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Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

climate.benjames.io

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Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#131

Post by KaiserPro »

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.

> 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.

In America, yes. Here the meter->gateway is encrypted zigbee, the gateway is over 3/4g.

However the remote contactor is more of an issue. You can be turned off remotely without much ceremony.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#132

Post by hirako2000 »

ajb wrote: post #114
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It also took 3 attempts for me but they never showed up.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#133

Post by wil421 »

tehlike wrote: post #116
wil421 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My UniFi mad PoE setup draws about 100w and my NAS another 100w or so. The i3 in my Supermicro board has been quite the efficient little CPU. My AMD 7950 and a 4070ti had to be taken off one my UPS because it was going over 1000w at times. Not sure what the full draw is while gaming.

The thing that kept me away from retired server hardware isn’t so much the power draw as it is the fan noise.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#134

Post by Xelbair »

monsecchris wrote: post #115
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

People might not like this, but that's true.

as long as non-western countries keep polluting - even if we achieve net-zero nothing will change other than us feeling better and patting ourselves in the back.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#135

Post by Nextgrid »

goodpoint wrote: post #13

...because houses are made of cardboard and use electricity for heating.

Resistive heating is still a big thing, including new products being developed.

Here's the latest: electric instant water heaters designed as drop-in replacements for gas boilers in hydronic heating systems: https://stromltd.com

All the inconveniences of a hydronic system and resistive electric in a single solution, what's not to like?

This is the perfect "slumlord special", installed in place of more economical (and ecological) solutions such as A/C knowing full well the tenant is going to pay the resulting astronomical bills.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#136

Post by KaiserPro »

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…

Disclosure: I have a house battery.

over the last three months, I've been paying on average 16p a unit. Thats with a car as well. On the days in the winter when solar isn't doing shit, we top up at the lowest price that day.

This kinda goes to the articles point which is to you can avoid, or limit the peak with local storage.

The issue with the battery is that its costs a shit tonne. a basic battery is going to cost something like £8k installed.

Its almost certainly cheaper to upgrade the grid compared to adding batteries to a million households. Especially as the lifespan of batteries isn't that long compared to the super grid.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#137

Post by hnburnsy »

petesergeant wrote: post #93
hnburnsy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I thought they were still pretty well in sync with the old EU laws (CAP) — what are some specific examples you object to?

NVZ, EIA, animal tracking, just to name a few that have a high burden, with little benefit.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#138

Post by exe34 »

Xelbair wrote: post #134
monsecchris wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People might not like this, but that's true. as long as non-western countries keep polluting - even if we achieve net-zero nothing will change other than us feeling better and patting ourselves in the back.

[flagged]

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#139

Post by ben_w »

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?

> Is there some sort of cultural blind spot which prevents them from understanding that there are better ways to do things?

Yes, but it's not specifically British: most nations (and many companies) I've looked at in any depth seem to have this blind spot — "not invented here" is one of several kinds of in-group favoritism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism

Also see this with diets, religious and political affiliations, and back in the day used to see it with Mac vs. PC.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#140

Post by Nextgrid »

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?

The UK is completely broken by corruption disguised as incompetence, with everyone in power to change things profiting off the status-quo and thus having no incentive to make the change. Add in a steady stream of distractions where the media sows race/xenophobia warfare so the people are too busy fighting between themselves to realize who their real enemy is.
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