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Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

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Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#221

Post by KaiserPro »

dfawcus wrote: post #194
KaiserPro wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Where does "here" mean. In the UK only "central" England and south transmits data over the mobile network. In northern England and Scotland, the data is transmitted over UHF radio.

Sorry yes, I should have been more specific. The important thing is that it is reasonably well encrypted. Its not like the USA where they just yeet it in the clear for all to see.

The downside is that the non cellular backhaul is provided by arquiva, who are shits.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#222

Post by WalterBright »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #89

An important reason that power is expensive in the UK is that it doesn't use zonal pricing and is effectively not giving the right price signals to consumers of power to move closer to where the cheap power is (e.g. data centers) or to conserve power when power is expensive; or producers of power to invest in power generation closer to where the power is scarce and expensive. Another point to make is that the nationa…

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.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#223

Post by KaiserPro »

Nextgrid wrote: post #171
KaiserPro wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The unsaid, "quiet part" about batteries is that they're a fire hazard. No matter how "safe" they are branded as, the failure mode is disastrous and life-threatening when they do fail. It's insane that those things are being sold and installed in homes at all. But then again this is in a country where installing solar power inverters in the attic of wooden houses was also a thing (no surprises as to what the outcome…

> about batteries is that they're a fire hazard.

yes, although they are statistically much safer than fridges, or combined washer driers. (unless you include cheap e-bikes or hoverboards...)

I don't have mine inside the house, its very much outside with a wooden lintel supporting a surprisingly sandy flower trough.

I also have micro inverters, because they are more efficient, and less fucking noisy. They are also, as you hint at, much safer. Partly because they are not switching ~400v DC but also because they don't need to handle as much power.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#224

Post by toast0 »

rcxdude wrote: post #88
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The second part is indeed wrong: most consumer energy markets have a wholesale market and grid operator, and the grid operator is ultimately responsible for the call on brown-outs. The companies that sell electricity retail to invididual homes are generally buying on that wholesale market, but they're not in a position to cut off their customers: there's straight-up no mechanism to do that on a moment's notice, becau…

> if anyone wants to shut off you but not them they need to come to your house and physically disconnect the line

I'm not in the UK, but I gather my utility can do a radio controlled disconnect (they may need to come onsite to reconnect). I would hope that wouldn't be used to enable a virtual brown out for customers of a particular energy marketplace, but I think it's a capability of many communicating meters.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#226

Post by Hilift »

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…

There is clearly a difference between states that invested in projects that went over budget. Power generation is cheaper in a lot of states due to the price of natural gas is dramatically lower than it was 20 years ago. Florida uses gas for 75% of electricity.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#227

Post by new23d »

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…

Exactly the same happened with me. Picking up the phone and responding to email (in weeks, not hours or days) didn't lower my bills. This sort of marketing is perhaps deflection.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#228

Post by Already__Taken »

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…

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

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#229

Post by weebull »

Maken wrote: post #154
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…

I would like to know what "fastest rate of grid decarbonisation" even means, because the UK is definitely not the nation with the largest share of renewable electricity production. I guess it measures how much energy production has transitioned from non-renewable to renewable sources in recent years.

I don't think it's a particularly cryptic measure.

The UKs peak carbon per kWh was at some point. Since then it's dropped at a percentage rate higher than anywhere else.

The biggest thing has been the elimination of coal even if it's with natural gas as it's a much cleaner fuel. It's still a fossil fuel, but burns with much less pollution.

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