This let's me know when electricity is in less demand or high supply and schedule my day around it. Making my electricity bill cheaper and likewise putting less strain on the supplier which reduces their costs too

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