From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Households will be paid to ration their power usage at peak times as the National Grid scrambles to reduce pressure on Britain’s energy infrastructure.
From Friday up to 1.4m households will be paid if they cut their normal electricity consumption at certain two-hour periods during the day, as an experiment to see how households’ behavior might be changed.
The move is a pilot scheme intended to pave the way for a broader overhaul of the country’s billing system as the UK ditches reliable but dirty fossil fuel plants.
Officials want to encourage people to charge cars and use appliances at different times during the day and night to reduce the pressure on the electricity grid and limit the amount of new capacity that needs to be built as demand for electricity grows.
The results of the trial will help the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), which manages Britain’s electricity supply and demand, work out how best to design and run the system as the UK shifts away from fossil fuels.
Isabelle Haigh, head of National Control at ESO, said: “System flexibility is vital to help manage and reduce peak electricity demand and keep Britain’s electricity flowing securely.
“This trial will provide valuable insight into how suppliers may be able to utilise domestic flexibility to help reduce stress on the system during high demand, lower balancing costs and deliver consumer benefits.”
Demand for electricity is set to soar in coming decades as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models and swap gas-fired boilers for electric heat pumps or hydrogen made from renewable electricity, as part of the Government’s push to cut carbon emissions.
This will happen at the same time as coal and gas-fired power stations make way for more and more wind and solar power, which are intermittent, requiring greater management of the grid to make sure demand always matches supply to prevent possible blackouts.
The number of new power stations, batteries and other infrastructure projects that need to be available to meet that overall demand will depend on the extent of daily peak requirements – for example, when everyone comes home and switches on the kettle and television after work.
Officials want to see if they can lessen the peaks and spread out demand, for example by encouraging people to charge their cars overnight instead of when they get home, or running appliances when they are at work rather than in the evening.
This could be achieved by energy suppliers rolling out time-of-use tariffs such as the Octopus’s Agile tariff, which means customers buy electricity at cheaper rates outside of peak hours, with appliances automatically set up to optimise their energy usage.
In the trial running from Friday, 1.4m customers of Octopus Energy who have smart meters will get free electricity for certain defined two-hour periods, including 4.30pm to 6.30pm, if they cut their use below usual levels.
The trial builds on a similar effort Octopus Energy ran on November 5, 2020, when customers cut 60pc of their power usage over a two-hour event.
As well as spreading out demand, it is hoped electric cars could eventually be used as a sort of giant battery system, charging up when there is a lot of electricity being generated by wind turbines, and selling electricity back to the grid when needed if their owners do not need it at the same time.
Guy Newey, of Energy Systems Catapult, said: “Making the whole system more flexible is an absolutely essential part of the transition [to a lower carbon grid].
“How do you make the most out of your energy infrastructure? Smart tariffs and digital technology has huge potential in that area.
“We don’t know yet how consumers are going to respond. But if a lot of it’s automated and going on in the background, and I know I’m going to get a slightly lower price, then I think we’ll find that people are pretty happy to do that.
“And if that avoids the need to build however many gigawatts of new energy then that’s potentially a really important saving for consumers. It’s all about making the system as smart as possible and this trial seems an important step in that direction.”
James Eddison, co-founder of Octopus Energy Group, said: “It’s a tremendous opportunity to unlock flexibility at an unprecedented scale, and we can’t wait to get started.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/08/national-grid-pays-households-ration-power-use/
We have long known why the ridiculously expensive smart meter programme was wheeled out.
And when customers inevitably fail to respond to voluntary rationing, what then? Compulsory rationing is the only option left.
But the idiots in charge seem to think that transferring a bit of demand from peak periods will solve all of our problems.
Good luck with that when the wind stops blowing for a week or two, as it does regularly every winter.
Why else the drive for “smart meters”?
For those people that attempt to refuse the new energy policy or spread doubt regarding the benefits of energy outages?
1919 betz imits physics law is fabricated to offset einstines relativity of winds and Tides and new invention Iike mine that turns flat blades sideways against its opposit half.only to be stonwalled by both bushes and obama for electioneering oil and nuclear corporations. That created global warming and mutate viruses another 20 thousand years from just Japan’s triple meltdowns plutonium concoctions winds & tides wasted
Is this a ‘Corpspeak’ bot threading words into a fabric without meaning?
Spelling and grammar are incorrect. Aren’t bots smarter than that.
Perhaps an ALF (“Alien Life Form”) speaking…
That’s easy for you to say.
Wrking on brvty: IMPT!!!
As we already knew – and it’s the same in the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France and so on. Your clue:
Every country that embraced the “Global Warming & Green Energy Fraud” and the “Covid-19 Lockdown & Vaccine Fraud” is part of this global scam.
Traitors all! Nuremberg 2.0 will need a big tent.
MUST SEE VIDEO: JUSTIN TRUDEAU GETS OUTED BY HIS OWN BROTHER KYLE AS PAWN OF NEW WORLD ORDER TAKING ORDERS FROM BILDERBERG AND THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Justin Trudeau’s own half-brother outed him for being a pawn of the globalist elites.
February 8, 2022
More at: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/07/a-return-to-the-land-of-covidia/#comment-3450152
MUST SEE VIDEO: JUSTIN TRUDEAU GETS OUTED BY HIS OWN BROTHER KYLE AS PAWN OF NEW WORLD ORDER TAKING ORDERS FROM BILDERBERG AND THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Justin Trudeau’s own half-brother outed him for being a pawn of the globalist elites.
February 8, 2022
It’s any easy way for perfectionist bureaucratic bullies
to take great pains & give them to everyone else!
A decade and change ago, I followed some tech blogs enthusiastic about the coming of the “smart grid” that would make energy distribution so much more efficient. For the politically favored, anyway.
Most people already charge their EVs at home during non-peak hours. If not then, then when?
You assume you will be allowed to have a car in the UK, next they will pressure you to use public transport 🙂
And live in the non-maintained high-rise projects.
Non flammable cladding you have to pay extra for.
And you cannot leave without a COVID passport.
like those 50+ story apartment buildings in those booming Chinese cities- with little in the way of “green space”- or those ugly apartment buildings Russia built after “the big one”
Heck, stay home and Meta into work?
Like the neo-commies say, by 2030 you won’t own anything and like it!
A good sample here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/
but that’ll save the planet! /s
Let’s Go Brandon’s infrastructure Leftist and socialist slush fund won’t pay for roadway expansions or improvements for individual transport.
“..as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models ..”
A good example of the arrogance of the elite bureaucrats.
It is written as if people are abandoning their horse and wagon in favor of the new fangled Model Ts (or more to the point, land lines for multitasking iPhones).
It is those bureaucrats who are putting restrictions on the use of ICE vehicles and at the same time artificially attempting to drive up the cost of operating current automobiles to FORCE a change.
“So it shall be said, so it will be done”.
“as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models”
Well lets look at some actual numbers for vehicles in the UK.
At the end of June 2021 there were 39.2m licensed vehicles in the UK, around 33m of which were cars. Almost 32m of those cars were ICEVs with all types of EVs less than 1.1m.
During 2021 the best selling vehicle in the UK was the Ford Transit Custom van (53,394). In cars the top seller was the Vauxhall Corsa (40,914) and while the Tesla Model 3 for the first time came second (34,783), all the other nine cars in the top ten were ICEVs whose total sales were 278,005 eight times as many as the Tesla.
It would be nice to dig even deeper to find out how many of these EVs are actually privately owned as opposed to leased as company vehicles – they are the company vehicle of choice because executives don’t travel that far and there are very nice tax breaks if you have an EV.
Whatever the case, this rationing of electricity is already an admission that unreliables are not ideal for energy supply – as I’ve said before, invest now in a diesel generator and run it on vegetable oil.
Yeah well exactly. People are not ‘abandoning’ their ICE vehicles, they are being forced to. This article makes it sound as if people think: ‘Electric cars! That’s much better, lets get one!’
ROFL advanced countries call that a 3rd world grid but Griff will tell you how advanced the UK grid is. I love how the greentards try to spin this as a good thing. Now if people just stopped using any electricity the grid would be perfect.
Most of WUWT regulars had money on the UK grid to be the first to become a basket case 🙂
Can’t imagine how griff will explain that necessity as there are so many windmills and much more in planning to fullfill the daily request of electricity.
“Most of WUWT regulars had money on the UK grid to be the first to become a basket case.”
Oh, Drat! I had my money on South Australia, the “crash test dummy” of renewables.
Well, its not over yet.
The best way to solve a crisis is to create new crises. Anyone observing green behaviors would have to agree.
This is standard operating procedure for them. All that’s left to do after is to increase taxes because greens are much more knowledgeable on how to spend your money than you are.
American electrical utilities have been using pricing by time of day for many years, as a voluntary program.
For example, Florida Power and Light offers their “time of use” program on a voluntary basis to both residential and business customers. Their peak use hours varies between cool season and warm season. Their program is described at https://www.fpl.com/rates/time-of-use.html
Surprised that this hasn’t been a thing in Europe, or at least in the UK.
“For example, Florida Power and Light offers their “time of use” program on a voluntary basis to both residential and business customers. Their peak use hours varies between cool season and warm season. Their program is described at https://www.fpl.com/rates/time-of-use.html“
Well actually it has. I have been on “Economy 7” for years. It’s probably where the Yanks got the idea from.
Duane, this has been a thing in France since 1960.
The post I am commenting on stated that this is a new thing in the UK, and did not mention any other Euro countries. My comment said accordingly, so it makes no sense for people to downvote it.
Looks like there is a vote-bot on the loose here… A version of Smartmatic Dominion…
I think we must be talking at cross purposes, but just for the record I didn’t downvote your comment.
I worked in Damascus for a while in the ‘80’s. The authorities controlled demand by shutting off 1/4 or 1/2 of the grid whenever required. Worked well. When the grid went down, you could hear the Honda generators start up on the sidewalks as fast as shopkeepers could get them running. Even informal races between shops for fastest start-up. Distributed backup with capital cost paid by the user. Financial win-win. /s
But then, even California and Texas have resorted to rolling blackouts.
In Ca it is not a voluntary program it is now/ or coming mandatory for PGE customers .
It certainly isn’t voluntary around here (CA).
Next thing you know we will be cooking over buffalo chip fires, because, you know, it’s natural. Smokey flavor, anyone?
You’ve got buffalo chips? How many cities in the USA have buffalos? Now, what possible option would some major cities have just lying on the streets?
If you live in San Francisco – that is not a buffalo chip.
Just a chip off the old bloke.
So illegals making a contribution.
Ah Spetzer, can you explain all the male cow excrement?
There must be lots of cattle about.
The “advantages” of grid “flexibility” will soon be seen as the so called “synergy effect”, often claimed to be an advantage, when one enterprise takes over an other.
Guess who profits from 😀
The “equity” excuse can be used in so many different places.
What the above doesn’t mention is “Surge Pricing” All those who bought into the smart meter idea are in for a shock
A major change to the way that smart meters operate will allow “surge pricing” in millions of UK households.
Under new powers which will be granted to energy regulator Ofgem in May, smart meters will automatically send usage information to suppliers every 30 minutes, according to a report in The Telegraph.
Suppliers could then use this information to charge consumers more during peak times, if they want.
Ofgem has said that the change will be implemented on all new smart meters by 2025
https://uk.finance.yahoo.co…
Needless to say, I won’t be getting one until I’m absolutely forced to get one
So crazy to focus on consumption, not generation.
Why not just mandate that the wind blows at different times?
QR code for wind, blow time fixed 😀
Or just burn fosil fuels or use nuclear power … oh wait 🙂
Management of peak power demands affects any type of generating capacity. Utilities are forced to equal or exceed peak demands, which vary greatly by time of day and season of the year. The flatter the peak the less new capacity is needed. Unused peak generating capacity is a waste of generating capacity and of capital construction costs and also inefficient operations and maintenance costs. Even when a peak power plant is shut down it still has to be maintained.
Yes, it is so nice to be able to tell the wind to blow and the sun to shine during the peak power demand periods since “any type of generating capacity” is affected by demands.
Duane, you are describing an electrical system run for the convenience of the utility/government, not the consumer/citizen. In a free society, the aggregation of the maximum benefits to each of the individual consumer/citizens is the goal, not the minimum cost to the provider/government.
Shortages occur when socialistic governments try to minimize their costs instead of letting a free market determine what is produced and when. There is a huge difference between a government deciding what is best for its citizens and individual citizens deciding what is best for themselves. Yes, there are exceptions. An individuals’ consumption of electrical power, however, is not one of them. Everybody does not work 9 to 5 nor huddle in an inner-city high rise hovel. Some people need, want or can afford things that other people don’t want or can’t afford; it is not the government’s place to decide between them.
Be more courteous to the bees and ants. Your view is racists and speciesist.
Andy, your imagination is beyond me.
Don’t worry — I got ya. Colony bees and ants are the pinnacle of communism.
But, in a capitalist economy, the costs of private enterprise will be passed on to the consumer if the utilities have to design for reliability with spiky consumption. It behooves the consumer to spread out the peaks to minimize their costs. Only the wealthy, with large amounts of discretionary spending, can afford to ignore how their actions affect everyone else.
Clyde, in general electric power rates in the U.S. are readily affordable, except maybe in Leftist jurisdictions where governments crap-up their utilities with arbitrary, uneconomic mandates and socialistic/SJW manipulations. The various local, State and Federal governments already greatly subsidize the lower socioeconomic consumers and most everybody readily affords reliable electricity.
Remember, Clyde, I ran a electric utility and helped people having trouble paying their bills. The practical issues of running a utility and dealing with the myriad complex social, technical and economic issues are beyond your grasp.
Simplistic Leftist understandings of and solutions to complex problems has resulted in vast disfunctions in the U.S. All socialist systems have led to peoples’ ruin. For the U.S. the evidence is in the “blue” States and localities.
Before the current religion took precedence over rationality, careful planning for realistically estimated peak and average demand guided power plant construction. Now construction is guided by where land grabs can be easily managed and how much subsidsy can be collected.
I don’t understand why you are attracting so many down-votes. Your remarks seem reasonable to me.
Clyde, you don’t understand the down-votes because you don’t understand the issues. Listen to experts in the field instead of Leftist ideologues.
This actually has nothing to do with wind and solar power, even if the post implied otherwise … which sources coincidentally produce the most power during typical daytime peak power consumption times.
Regardless of the source of power, it is peak power demands that drive the building of new and additional generating capacity, and does so inefficiently – the most efficient generating system is one that operates at peak power 100% of the time. Flattening the peaks reduces the amount of new capacity required and increases the overall efficiency of the grid..
Peak is in the evening, solar produces at non-peak times, that is the whole problem
A reliable source of cheap energy doesn’t need rationing
And wind and solar produce nothing at night when the wind is not blowing.
Building wind and solar is a drain on the net wealth of the human society, totally ridiculous, and YOU support that waste.
Think of all of the houses, roads, vehicle, etc. that COULD HAVE BEEN built with the TRILLIONS of dollars spent on “renewable” (code for unreliable) generation capacity.
Duane, your position is indefensible. Got your vaccinations, boosters, etc.? Wearing your mask while driving alone in your car? Wearing your mask while alone in your mom’s basement writing your posts?
Off topic BTW. When 4 Freedom protesters in Canada were hit intentionally by a man in a car, he was filmed driving alone in his car WEARING HIS MASK. Yes, he is a leftist hater.
BTW #2. He has not been charged with the hate crime he committed since he is a LEFTIST, only conservatives can be perpetrators of hate crimes.
American news media reports him as being linked to antifa in past actions. Canadian news media doesn’t bother mentioning his antifa connections and just pretends there is nothing to see here. Had a “rightist” deliberately run over 4 BLM/Occupy/Extinction protesters, it would have been headline news for days and weeks.
Duane, please don’t opine on subjects upon which you have no knowledge. I’ve spent most of my working life in the electric utility business, including systems analysis and planning, financing, design, construction and operation of generating, transmission and distribution systems. I tell you you are totally off-base in your assertions about the practical issues surrounding optimizing the engineering and economics of real power systems. Anyone listening to you leaves with “negative knowledge.”
Anyway, the entire purpose of building and operating an electric power system is to meet the needs and wants of people at the the times they need and desire to receive the power. Time of use rates are ubiquitous, but may or may not be appropriate depending on one’s sense of equity. If a utility is arbitrarily cutting off individual consumer’s service or any portion thereof it is not meeting the utility’s service obligations. The more governmental crap a utility shoehorns into its operations, the less well it meets its fundamental obligations to individual consumers.
Not everyone can afford the luxury to have convenient power at any cost. Inefficient systems that have unused capacity most of the time is not smart engineering.
Duane’s observations seem self-evident to me and don’t require resorting to authority to counter claims.
First off, Clyde, life ain’t fair. You can’t make it so by tinkering with electric power systems you don’t understand. Instead of screwing up our electric systems for ideological imperatives, government would do better to budget for and give money to people they think deserving.
To hide the costs of governmental SJW schemes, the Deep State fad now is to mandate private companies provide the goodies. They can then blame cost increases on those bad corporations, as they do now with rising energy costs. Let’s Go Brandon!
What is the basis of your “Inefficient systems that have unused capacity most of the time is not smart engineering.” comment? Are you an electric power system engineer? Are you smarter than people that make actual livings from providing reliable electric power? Are politicians and bureaucrats smarter? Get real, Clyde. Leftist political interventions in real systems hurt people, they don’t help them.
Good effort Dave, but I think you’re trying to argue economics with someone who walks into a supermarket and is distressed that there are so many brands of toothpaste, beer, bread, etc.
Good observation, Frank. My comments, however, are primarily oriented towards those who may be influenced by socialistic dogma and misdirection.
The oft repeated criticism of having to maintain FF backup generators for when PV or wind turbines are not producing.
Misdirection in a technical and economic discussion of electric system design and operations.
You have been corrected on this point many times. Solar does not produce power during the time of peak demand. It produces peak power at mid-day, while peak demand is in the evening. Wind is even worse, it produces power only when the wind blows, which has no relationship with grid demands.
Your insistence in pushing this lie is getting to be almost griffian in it’s magnitude.
It’s not just generation, it’s distribution. They could take all the money wasted on renewabes, invest in rational power and add enough more than enough generation to provide the kWhrs needed, but if everyone got home, plugged in an EV and started running AC and appliances at the same time the power lines wouldn’t be able to handle the demand.
Yes. And fine it when it fails the contractual schedule!
“Households will be paid to ration their power usage at peak times as the National Grid scrambles to reduce pressure on Britain’s energy infrastructure.”
Demand side management (DSM) is a most favored tactic among those who enjoy ‘nudging’ the populace into behaving as progressives think they should. Implicit in the above quotation is that in order to cover the payments for shifting demand patterns, the utility will either have to overcharge for energy delivered during other periods or other classes of rate payers or both.
Another good observation, Frank. As someone who has prepared Integrated Resource Planning studies/reports and managed their preparation, I’ve always believed “demand side management” schemes were feeble efforts to avoid making tough but necessary decisions; they always sound good but never work out as intended, costing more in the long run.
Here in Phoenix AZ I am on a “time of use” plan where rates are high on-peak, and low off-peak. This does encourage me to use less electricity on-peak, but it does not necessarily result in less overall electricity usage. For example, on a hot summer day I will lower the thermostat several degrees below what I would otherwise, to pre-cool the house. Then at 2 PM when rates go up I raise the thermostat a few degrees above where I would otherwise to reduce the AC usage.
In fact the electric company actually encourages pre-cooling the home. So even though I use less on-peak, I use more off-peak. Total electricity consumption may be higher than it would be otherwise, even though my costs might be slightly lower.
Our electric utility offered us a voluntary time-of-use plan. They even provided estimates for our annual electricity cost if we did, and did not, accept the offer. Clearly, no one reviewed thses letters before they went out, as our estimated electricity cost for the time-of-use plan was higher than the estimate for not changing. We made a rational choice.
My electric utility offers a plan with a second meter for air conditioning. If the load is close to peak they can turn off your air conditioning for 20 minutes every hour for up to 3 hours. The advantage to the customer is a discount on the electricity used for air conditioning. I think they stopped offering that plan to new customers but I am grandfathered in. I haven’t seen the statistics lately, but there were some years when they never shut off the power and other years they shut it off 3 or 4 times. It’s a great plan for the customer.
A rational response to increased demand would be to generate more power, but that’s crazy talk.
Ask Griff.
You will have 10x as much generation compared to now.
But often it will produce zero, so sorry.
Pat,
That looks like
“Sorry, not sorry!”
Auto
It’s an admission the forced plan to abandon so called fossil fuel does not work. So why do it? Maybe those pushing it are invested personally in green energy.
When they have the general population impoverished with shorter life they will have you under their thumb and loving it and the planet will be no different than before.
Exactly. The “sustainable” energy sources are not gonna fill the bill, so ration whatever there is. More BS from the scam climate folks.
Capitalism provide plenty. Socialism allocates shortages.
Green initiatives are the province of the educated and well-to-do. They believe the hardship won’t fall on them (the elect) or they can afford to pay more if it does.
Trust me, the people behind these schemes believe somebody else will pay or do without.
Let this be a wake-up call to the US. There is never an idea so unwise or impractical that it won’t be attempted by the “progressive” left.
Talk about hitting the poor the hardest.
Good Lord, the whole (Telegraph) article is dripping with leftist pretentiousness. The worst is in this quote:
“We don’t know yet how consumers are going to respond. But if a lot of it’s automated and going on in the background, and I know I’m going to get a slightly lower price, then I think we’ll find that people are pretty happy to do that.”
Arrogantly assume the magic fairy dust of automation will solve it; arrogant assume the price is “slightly” lower because of automation; conclude people will be happy. This is such a totalitarian scheme. And clearly this isn’t a case of, well, if the customers don’t like it we’ll back off. No, it’s a case of, they will like it or they won’t eat.
“I know I’m going to get a slightly lower price”
Of course < /sarc>
The Telegraph shot over to the left some time ago. All the old print media has.
“I know I’m going to get a slightly lower price”
The chocolate ration is being increased from 25 grams to 15 grams
The Torygraph reflects donors – Goldsmith and Aspinall. The Ecologist is Goldsmith. BoJo’s wife was press agent for both funds.
Not charging my non-existent EV isn’t going to help.
Fast lane to the third world!
Let’s start with an involuntary pilot program for people who support Net Zero and other decarbonization policies.
Seriously, who really wants to go without power? People will participate if the incentives are high enough. I’d take $100/hour for 2 hours max daily. In other words, you’d have to pay me a lot to do this voluntarily and it would cost more than it saves.
Let’s just cut the crap and build more conventional, reliable, power generation capacity.
You’d think that after two years of collecting data from their experiments, they would have enough of it to last them for decades.
But Behavioural so-called scientists are nothing if not voracious when collecting data about us. Those SPI-B sociopaths and communists have shown me at least that rather than allowing them free rein to use us as Pavlov dogs, they should be severely constrained in what they are permitted to do. And never used as a tool by government to force is into doing things against our will.
“they should be severely constrained in what they are permitted to do“.
Like breathing?
I was in Randolph New Jersey [US] in 1984-88. We were on a time of use electrical pricing for the first couple years. The last year they reverted to the non time-restricted pricing [don’t remember their reasons]. My electricty cost was exactly the same. They were VERY good at pricing it, timing it so that it forced you to move your energy consuming appliances into the off hours [late night to early morning]. We even had electric heat in that small house.
“ it is hoped electric cars could eventually be used as a sort of giant battery system”
Well there we have it – the long sought for battery grid. briLLIANT!
And by the way – the IOT, Internet Of Things, means all those meters are on the internet. Easy, peasy, a state operator can simply, remotely, turn off various devices, such as A/C based on spot-price grid algorithms. Free-market, an Enron for everyone!
I knew there had to be some use for my electric Dinky’s – plugging them in immediately to help the grid battery.
And what happens when you wish to drive your EV, whose battery has been contributing to the gird, and is flat?
You then give thanks and receive your participation ribbon from Griff, who then requests that you freeze to death in silence.
Because no one likes a whiner
It’s even worse than that. EV battery life is determined by the number of charge-discharge cycles. EV batteries start to show degradation after as few as 600 to 800 cycles. If you charge them once per week they should last 10 years or longer. If you put them on the grid and charge and discharge them every day they’ll be degraded in two to three years. You would be an idiot to leave your EV connected to the grid.
And the extra cycling ruins the battery?
Arbitrarily turning off peoples’ electrical devices is not “Free-market” and Enron’s debacle is nowhere near that scheme.
It is Enron on IOT – the spot-markets after all are the thing to watch. Which is what Enron did (using a fake Houston trading floor!). Meanwhile consumers bills rocketed.
The guys who pulled that off really believed they are on the side of angels, as CEO Skilling said – taking on the monopolies of big gov’mint, all in the name of freeing the market. There are quite a few of the angels on a pinhead, sorry, spot-price peak.
bonbon, I was a consultant advising energy companies, both during and post the ENRON debacle. Additionally, in the late 1970s and 1980s I was involved in efforts to warn the CA Legislature, California Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission that the “deregulation” laws being contemplated at the time would lead to the exact conditions that allowed ENRON and others to outrageously inflate energy supply costs in CA.
ENRON’s fraud is in no way similar to the current government’s ideologically-motivated manipulation of the U.S. energy supply systems. The government is creating both the reliable energy supply shortages and the general economic conditions conducive to inflationary pressures.
Spot markets strongly respond to shortages, no matter the cause. Don’t like it? Reverse the “deregulation” of electric supply. “Deregulation” just resulted in weirder and more pernicious government manipulations, along with the opportunities for bad actors to inflate prices.
With this kind of leadership and policy deployment, the only metric to use is on the back end examining excess deaths in demographic data, which is how the FDA/AMA-approved opioid crisis was first spotted.
I wont have a smart meter for this very reason – its all about controlling consumer usage, whether you like it, or not
Me too.
Unfortunately, mine was replaced while I was at work. The meter belongs to the power company, so nothing to be done about it anyway.
They can’t change you to a smart meter without your consent
You are free to use as much energy as you want during the expensive times. No one is (currently) going to stop you.
The alternative is for everyone to pay more all the time.
‘Free to use as much as you want’
The UK Grid is creaking at the seams – net zero push for EVs and heat pumps etc will push the Grid to break point without multi billion £, decades long upgrades, that is a fact
The unreliable renewables that have displaced conventional, reliable coal and gas fired power generation, means there is a net loss of available generation to confidently cover all Grid demand possibilities, therefore, rationing will become the new norm, as in South Africa, unless the Govt can nudge consumers into moving activity to less Grid stressed times
There is not plentiful generation to allow consumers to ‘use as much as they want’, even if everyone wanted to pay extortionate prices to keep their domestic habits as are – smart meter ‘cut off’ capability is built in to provide that demand curtailment, to ensure demand never exceeds the now engineered in, insufficient supply
The UK Grid needs more gas and nuclear powered generation (fusion hopefully, but that’s always 30 years away from being commercially available) so that consumers have as much reliable energy as they want, at affordable prices
How cool, they will use your car batteries to store electricity for peak hours. Does that not impact the number of recharges left for the life of your car’s batteries? Oh, and if the grid needs your car battery as backup, my guess they will eventually make it impossible for you to take off with your car on errands when they need it during peek periods. And when you are ready to go somewhere, you are wondering why you only have half a “tank” of charge left on your EV. How cool.
“Half a tank of charge?”
Eeee, tha were lucky! We had a hundredth of a charge, and ‘ad to walk eight miles to school, uphill both ways.
Apologies to the Four Yorkshire men!
Auto
You forgot to mention a headwind and three feet of snow.
What did people use for lights before candles?
Electricity.
Its just the next step in conditioning people to accept that electricity is a limited thing to which there is no control over.
Griff, why ration power if its endless and cheap?
If its too cheap to meter industry would be flocking to Britain and germany instead of fleeing.
It would be far better if the lies weren’t so STUPID and easily disproven.
How these things begin, reminds me of Jurassic Park
Ian Malcolm: Yeah, oooh, aaah, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running, and screaming
Everyone must do their part and sacrifice for the cause……bitcoin mining that is.
It is out of control.
U.S. becoming ‘bitcoin mining capital of the world,’ GEM Mining CEO says (yahoo.com)
Did someone mention Octopus Agile – it triggered a little something in me.
Which was the little renewable energy forum ## I used to lurk around.
One of the members was on the Octopus tariff and boy-oh-boy, was he a garrulous chap.
He’d keep the forum up to date on how it was working for him, how much solar energy he was exporting etc etc. He owned a Tesla also.
And Holy Cow, did he come alive when Octopus informed him there was gonna be some Negative Pricing, later today or through the night.
But that didn’t happen too often and even then, the neagative price was never more than 2 or 3 pence per kWh anyway.
But, the tariff left him wide open to the crazy (spot) pricing that was seen in Texas and he showed a graph for that. It was insane what he’d paid for elektrikery sometimes.
He admitted, he wasn’t any better off with the flexible tariff, fixing up timers on the washing machine & dish-washer, charging the car on negative electricity and constantly fixating on an app on his phone.
None of it happened ‘automatically’ – you yourself had to respond to the incoming emails & texts about the upcoming free electric and usually with less that 6 or 7 hours notice.
It was stress stress stress – occasionally relieved by (barely) negative electricity prices
## Now completely vanished.Completely.
It showed the laugh-ability about how ‘the internet never forgets‘ and how lovely renewable energy is. They’d built up a carefully catalogued and maintained message board of FAQs, friendly advice and real actual user experience of renewable energy – esp Off Grid Systems.
And kept reminding themselves and the moderators all about that.
Then ‘something happened’ to the company (called Navitron) that hosted and maintained the forum. The company vanished, in a reasonably controlled way, and came back under a new name.
The message board stopped accepting new posts and then, after 2 or 3 months – the entire kaboodle was switched off. Just like that. Gone in an instant and everything went. Some of the very last posts hoped that the board would be copied over to the new firm.
The new firm set up a message board but none, absolutely none, of the previous members signed up and all the original stuff simply never showed.
makes you wonder,
’bout a lot of things…
After 73 years of life and working at a fairly high level in the U.S. Department of Energy, I don’t wonder any more; they are out to get you. Leftism is a disease that will kill you.
Maybe we should take a page out of the vaccine passport enthusiasts and if you believe in CAWG your power gets cut first?
And I’ve always found it hilarious that the same people think there won’t be an issue when thousands of commuters get home and plug in their e-cars want to curb our energy use at certain times of the day.
Although much like driving an e-car in the cold, I imagine we’ll all be freezing in the dark while they charge…priorities, right?
Forward to the past! This image is from a local UK newspaper in 1944. https://ibb.co/5FKRfyX
Then it was Hitler and the National Socialists. Now it is CliSciFi and the warmunists.
Please, sir, can I have some more electricity”?
“Silence! You get what you get, and you’ll be happy with it. Or else.”
This is nothing more than a sticking plaster. It’s not going to stop the lights going out.
By winter 2024/25 the UK will have lost half the nuclear fleet and all the remaining coal fired stations. The coal stations generate 4GW between them and the nuclear stations set to close down, approximately 3GW. All we need at that point is a cold snap with no wind and the remaining power sources will not be able to meet demand. At that point the UK hits the reality wall. Game over.
The nuclear problem may be worse than expected depending upon the rate at which the cores deteriorate at Heysham 2 and Torness AGR stations.
If events prove me wrong no doubt Griff will delight in telling me!
So there are already big problems and hardly anyone has installed heat pumps and switched to electric cars, and the grid still is mainly supported by fossil fuels. Is there a viable plan to even cover the gap as conventional generation is de-commissioned with the current demand?
“The move is a pilot scheme intended to pave the way for getting people used to frequent outages thanks to having a clean and green energy system
broader overhaul of the country’s billing system as the UK ditches reliable but dirty fossil fuel plants..”Fixed it
““
System flexibilityGetting used to doing without power is vital to help manage and reduce peak electricity demand and keep Britain’s electricity flowing securely”fixed it
“Demand for electricity is set to soar in coming decades as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models”
that sounds like they’re happy about giving up their petrol vehicles- I think the public is more likely to ditch their politicians first
Voters don’t pay attention to ruling class and NGO fun and games until they are personally impacted. It is political stupidity to piss off the average voter in favor of appeasing the strident ideological minority. Retribution is only delayed slightly with propaganda. Smart, non-ideologically motivated politicians will be hopping over to the cheap, abundant energy side soon, if they are not doing so now. Elections everywhere over the next few years will tell the tale.
One can hope! But then, Democrats keep getting elected.
“In the trial running from Friday, 1.4m customers of Octopus Energy who have smart meters will get free electricity for certain defined two-hour periods, including 4.30pm to 6.30pm, if they cut their use below usual levels.”
Except on days when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing and the battery systems are still functioning. This is an incredibly stupid idea.
Silly me thinking that governments are there to make sure that supply meets demand.
Those who contribute to the trial may/will find that they are forced to meet the lack of supply rather than have the choice
Reminds me of when the navy ship I was on was asked to determine how to function with 10% fewer crew. Just a paper exercise, we were told.
Soon after we had 10% fewer but still required to perform all of the same duties and responsibilities.
Everything is possible on paper.
It’s the job of the free market to make sure supply meets demand. Relying on government for this is what makes communism/socialism fail every time.
So some taxpayers will receive money from other taxpayers to not use electricity. This is similar to wind turbine owners being paid for not producing electricity when the grid doesn’t need or want their contribution. This doesn’t seem like a serious way to run a utlility.
As someone who has run a utility, I tell you it is not a serious way; it is an ideological way. Socialism at its finest.
Oh, BTW, I was able to reduce customer electric rates by 20%, industrial accounts by even more.
From the above-quoted article out of the UK The Telegraph:
“Demand for electricity is set to soar in coming decades as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models and swap gas-fired boilers for electric heat pumps or hydrogen made from renewable electricity, as part of the Government’s push to cut carbon emissions.”
Was this in The Telegraph‘s humor section? If not, it should have been.
Charge your cars at night — when the sun’s not shining — a brilliant idea from solar idiots!
We had a smart meter for electricity installed. Since we changed supplier we have to read our own meter and submit the number each month as they can’t read it remotely. Why, maybe they are morons? Here in the UK our energy prices will sky rocket in April. I’ve heard it suggested that at the next meter read one puts in an extremely high self read to take advantage of the currently relatively low costs. I could never condone this.
You’ve been claiming that the world is just months away from running out of oil, for several years now. In fact you’ve been banned from this site for your tendency to try and turn every single article into a discussion about how you and only you are correct and everyone else is an idiot.
The new green economy. The government pays with citizens wealth. They pay consumers not to consume. They pay wind and solar producers not to produce. They pay other countries take take surplus’s power. Eventually they will pay us all to stop breathing.
All countries need to abandon this green energy nonsense. Anyone with any intelligence can understand there is no way to make this viable. What is so hard to understand solar shuts down every night; guaranteed. Wind is very erratic even in known windy areas. The amount of land needed to provide reliable power during the day plus battery storage solar energy at night use is more than any rational person would consider appropriate. It is complete nonsense.
I can tots see how paying people to not take electricity will make it cheaper overall………
Does there seem to be a flaw in the plan to electrify everything?
As for plans like using EVs to store electricity, are people really going to discharge their vehicles after going to all the trouble and expense of charging them in the first place? I mean, they charge at say 20p per KwHr and sell back at 4p. Makes a lot of sense.
I am dismayed at the paranoia and conspiracy theory displayed in these comments…
nobody is going to ration anyone with their smart meters.
There is a long history of off peak reduced tariffs in the UK (‘Economy 7’, for example)…
Peak demand raises prices… peaker plants, expensive to operate, idle for most of the time, are a common solution.
Switching use to lower demand periods with financial incentives for users… what is the problem? It is the new technology which facilitates this…
eliminate peaker plant, reduce costs for consumers… hardly an evil plot?
eliminate
peaker plantrenewable subsidies, reduce costs for consumers… hardly an evil plot?There, fixed it for you.
Oh Griffy, are you really that stupid, or just that disingenuous?
Bruce, embrace “and”. He’s both really that stupid *and* that disingenuous.
Economically favored dispatchable peak load units allow reliable base load units to run cheaply and efficiently. Politically favored renewables back out reliable base load units and need to be backed up with additional disptchable peak load units.
Well unlike pipes, wires can be rewired.
Just saying.
What a dopey article, written by yet another scientifically ignorant journalist. So the rest of us will have to shell out to pay other people not to consume electricity. The whole thing sounds like an admission of failure: ‘Sorry we have failed to create a reliable electricity supply to replace fossil fuels & you will now no longer be able to use electricity when you want. We are sorry for the backward step’. All this charging of electric cars in the night & discharging them into the grid again at peak times causes complications. The British mains supply is generated as 3-phase 50 Hz AC. An electric car battery gives DC. An inverter will be needed. Where houses are on a single phase supply, sending electricity back into the grid will cause phase imbalances with other consumers connected to the other two phases of the substation transformer. Furthermore the substation transformers will have to be designed to work efficiently both ways. What a load of unnecessary complication & expense.