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

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#331

Post by physicsguy » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #190

deergomoo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Greg Jackson from Octopus (who are the largest energy operator in the UK) has been calling for this for some time. I don't live there but his name comes up a lot in several of the clean energy podcasts I follow. Smart person that has a lot of sensible things to say on this topic. I've got a lot of time for Octopus, which is an odd thing to say about a utility company. It's amazing how much of a difference it can ma…

I must be the only person in the UK that has had an abysmal experience with Octopus, where they gave me a quote in writing, I attempted to sign up for it, couldn't due to "technical difficulties" on their end but got another email promising that the quote will be honoured once the difficulties are resolved....and of course once they finally fixed their system a month later they refused to honour it. I kept forwarding…

I've not had good experiences either as a customer.

Oddly enough I interviewed with them a few years ago (before I was a customer) and came away pretty unimpressed, I turned the offer down.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#332

Post by caseysoftware » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

fy20 wrote: post #282

caseysoftware wrote: post #269

What happened in 2022!? In 2021, it was 22p/kWh and in 2022, it went to 44p/kWh. It's come down 6-7p each year since but doubling in one year is crazy.

Russia happened.

Ah, thanks. I wasn't aware how damaging that was to UK energy prices.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#333

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 8:41 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #329

WalterBright wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had similar problems with the Nixon/Ford/Carter price and allocation controls on gasoline. There were shortages and long lines in some states and gluts in others. Carter was baffled about what to do. Reagan ended it on day one with an Executive Order to repeal the controls. The lines disappeared overnight and never returned.

> Nixon/Ford/Carter price and allocation controls on gasoline...long lines in some states and gluts in others. > Reagan ended it on day one with an Executive Order to repeal the controls. The lines disappeared overnight and never returned. We had lines in 73 following OPEC's response to western involvement in Yom Kippur war. We had lines again in 79 when Iran's oil dropped out of the market. I can't recall gas lines…

I remember 1979 well. Lines every time I needed gas.

The day after Reagan signed the EO, the lines disappeared. I have never seen them since. I pull right up to the pump every time. That's with the prices going up and down pretty much daily.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#334

Post by gambiting » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 9:24 PM UTC

Already__Taken wrote: post #228

gambiting wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be the only person in the UK that has had an abysmal experience with Octopus, where they gave me a quote in writing, I attempted to sign up for it, couldn't due to "technical difficulties" on their end but got another email promising that the quote will be honoured once the difficulties are resolved....and of course once they finally fixed their system a month later they refused to honour it. I kept forwarding…

Are you in the north of the N/S smart meter divide? I wonder if that has a lot do with experiences.

I am actually, just in Newcastle.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#335

Post by moooo99 » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 11:18 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #326

moooo99 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly speaking, I don't know for sure but I also spend time thinking about it and figured it mostly comes down to the politics of the issue. Although I can only comment on the German part of the issue, the overall discourse is likely rather similar. > And that too, specifically, Germany ? The discourse around the energy market in Germany is mostly centered around the inequality of the German energy market. Germany…

I saw this on a Reddit discussion on American healthcare. One of the responses about American politics, brought up German decision making, and their denuclearization. Which was new, I’ve seen all sorts of misinfo, talking points, traps etc. etc. But German energy policy????? Thanks for the info.

> But German energy policy?????

Yeah that already was a mess before 2022 and only turned worse since then. And remember, what I outlined is only the surface of the electricity generation debate. It gets even worse when you turn towards mobility and heating. Oh you will hear some wild takes there!

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#336

Post by 7thaccount » Sun, Dec 22, 2024, 12:17 AM UTC

singhrac wrote: post #176

7thaccount wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also worked in the area for many years. PPAs typically require the bank to be counterparty and that requires a forecast of the prices that will be received in the market over a lengthy period. The folks at Ofgem talked about how going nodal would be nice, but that they are worried about it being such a big project (these markets typically take 5-7 years to go from design to implementation in the US) that would t…

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you hadn't, just offering a reason why I had a strong opinion. Am I misunderstanding what you mean by counterparty? In the US, banks provide the tax equity and sometimes the project finance, but the PPA counterparty is a consumer, i.e. a utility or a large load (e.g. tech company data center). The forecast is necessary, but like I said, the uncertainty can be hedged. Well, I'm talking ab…

No offense taken. I just wanted to make it clear I wasn't some rando who read an article or two on this.

I could have been more clear. There are many kinds of PPAs, but my understanding talking to the banks that do the financing is that they are an integral part of helping the developer get the steel in the ground. I agree there is almost always an off-taker that provides the fixed payment in exchange for the market payment. I agree the uncertainty can be hedged to a degree, but was just relaying what was said by the key folks representing the argument against nodal in parliament (think that's the right venue). The additional revenue uncertainty complicates things and slows things down.

I agree purely nodal markets don't make sense without some reliability mechanism, but that's not what many of the key academics were preaching/advocating not too long ago and why Texas did what it did. The Texas grid may have done better had they stuck to the older vertically integrated model which may have led to some older units staying around. It's hard to rewind in order to fully tell. I'd have to go pull a lot of figures to see if they retired coal that would have stuck around absent the markets. There surely wouldn't have been the bankruptcy fiascos from having $9000/MWh prices for a week, but that's another topic. I also think the courts are still looking into claims of market manipulation coming from the natural gas industry during Uri.

There is certainly a lot to talk about on PCM. Would love to chat later! Have a good holiday.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#337

Post by Aachen » Sun, Dec 22, 2024, 12:59 AM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #160

Aachen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're at ~3.6 MWh in a ground floor apartment with 2 adults, with water heating (e.g. showering) electric but building heating on gas (though we use a space heater a lot as well, probably to the tune of 0.2 MWh/year)

I wonder if I should feel bad since I'm currently at 2830 kWh in 2024 for a single household with all heating costs not coming out of my electric bill.

Hard to say since usage doesn't simply divide by 2: the fridge needs to run regardless of how much food there is (it matters, but not linearly), or if you watch a TV every evening with 2 persons or 1 doesn't show up on the bill either. Probably best to ask friends and see how they get their costs down or if, conversely, you can give them tips

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#338

Post by samatman » Sun, Dec 22, 2024, 4:19 AM UTC

immibis wrote: post #327

samatman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, but the matter going into solar panels and batteries also has to be dug out of the ground. The difference is that you need a great deal more of that matter to deliver comparable amounts of power compared to fission.

The difference is that with nonrenewable power, you have to keep digging more stuff out of the ground to get more energy, which allows the mine owners to stay in a position of leverage over the world economy. With renewables, you only have to get more material if you want to expand your production capacity. Additionally, there are many ways they can be constructed out of different materials. This terrifies the oil co…

Unlike batteries, solar panels, and windmills, nuclear fuel can be economically recycled. Russia does so already. The only reason it isn't prevalent in the West is because there's so much uranium available that no one bothers. It just gets saved for later.

A 'spent' fuel rod has yielded something like 0.5% of its atomic potential. Complete burns are feasible. So from the fuel rods alone, we can generate 19_500% as much electricity as all nuclear plants since they came into existence have ever generated.

Earth will never run out of fissionables at any rate of use which is reasonable to contemplate. It's just a thing that you need to believe despite that it isn't true. You've chained together a loose collection of political slogans with no grounding in reality or truth.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#339

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sun, Dec 22, 2024, 6:22 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #333

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nixon/Ford/Carter price and allocation controls on gasoline...long lines in some states and gluts in others. > Reagan ended it on day one with an Executive Order to repeal the controls. The lines disappeared overnight and never returned. We had lines in 73 following OPEC's response to western involvement in Yom Kippur war. We had lines again in 79 when Iran's oil dropped out of the market. I can't recall gas lines…

I remember 1979 well. Lines every time I needed gas. The day after Reagan signed the EO, the lines disappeared. I have never seen them since. I pull right up to the pump every time. That's with the prices going up and down pretty much daily.

> The day after Reagan signed the EO, the lines disappeared.

I'm sorry you went through that for so long. For us schmoes, gas lines were a fading memory by Jan 81.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#340

Post by psd1 » Sun, Dec 22, 2024, 9:13 AM UTC

dzonga wrote: post #295

what's not mentioned is the consequence of having expensive power. the average UK consumer consumes 1/3 of the power consumed by a US consumer. which makes the average UK energy consumption is equivalent to one of a low-middle income country. energy consumption is heavily tied to prosperity.

No, it's more like: whether you live in a rain-lashed tepid shithole, a sun-beaten desert shithole, or an ice-smothered frigid shithole.

AC is barely even desirable here. It occasionally reaches a whopping 30. We don't have AC at home because it's a silly frippery in a brick house at 54°N in Europe.

We certainly need heating, but not like in saskatchewan.