From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
The National Grid will ask factories and businesses to voluntarily cut their electricity usage this winter under an expansion of a service previously pioneered by households.
In a bid to help keep Britain’s lights on, the Grid has confirmed it will urge heavy industry to sign up to the so-called demand flexibility service this coming winter.
Businesses that sign up would be asked to reduce their consumption at times when supplies are expected to be stretched, helping to ease pressure on the system.
While they may use the same amount of energy overall, shifting their usage outside of peak times can help the Grid to manage and prevent blackouts in worst-case scenarios.
Households are also being asked to take part in the demand flexibility service again, which was first introduced last year.
We are rapidly returning to the blackouts and voltage reductions of the 1960s and 70s. (Remember how our old TVs used to lose their horizontal hold, whenever voltage was reduced?)
Back then our steel works, along with many other heavy power users, were handed Maximum Demand periods, usually of an hour, and with maybe a day’s notice at times of peak demand. Any electricity used during that hour was charged at a punitive rate. Consequently everything shut down, the furnaces, rolling mills etc; even the lights went off in the offices, which was quite a fun time when you did not have to work and could chat the girls up instead!. But it was no way to run a factory efficiently, and neither will this latest idea.
This move is, to all intents and purposes, rationing. And the reason is quite clear – the closure of nearly all of our coal power capacity.
If we are having to take such drastic action now, heaven help us when our gas plants start to shut down as well.
The Telegraph finishes with this ridiculous claim:
Given that only 1.6 million homes took up the offer, clearly the amount saved could not have been enough to power 9.9 million homes.
H/T resourceguy
“This move is, to all intents and purposes, rationing.”
Nonsense. You save money using electricity at off-peak times. We have had such deals since forever. It’s entirely voluntary.
Off peak times are also often aligned with Solar unavailability times
Making yourself dependent on generation that is subject to the whims of weather to function is pure folly
“Making yourself dependent”
You don’t make yourself dependent, at least not in the household scheme. You can use peak hour electricity; you just have to pay normal rates for it.
You make yourself DEPENDENT on unreliable renewables that will not necessarily be able to produce during evening peak because the sun is too low in the sky and you’ve eliminated your dependable, on demand capable FF generation
How much more fossil fuel capacity has to be eliminated before it is not voluntary and the rates for peak usage become punitive?
Reminds me of the stores that used to double their prices, then advertise a half off sale.
“You can use peak hour electricity; you just have to pay normal rates for it.”
O.K., back to the age old questions … Dumb Ass, ignorant fool, or liar?
To rephrase for you, so as to be honest in meaning:
‘You can use electricity, as per the normal typical user, you just have to pay higher rates for it.’
‘You can manage your electricity, to use outside or the normal times, and you will get to pay lower rates for it.’
You admit that “off-peak” has always existed…
So why do they need to PLEAD with businesses to stop using electricity during peak times.
Surely they are already doing it.
Admit it Nick, you KNOW this is purely a ploy to cover their asses because they have stuffed up the electricity supply system.
You are being slimy and disingenuous as usual.
“Making yourself dependent on generation that is subject to the whims of weather to function is pure folly”
Making ourselves subject to the whims of weather again is effectively unwinding the progress of the 19th and 20th centuries.
No thanks.
Agreed 100%!!
Voluntary in the sense of
If you don’t reduce we’ll cut you off anyway.
You live in a strange world Nick Stokes
Nobody is cut off under this scheme. The worst that happens is that you don’t get your incentive benefit.
OK genius.
What do you think the blackout in
blackout prevention plan
Is?
Closing the curtains?
It means if you don’t do it then we’ll have to implement power cuts. It’s only voluntary in as much as when the power cuts come, as come they will, the power suppliers and government can say you didn’t help yourselves
“Blackout prevention” is a phrase introduced by the Telegraph in beating up this story. As I said elsewhere, any generator is a blackout prevention device.
Generator? They all use fossil fuels, no?
No. Some use wind and sun.
Sun … Only from 10am until 2pm. Before or after … Sun=Nil
Wind only when wind is in the goldilocks zone otherwise conditions are unfavorable.
Wintertime blocking high pressure over the UK and power will drop off leaving the Crown’s subjects to freeze in the cold dark of winter
“Nick Stokes
Reply to
Joseph Zorzin
June 19, 2023 3:29 am
No. Some use wind and sun.”
The flaw in this supposition is this…
Solar cannot be used as “Back-up Generation” especially during peak times
First because during Peak Usage Times Solar is unavailable as a generation source.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, solar that is connected to the grid on the Distribution System MUST be connected in a way that forces the generation to SHUT DOWN if the grid isn’t energized (blackouts and curtailment). This safeguard is in place to PREVENT solar from feeding into a potential fault induced outage and makes solar back-up non functional
Again correct – except when they can’t, and the demand does not diminish, what happens then – how are these generators are to be be powered?
Further what happens when all current 20.9M registered vehicles are forced to be replaced by Battery EVs and need to recharge? Given that they will take more than 12 hours average to recharge virtually all the EVs that are plugged in overnight will not only be charging On Peak Time but will act to shift Evening Peak Times far later into the night. So not only will the grid need to handle current demand but also added demand not only from nighttime EV charging but also added demand from electrified home heating and cooking
NIck, I often regret how harshly some of your comments are down-voted but this time I am piling on too.
It is inconceivable that, having set up the structures for “demand management” the electricity companies, under the cosh of the regulators, won’t start penalizing non-compliant users. It’ll happen sooner or later, and it will be punative.
Demand management has been around since forever. In Australia it has been formalised (for industry) as the RERT scheme.
In the wholesale market, as in all markets, demand management happens through price. This basically is a scheme for some of the befits of the lower periods of wholesale price to be passed on to retail. I am surprised that there hasn’t been an outcry about the previous failure to do that. As I said, in Victoria that is routinely done and expected, with demand-dependent pricing levels.
Demand has to be managed in some way, to bring it in line with supply, which is always finite. That is true for any commodity, and is in no way peculiar to renewables in electricity.
Demand management is only an option when effective, reliable and affordable supply management is no longer an option. When demand management fails we have blackouts.
Thinking logically, most would come to the conclusion that bolstering supply management should be the priority. Then there’s Nick.
Your lack of compassion for the poor just comes shining through in everything you post!
Demand management is a non-starter for some industries, like steel and aluminum. Oh wait, not a problem in Great Britain anymore for aluminum, since the last aluminum smelter closed in 2015. Steel to follow soon. That was the plan, wasn’t it, Nick?
No. In fact, steel and aluminium are the major participants in Australia’s RERT scheme.
You are basically coming down on the side of the suppliers and the consumer be damned. This is NOT a free market. It is exactly what happens with monopolies. And what do monopolies do? They raise prices at their will. That is exactly what is happening now.
Government is forcing the cheaper and more reliable sources of power out of business and what is left is a monopoly that has no regard for the end user.
You are a monopolist. Shame on you.
is a fascist simply a monopolist that agrees with the govt.
(maybe Nick can answer)
The monopolist had better agree with the government, since monopolies are impossible without government support.
Strictly speaking, they can only do this short-term, and only in a price insensitive market.
If price sensitivity exists, volume and price are inversely correlated.
A monopoly maximises profit by having production and sales at the level where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. The price will be higher than that.
Increasing production will decrease the price (or cause unsold inventory); increasing the price will decrease sales and lead to a decrease in production.
Price sensitivity implies a competitive market, not a monopoly market. In a monopoly market prices can go up until actual revenue falls to zero because the last customer died.
It depends what the product is. Some are price sensitive, some aren’t.
Price sensitivity exists on the demand side, not the supply side. On the supply side, it’s marginal cost.
For example, in the short term, petrol demand is price sensitive down to a certain level. There is only so much that driving can be reduced (less weekend road trips, less trips to the shop). Once you get to the essential travel, it becomes price insensitive.
In the longer term, people can buy smaller cars.
In Economics theory, a producer will produce to maximise profit.
In a perfectly competitive market, producers are too small to influence market volumes, and face what is effectively a fixed selling price. They also have increasing marginal costs as production increases (overtime, etc). Maximum profit is at the point where marginal revenue from producing and selling 1 more unit is equal to the marginal cost of producing it. /That also equals the price in this case.
In a monopoly market, a single producer makes all the product. That market has high barriers to entry (or somebody else would start producing). In a price sensitive market, demand volume is inversely correlated to price (customers buy less at higher prices) The monopolist maximises profit at the point where marginal revenue from selling 1 more unit equals the marginal cost of producing it. This is lower than the price, because marginal revenue decreases faster than the price does.
There’s a good overview at https://biz.libretexts.org/Courses/Lumen_Learning/Book%3A_Microeconomics_(Lumen)/11%3A_Module_9-_Monopoly/11.16%3A_Profit_Maximization_for_a_Monopoly
And from another article about electricity in Australia your Australian citizens pay about 3 times what I do for electricity. No thanks. You can keep your “clean energy” schemes. It will lead to reduced output, reduced income and other bad outcomes.
So the Republic of South Africa is simply employing demand management by providing electricity to customers on a 4 hour per day rolling schedule? Their grid has been in shambles for decades due to corruption and mismanagement failing to maintain or replace their aging fossil fuel power plants. There is a net zero chance that their power shortage crisis will be solved with by wind and solar.
But, what the heck, let’s all follow RSA’s lead and shut down all of our coal, gas and nuclear power plants and deal with the consequences by employing “demand management” aka “rationing”. We call it voluntary until it’s not.
But
The first responsibility of energy authorities should be to improves and maintain the lives of the UK citizens. It is not to “save the world” from specious theoretical disaster a century from now.
The non-West world is building coal-fired plants at the rate of one or two each week. CO2 is going to rise no matter what the people of the UK do.
The imposed hardship on the people of the UK is an utterly meaningless moral gesture. Their energy privatizations will no more save the world than the wearing of hair shirts in the Middle Ages saved anyone’s soul.
Used to be that Australia had sufficient reliable supplies so “demand management” was not necessary.
Off-peak was an incentive to install water heaters etc that worked when demand was lower.
Now the “incentive” is to shut down the business.
“Off-peak was an incentive”
es, and so is this.Y
It’s the worst regressive form of taxation on the poor that one can imagine! The poor typically have far less capability of reducing usage than the rest of the population – so they get to PAY and PAY and PAY under such a scheme.
But since when do the CAGW advocates care about the poor? Let’em drive $60,000 electric vehicles!
If you can’t afford it then you have been cut off from it. Ask a poor person if they can afford a $60K EV. If they can’t then they have been cut off from it.
If they can’t afford a $80K Cadillac, have they been cut off from it?
Bunch of communists.
Aaaaand if that $80,000 Cadillac were the only car available to by per government mandate then??? EVs WILL become government mandate in a few years. And Petrol Cars will be forbidden from sale.
If that Cadillac is the only vehicle the government allows (ala an EV) then, YES, they have been cut off from it through government fiat. That *is* fascism, not communism. You *really* don’t know squat about economics, do you?
“The worst that happens is that you don’t get your incentive benefit.”
WRONG, the worst that happens is that you can’t reschedule your job, life, & family around the extra surcharge (the increase in cost associated with normal use) , and you can’t afford to stay both warm & fed.
Businesses have to cease working…
How is that not “getting cut off”
Nonsense
Not necessarily “nonsense”, if businesses are forced in to functioning Off Peak hours only then when are we talking about…9 – 10am until peak begins again at 3 – 5 pm then from 9 – 11pm until 9am. Then, if EVs extend peak time to include peak overnight charging, peak will extend well beyond 11pm.
Businesses need to function 24 hours with some 7-3:30, some 8-4:30, some 9-5 and some manufacturing much later during both on and off peak times without affecting operating costs. If that isn’t available in your country, businesses will expatriate themselves and take their jobs with them
Nick is no doubt a nice, conscientious person, but he seems to have a medieval sensibility.
Who cares if the serfs are inconvenienced and must work at night? Suffering is good for their souls, if it saves the planet….
Electricity powers machines, not serfs.
Serfs power economies not environmentalists
Historically in Britain voluntary rationing has been used as a prelude, preparation or ‘softening-up’ process for the introduction of compulsory rationing as in WW1:
“In January 1917, Germany started unrestricted submarine warfare to try to starve Britain into submission. To meet this threat, voluntary rationing was introduced in February 1917. Bread was subsidised from September that year; prompted by local authorities taking matters into their own hands, compulsory rationing was introduced in stages between December 1917 and February 1918” (Wiki).
In this case the reason for the preparatory voluntary rationing is an entirely bogus and imaginary threat.
It isn’t rationing. You can use as much electricity as you like (contrary to the headline here). You just get some incentive payment for using it at off-peak times.
In Melbourne, my AGL bill has six rates – Peak, Weekday Off peak, Weekend Off Peak, Weekday Shoulder, Weekend Shoulder. It has been that way in Vic for at least 60 years, and hasn’t led to rationing. The SECV used to promote it vigorously when they had just coal. It was very expensive for them to meet the daily peak, so it was good business to give users an incentive to use off-peak.
You can use as much electricity as you like.
LOL, until there is a blackout.
Always true. But there aren’t blackouts.
Then why do they need to PLEA for business to reduce peak time usage.
Even you must have realised by now that this is a ploy to cover for the fact that they now have a highly erratic and unstable electricity supply system.
What slimy, immoral, and deceitful agenda causes you to try to hide that fact?
Nick,
You electricity supplier AGL is the same as mine.
My Melbourne AGL bill shows not one of these options of Peak, Weekday Off peak etc.
….
My last friendly email from AGL mentioned in bold –
Electricity usage Unit GST incl.
General Usage c/kWh 23.270000
This price will, on 1st July 2023, be replaced by –
General Usage c/kWh 31.740000
…….
So, my general use price will be increased by 36.4% which incease is some 10 times higher than any prior AGL increase in 15 years of dealing.
….
AGL gave no explanation of what caused the price increase, nor did they mention if another one would or would not follow.
I have repeatedly asked AGL to explain why they have been increasing prices. I have repeatedly asked them if I can have my electricity costed at “coal rates” by calculations excluding “renewables” costs. They have repeatedly refused.
This is really shoddy conduct by a supplier of what many class as an essential supply. Past corporate experience (which seldom shows in your comments) indicates that big companies that resort to the “No further communications will be entered into” tactic commonly collapse soon after they issue this arrogant defence of being quiet about impending failure.
….
Nick, I put it to you that this is an example of a company with a catastrophe looming, not an indicator of a happy electricity supply system where, as you claim, “You can use as much electricity as you like (contrary to the headline here).”
The answer, my friend, is NOT blowin’ in the wind as Dylan would have it.
Geoff S
Geoff,
Here is a statement of my AGL charge rates:
that is a nice table … until you can show similar from 60 years ago (per your above comment), or 50 years ago, or 40 years ago, you will be assumed to be lying again.
When we lived on our boat we paid the Medium Industrial rate because that’s what the marina was charged, that worked out to about 17 cents per KWh. Now we are no longer on the boat we pay an average of about 12 cents per KWh, 9.59 cents below a certain usage level and 14. 52 cents thereafter plus tax. That’s a long way from these rates. Then again no or very little solar or wind intrusion in the generation here.
Remember, the rates are in AUD. So reduce by 0.7
Why so high at each of the rates? The addition of unreliables to the generation mix?
MONOPOLY!
Rationing is now being enforced on home charging of EVs. By law you must have a separately metered supply that can be remotely switched off during peak hours.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-electric-vehicle-smart-charge-points
Considering current Off Peak times…
First peak is 7am till 11am (7am to 10am nil to next to nil solar.availability)
Second peak 5pm till 9pm (Zero solar production at this time of day)
Haven’t seen much Home Rooftop Wind Generation advertisements just Rooftop Solar. So using home generation to offset overloaded grid during peak usage ti!as is a Non Sequitur. Off peak time is when most people are at work and away from home so home usage drops and business usage increases
Australia has similar AM and PM peak times…
Absolutely Zero solar availability during either peak usage time so having home solar is again useless during peak usage times. All peak usage MUST come from the grid.
Don’t call this rationing either.
story tip
More than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year while on NHS waiting lists | The Scottish Sun
But it’s free, therefore it’s all good.
You get what you pay for, as the saying goes.
Early death costs nothing?
Jim Hacker: It says here, smoking related diseases cost the National Health Service £165 million a year.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes but we’ve been in to that, it has been shown that if those extra 100,000 people had lived to a ripe old age, it would have cost us even more in pensions and social security than it did in medical treatment. So, financially speaking it’s unquestionably better that they continue to die at their present rate.
Its in the nature of humbugs to spin facts to make it seem that they are right, even to the extent of justifying decisions that will knowingly cause great harm,just to avoid being seen to be wrong.
History is full of these decisions, and the consequences.
Okay, Nick. Argue semantics while missing the point. Guess what comes next after asking companies to “voluntarily” reduce electricity usage? It starts with an “r” and rhymes with “fashioning”.
Ask yourself why the government is even asking companies to reduce their usage. There are many practical and economical ways to satisfy the demand, which is what responsible and responsive government does. Why isn’t Britain’s current government doing it? They managed to not have this problem for the previous 40 years. It used to be a problem in the 60’s and 70’s during the golden age of English Socialism. Then Margaret Thatcher came along and restored a degree of sanity to English politics. So-called “climate change” is the wedge issue for socialists to restore their power. Just like the envy of “the rich” stoked by class warriors during prior socialist revolutions to dupe the masses into putting the socialists in power, “climate change” is an entirely imaginary “problem” that socialists inflate to stir up the gullible and ignorant.
“Ask yourself why the government is even asking companies to reduce their usage.”
They aren’t asking business to reduce their usage. They are providing cheaper electricity at off-peak periods. As I said above, we have had that for sixty years, and no-one thinks it is rationing, or will be followed by blackouts.
The off peak you’re talking about was aimed at domestic users who weren’t at work because the factories, shops and offices were closed. It suited the electricity companies who were using coal to generate electricity to have more demand at night so they didn’t have the hasse of shutting down and restarting power stations everyday. It was used a lot for storage heaters.
Getting factories, shops and offices to run at off peak times is an interesting concept. Surely that becomes peak shifting?
“The off peak you’re talking about was aimed at domestic users”
No, it was very much aimed at industrial users. In the 1980’s, the Vic government made efforts to attract a big aluminium smelter, which would soak up overnight power. There is a lot of scope for that.
Sure, just so they can hammer them on the day rates. Aluminum smelters have to run 24/7. The only way to reduce usage is to have cold pots, which don’t make any revenue.
Yes, off peak pricing has been around a long time, but it was instituted to encourage more electricity consumption during off peak hours to even out demand and reduce the ramping up and down of plants which hurts efficiency. Coal and nuclear do not respond quickly to big changes in demand.
Also lowering rates to increase use off-peak means more revenue overall. Off peak pricing was not created to reduce peak demand. This is a new application to cover that reduction in low cost coal and nuclear power production resulting from Climate Change hysteria and the failure of wind/solar to make up the difference.
I’m pretty sure that the many of the alarmists are by now well aware that eliminating fossil fuels will result major reductions in prosperity and the ability to sustain a global population of several billion people. Some have even claimed that the earth’s sustainable carrying capacity is something like 500 Million to 1 billion. So if decarbonization ends up eliminating 6-7 billion people over the next 30 years that’s just fine with them.
maybe Nick will prefer working at off peak times- he won’t mind the vast inconvenience, to “save the planet”
Companies have long had access to half hourly pricing. This is not the same thing at all. If it has an analogue it is with the now defunct Triad system that encouraged investment in a lot of behind the meter diesel generation instead of providing peaked generation via the grid, which would almost certainlyhavebeena cheaper option overall. These things are driven by policy zealots, not real economics.
“This is not the same thing at all.”
Why is it different? You get a financial advantage from using power at times of low demand.
Half hourly pricing is already in place to provide market incentives.
The problem is there are huge variances between day ahead half hourly prices, prices traded in the subsequent market up to gate closure, system prices in the balancing mechanism used to invoice over or under use or generation against contracted positions, and prices paid for balancing actions. The ability to forecast system performance is sharply degraded, which is why these deviations occur. Look at the price chart here which shows the scale of variations
https://enact.lcp.energy/?trk=public_post-embed_share-update_update-text
This is introducing BM action pricing – a completely new and highly volatile feature – into retail markets.
Why the continued DECEIT, Nick.
You must realise that this is a ploy to cover up for the fact that they have destroyed the reliability of their electricity grid.
So why the contemplable misdirections. !
The difference is that government is mandating higher-cost unreliables with unfavorable operating characteristics. On-peak, shoulder or off-peak, it doesn’t matter; all electricity has become more expensive because of high-cost unreliables penetration.
As a career-long electric power professional I tell you that current Western governmental policies is/will result in blackouts. See Germany and California. Reality trumps sophistry and verbal dick-dancing.
Actually they are not making electricity cheaper off peak. Worse still, Economy 7 tariffs that offer cheaper power overnight are being withdrawn because the meter switching signal is being switched off.
So, you are now saying that ‘demand management’ is “providing cheaper electricity at off-peak periods”.
(Liar, dumb-ass, ignorant fool … it’s beginning to look like that is the order)
They aren’t asking business to reduce their usage.
“Nice business there, shame if anything were to happen to it.”
They’re not threatening the business, just expressing their concern about its safety.
It is voluntary until it isn’t. Then you get an involuntary blackout.
On the night shift, Nick?
It is voluntary now, but by 2030 it will not be. What is happening now is a rehearsal. The UK is proposing at the same time to move everyone to EVs and heat pumps, and move power generation to wind and solar.
So take a look, for example, at what is happening right now to wind in the UK.
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind
Yesterday the average output from 28GW of faceplate wind was 4.1GW. Look at last year, its no better:
minimum: 0.388 GW
maximum: 13.926 GW
average: 4.407GW
Its intermittency. For a majority of the year you’re getting under 5GW.
OK, look at solar. You get about 8 hours worth, and that’s sharply peaked.
Anyone who thinks (and this includes Keir Starmer, likely the next Prime Minister) that Britain can run its grid on this technology is out of his mind. It can’t run the present grid, still less one where demand has doubled due to EV and heat pumps. Starmer thinks building more wind will fix it. It won’t. It will just lead to a lower capacity utilization factor, and there will still be blackouts.
So if whichever party really seriously continues on the net zero by 2030 path, there will be rationing. It will be either in the form of blackouts or organized rationing. And the present scheme is a prelude to it. Its voluntary now, but one way or the other in a couple of years it won’t be.
“Anyone who thinks (and this includes Keir Starmer, likely the next Prime Minister) that Britain can run its grid on this technology is out of his mind.”
They are trying to make something work that is not going to work.
At some point, this will dawn on these delusional climate change alarmists. Although probably not before major damage is done to Western economies. The major damage will be the wake up call. They are getting close when they start talking about businesses shutting down their operations for lack of electricity.
Windmills and Solar are just not going to cut it. It’s an impossible dream if we intend to maintain our current level of civilization. Apparently the climate change alarmists do not intend to maintain our current level as they are advising us to cut back already.
All this over an unreasonable, unwarranted fear of CO2.
And average wind output means about as much as nameplate; minimum output is the only thing that matters. The cost of wind output approaches infinity to the customer.
Total bollocks Nick. Nothing to do with cheap overnight rates.
Your ignorance is wearing thin.
It’s a financial incentive to use power at off-peak times.
Nick, what are they going to do to persuade the workforce to come in at off peak times to use the off peak electricity? The most off peak of off peak hours in the UK are between 01:00 and 05:00 then gradually ramping up until 11:00/12:00
If they can’t do that, they won’t.
I am amazed at the rejection here of the notion that electricity pricing should vary with demand. It is routine in the wholesale market, and routine where I am in retail. If you can take advantage of it, fine, if not, you don’t have to.
Do Australian consumers face $14,000/MWh prices seen in NEM? This has already been priced at £6,000/MWh.
No. They don’t get the far more frequent negative pricing either. The retailers smooth that out, mostly by having direct contracts rather than relying spot prices.
But the underlying reality is that wholesale electricity pricing depends on time of day. If there is competition, and their offer does not reflect that, they will go out of business.
£6,000 was far more than charged for any other Balancing Mechanism action. Shouldn’t the business have been stillborn?
Do you have any understanding of what a “public utility” concept means? It does *NOT* mean that the public should be under the control of any industry but exactly the opposite. The concept was developed as far back as the 19th century, if not before. Private companies were given “franchises” to provide service to customers at common, affordable rates (thus the term “common carrier”) in return for exclusive access to the market. This is how “tariff” rates came into being, the government regulated what could be charged based on a levelized cost of production, be it telephone, electricity, freight hauling, etc.
It was recognized that not everyone could accommodate their lives to “off-peak” usage. People who worked during the day needed access to the public utility services in the evening and at night. Factories needed access 24/7 in order to maximize the production efficiency of capital investment leading to lower prices for everyone for everything.
Demand pricing is a concept that makes sense in a private, competitive market – not so much in an inherent government-mandated monopoly market. If governments like the UK are going to go down this road then they need to open up the customer service side of the market to competition. Then let the customers pick the service provider that maximizes the customers dollar.
“If governments like the UK are going to go down this road “
As I noted below, OGE in Oklahoma has been offering demand pricing for some time.
This whole article has little to do with pricing. It has to do with how and if demand can met without blackouts. You do realize that much manufacturing runs 24 hours a day right? Requiring them to shut down when demand can’t be met simply an incentive to move elsewhere. That will be where coal is king and won’t solve a thing.
They aren’t required to shut down. In fact, for many years serious manufacturing has been charged on a half-hourly basis, reflecting supply costs (and peak/offpeak). They have worked with that very well. They save money where they can, and get electricity at higher prices where they can’t.
The GB grid operated the Triad system. That measured the demand of larger businesses during the three highest half hour demand periods over the winter, provided that they were separated by 10 days. Then grid fixed costs were allocated in proportion to the demand on the grid. Costs that meant that boiling a kettle could cost £10 or more. Now, you may say they were free to pay that price. But in reality, it encouraged them to invest in their own generation. The system was designed to try to eliminate the evening rush hour peak before renewables became important. Now, supply shortages can occur any time there is a renewables fail, so the Triad system was not useful. It has been abandoned.
“ The system was designed to try to eliminate the evening rush hour peak before renewables became important.”
And it had exactly the same effect as the present proposals. It is just a way of calculating the pricing with half hour metering. They have to have some way.
No, it did not have the same effect. The present proposals are designed to help when renewables fail and are aimed at consumers. The Triad system was designed to reduce peak demand by cutting industrial use of the grid. Not the same thing at all.
That was before the UN and Western governments decided to save the world with wind and solar. Its been all market distortions and cost increases since then.
Aren’t you lucky that the retailers can boil up their kettle to make their morning coffee at an “off-peak” time? You’ll need to do that if you’ve missed your cuppa during the morning peak!
Your comments, Nick, show you misread others’ comments on this topic. The problems are that unreliables are causing unnecessarily cost increases, throwing off generation patterns and introducing unreliability. As the penetration of unreliables increases there will be blackouts. See Germany and California.
Another deliberate DECEIT from Nick
He knows the origin of “off-peak” was so power stations didn’t have to throttle back their generation of electricity as much
He knows the current reason is exactly the opposite, they are scared they won’t have enough reliable generation.
His comments are not from ignorance, they are deliberate deceits and distractions.
For industry it’s a financial incentive to move operations to China.
Yes, the industries will be looking for a place where they don’t have to cut back on the electricity usage.
UK leaders are delusional thinking their energy scheme is going to work. Instead of changing their approach to fix the problem, they double-down on stupid.
UK residents should get behind Lord Snow. He is one of the few rational UK politicians around. A Voice in the Wilderness, speaking the truth to power.
I think you meant David Frost…(though not the comedian and broadcaster who died a few years ago, but rather the former diplomat).
You are less likely to have key staff “disappeared” in India.
No. It’s an incentive not to use power at peak times. You don’t get an extra discount if you use power at off peak times. In fact, the more that happens the higher the off peak price will be.
There is a carrot, and there is a stick.
This is a stick, not a carrot.
If we ever meet I can show you the difference.
Yeah like go to work in the factory in the middle of the night, public transport not working, no longer can a worker afford a car because of ULEZ charges. It’s entirely involuntary when there is a Green Dictatorship.
Absolute garbage. The plan is to stop the grid crashing
Everything is to stop the grid crashing. A generator is a blackout prevention device.
I used to cycle past the van der Graaf generator at AERE Harwell when I worked there. It was the size of a township water tower.
Big picture …
Why are we worried about the grid crashing in the first place.
“Everything is to stop the grid crashing”
Another arrant and DELIBERATE LIE from Nick.
If they wanted to stop the grid crashing , they would be adding relibale coal and gas back into the grid.
They wouldn’t be adding lots of wind and solar.
Everything they are doing is getting closer and closer to causing grid collapse.
This plea for businesses to not use electricity when they need it, is just to cover the abject failure of wind and solar to supply functional electricity.
A wind generator is NOT a blackout prevention device… it is a blackout causing device because it makes the grid so much more erratic and unstable.
“Everything is to stop the grid crashing”
So you now ADMIT that is the reason for this ploy !
OK !
It’s the reason they run generators. Call that a ploy if you like.
They DO NOT run wind and solar to stop the grid crashing
They are the REASON for the problems with the grid.
Again, you show just how disingenuous you are.
At school on the Saturday morning anyone not on leave had to do CVS.
Compulsory Voluntary Service.
The UK grid is doing the same thing.
It may be voluntary for now, but it already requires very large incentives, with bids as high as £6,000/MWh to provide the aggregation service and compensate customers. That is actually way over the cost of a propane generator if you get enough hours of use to justify the spend and have the ability to accommodate it.
National Grid are now looking to expand the programme by extending it to industry that already sees half hourly pricing. That implies that attempting to expand among households is seen as difficult, with the low hanging fruit having alreading been exploited. It also implies that normal half hourly pricing does not do the job and that there is a failure to procure adequate capacity. Further capacity crunches are inevitable due to coal and nuclear power station closures and failure to invest in dipatchable power.
The pool of volunteers even at very high levels of compensation is very small. The service achieved a peak demand reduction of just 294MW between 17:30 and 18:00 on 23rd January. The Household Electricity Survey shows that peak hour consumption in winter averages 1kW per household, and up to 1.6kW on a very cold day for households that do not heat by electricity. Far from National Grid’s absurd claim that it was enough to power 10 million homes, it was enough to power less than 0.2 million homes on a cold day. A factor of 50 between hype and reality.
The days of involuntary power cuts beckon. Indeed, they are already here for those on prepayment meters.
It’s not so easy for factories and offices to just stop production or to “shifting their usage outside of peak times”.
Volunatry now, required in the future? Many of those enterprises will just terminate- oh, but I suppose that’s good- it’ll help “save the planet”- but ruin the lives of many people.
As IDAU noted, companies already have half-hourly pricing, and have had for many years. For some it helps, others probably not. This scheme will be no different; in fact, I can’t see why they would even bother with it.
The reason why National Grid is bothering with it is that it is the start of a slippery slope with remote control power cuts the destination. Necessary to ensure you comply with the contract you will be coerced to sign up to, of course.
Also important is the new emphasis on trying to push the enabling smart meter programme that has faltered because consumers can see what the intentions are, and government has been reluctant thus far to try to enforce them because their intentions would be immediately transparent, and provoke very visible opposition.
Nick really doesn’t get it, does he.
He gets it, he just needs to rationalize and lie to avoid the reality of his anti CO2 fettish.
His paycheck depends on his “not getting it”.
He is ignoring things like the work of National Grid’s sock puppet consultancy called Regen. They produced a nice little fairy tale called a Day in the Life. If you go to page 7 you will find a popup box labelled Energy Storage and Flexibility. It reveals an anticipated need for 20-30GW of demand flexibility. That is not going to be voluntary. It’s two orders of magnitude larger that what has been achieved voluntarily.
https://www.regen.co.uk/publications/a-day-in-the-life-2035-second-edition/
Yes he does..
He understands it fully.
He knows this is a ploy to cover up lack of reliable supply.
That is what makes his comments so deliberately deceitful and underhanded.
Mr. Stokes: There is a difference, though- in the past, the folks who made electricity were able to satisfy the demand for these “customers” during “peak” times, and those customers bought the electricity that was affordable for their business operation. The power company sold it cheaper during off-hours “forever” because the operation was essentially built for the “peak” time customers, not the off-hours folks. Now, for some reason, they aren’t making enough power for their customer base. Your entire argument in this string ignores this essential, but that is what you do.
“Your entire argument in this string ignores this essential”
Your argument makes stuff up. They are making enough power for their customer base. The power stays on.
Mr. Stokes: My argument makes up the very existence of the industries being asked to cut back? Do these industries exist, or am I making that up? You must admit they exist, right? Did they just show up yesterday, or have they been in business long enough to remember when “peak” electricity cost less? So, you must admit they’ve been around, went into business when “peak” electricity was provided for less (they figured to make a profit, right?). Still looking for something I made up. They are telling their customers to expect that they WILL NOT make enough power for them. The power WILL NOT stay on if they don’t cut back, I didn’t make up that the power company is telling businesses to use less, did I?
Looks like, when you run into a corner, you just say I made it up. Clearly, I made up nothing, only observed. Seen you cornered before, haven’t we?
“ I didn’t make up that the power company is telling businesses to use less, did I?”
Yes, you did. Or, at least, the Telegraph did.
Sorry it took me this long to remember the password, but I don’t want to let this slide. The power company (“The Grid”?!) confirmed this part of the story, they’re telling customers to move power to off-peak, a “wonderful program” for residents now available to business customers. I did not make it up, nor did the Telegraph, what you are doing is projecting it to me. You, Mr. Stokes, made up the idea that ran this string along- the idea that this wasn’t being done due to power NOT gonna be produced. I invite readers to review this to see who made up what.
There was one para in the Tele report which reasonably fairly describes the situation:
“While they may use the same amount of energy overall, shifting their usage outside of peak times can help the Grid to manage and prevent blackouts in worst-case scenarios.”
In managing any resource, it always helps if the demand is smooth over time. But the whole thing is a Tele beat-up. Serious industry users have always had pricing which depends on time of day. I don’t know why the NEM makes such a meal of providing that for households – as I said, here households have had that for many years. But the NEM statement clearly says that the extension is for those businesses that are on the same deal as households – some shops and small offices. Not factories or other heavy users, which already have a better arrangement.
If they are asking the customers to curtail demand then they are *NOT* making enough product for their customer base.
Do you *ever* think about the things you write before you hit the “post” button?
They are not asking the customers to curtail demand. They are offering a financial incentive to shift demand to off-peak times. That reflects their basic costs (which in the end the customer pays). And it is universal. I see this from OGE in Oklahoma:
“With SmartHours, you have control over your energy usage and bill. Shift your electricity use on weekdays between 2 and 7 p.m. from June 1 to September 30 and pay a lower price for electricity the other 19 hours, as well as on weekends, Juneteenth, Independence Day and Labor Day.”
And what happens to those poor 2nd shift workers that can’t accommodate the change? They PAY, AND PAY AND PAY AND PAY!
Your disdain of the poor and the common worker just comes shining through in everything you post.
Nick writes
“The power stays on”.
In Australia –
The aluminium smelting and refining industry has partly gone off, heading to zero.
The local motor car manufacturing industry has gone off. Essentially nil now.
We used to have 10 oil refineries. Mostly gone off, down to 2 refineries now.
Steel production largely gone off.
Domestic use coal mining has mainly gone off, being encouraged by governments to go away.
These moves in the last decade are a big part of why you can claim that the power stays on.
Many heavy users of electricity have deserted, so rather less electricity is needed now. We are not going to see aluminium smelting and refining coming back to enjoy electricity from wind and solar because they need reliability and low cost. Hello India, China.
…
Power stays on at horrible cost.
A once proud and wealthy nation making and exporting for income the goods that society demands, the goods that underpin a comfortable life, are leaving Australia bigly.
Australian jobs are becoming like one barista serving another barista as we move to a servant economy ruled by increasing numbers of people paid to tell others what they can and cannot do.
What a horrible social mess.
Catalysed by a succession of hobgoblins like ratty global warming “science” and prediction-failing climate change, with a recent spicy topping of near compulsory injections of a dangerous, under-researched vaccine.
Nick, you say many times here that the electricity price scheme merely gives users an option to buy watts at a lower price by choosing different times of day. What you fail to admit is that the “lowest” price to consumers is higher than it used to be pre–renewables.
What a poor attempt at a 3 card trick.
Geoff S
“The aluminium smelting and refining industry has partly gone off, heading to zero.”
Here is a contrary view:
“Aluminium giant Alcoa says Australian manufacturers are enjoying lower energy prices than many foreign rivals, meaning there is room for optimism even as domestic prices for industrial gas and electricity start to surge.
…
“I think everyone is exposed globally to increased energy costs, actually in Australia we are probably better off than most at the moment, so it is around relativity,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
…
“We work really hard to position what we receive in power charges to be at the right end of the market from the point of view of the markets we need to compete in, which are global markets for aluminium,” he said.
“We have to be internationally competitive.”
The comments come after the most lucrative year in decades for Australian aluminium smelters, which benefited from high metal prices and power costs that were generally lower than those paid by foreign rivals.”
Nick,
When Tom Lehrer sings the Vatican Rag, he uses “genuflect, genuflect, genuflect”. Your response to my points caused me to think of you singing the song but substitutiung “re-deflect, re-deflect, re-deflect”.
You gave an example of an Al industry chief comparing current poor electricity prices with alternative current poor prices elsewhere. That is normal business, but not relevant here.
I was comparing the Al smelting and refining scene with a few years ago, before “renewables” penetrated much. Like, compare coal with wind prices, properly calculated by including real externalities like intermittency.
Colleagues and I did a number of studies on Australian Al smelting and refining. I have not done this n such detail for the years after 200, so some factors will have changed. But, before 2000, the usual industry response to suggested W&S electricity was a wink and snigger and a prompt dismissal. Since then there has been a new factor, the intensity and inaccuracy of the propaganda against coal.
We progressives call for a rapid return to the Australian electricity grid design that was so attractive to heavy industry investors before 2000.
Clear enough? Geoff S
“re-deflect”
It’s directly on topic. You said that power in Australia was in dire straits, and gave Al smelting as your prime example, and they are packing up. I quote Alcoa saying that they have had their best year in decades, and “power costs that were generally lower than those paid by foreign rivals“. What could be a more direct refutation?
Alcoa has a deal with Loy Yang negotiated in 2013. That is why they have competitive costs. Ask them whether they would expand in Australia today, and the answer would be a resounding no. They could not match the deal they have for price or security of supply.
“ Ask them whether they would expand in Australia today, and the answer would be a resounding no.”
Well, they did, less than two years ago:
“Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) announced today that the Portland Aluminium joint venture plans to restart 35,000 metric tons per year (mtpy) of curtailed capacity at its aluminum smelter in the State of Victoria in Australia.
The process to restart the capacity, which has been idle since 2009, will begin immediately, with metal production expected to start in the third quarter of 2022.
Portland Aluminium is an unincorporated joint venture with 358,000 mtpy of total capacity, and Alcoa Corporation has 197,000 mtpy of consolidated capacity. Once the restart is complete, Portland Aluminium will operate at approximately 95 percent of total capacity and Alcoa Corporation will have approximately 186,000 mtpy of its consolidated capacity at Portland operating.”
That’s a restart of an existing facility, not a new one. It depended on securing large federal and state subsidies, and was perhaps motivated by trying to unload the asset at better value – there were several rumours about attempted sale of teh Alcoa interest last summer. Meanwhile this year production has had to be cut because of “instability”. Not a good enough electricity supply any more.
Portland Aluminium joint venture in Australia to reduce production | Alcoa Corporation
“Not a good enough electricity supply any more.”
That is not what they say. They said they had operational instability. In fact the electricity supply has been perfectly stable. I know that; I share it.
Why am I not surprised that this statement is over a year out of date?
http://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=al&u=mt&d=2400
They benefitted from a price spike for aluminium which has now eroded.
https://news.metal.com/newscontent/100007000/alcoa-alumina-sign-new-electricity-contracts-with-loy-yang/
And they were on long term power contracts signed in 2013 that insulated them from spiking electricity prices. Good management to have done that, of course.
Nick, even when you are making stuff up and nearly getting it right by accident, you still manage to get it wrong.
The argument can rightly be made in any industry that supply and demand will not always be perfectly and immediately matched. This causes price differences. People will enter and leave the market based on these price differences and anticipated profit.
But the UK electricity industry is no longer regulated by any reasonable demand/supply market. It is regulated by green-government fiat.
Back in the day, the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board) was at least someone who could be held accountable for prices and supply inadequacies. Once again, we have ended up with the worst of all possible situations: Communist-like control with a capitalist face.
Is this also voluntary in UK industry?
Econoday Economic Report: United Kingdom : CBI Industrial Trends
Hi Nick,
You may not remember me, but I asked you on a different post for a comment about the carbon footprint of LNG. You said you would respond if I offered you some facts. I did, but you did not respond. I notice you have made multiple posts about the current topic, so I know you have the time. Would you please respond regarding the carbon footprint of LNG?
Complete intellectual dishonesty!
What is going to happen to the UK residential customer in a year or two from now is this.
The government takes the country to wind and solar, without providing for any backup or storage. At the same time it raises demand by moving everyone to EVs and heat pumps. How much this raises demand is arguable. The lowest estimate is about 50%.
This means blackouts during cold dark winter evenings. Because blackouts are very disruptive and destructive and a clear sign of energy policy failure, the government then decides, with the utility companies, to have a policy of differential charging by time of day. You see, the government has implemented smart meters, which allow time of day charging. So this is possible.
It does this against a background of high prices due to the increasing use of wind and solar. Paul Homewood has estimated that the subsidies right now are costing about 400 sterling per household. That is the background. What is coming is on top of that.
We find ourselves, as a residential customer, home one evening in January at about 6pm. Its been dark since 4pm, and its been a flat calm for a week. Wind is generating about 1GW, there’s no solar, and demand is north of 50GW. We’d like to warm up the house and cook dinner and maybe wash our clothes.
Wrong! The price of electricity for the evening is so high that if we heat the house, cut dinner and charge our car we will soon be choosing between that and eating.
We find that if we warm the house and cook dinner between 2am and 4am it will cost very little. But just at 6pm, which is when we are perverse enough to want to do it, its going to cost us so much that we really cannot afford to do it, day after day. The smart meters are being used to pass the wholesale fluctuations in price to us, and the price has soared because the grid is desperately trying to buy any supply it can find from Europe. But Europe is in the same dark dead calm, and everyone is scrambling for power, and so the price is astronomical.
So what do we do? Do we boil a kettle for hot water bottle? No, better wait till we can afford it, around 2am. We sit there in our coats in the light from our low energy light bulbs, and the next morning we call our MP.
Amzingly enough he takes our call. This is rationing, we say, its outrageous, what are you people doing?
He has read the egregious Stokes. No, he explains, this is not rationing at all. This is just time of day charging. Its quite usual for the price of a commodity to vary with time of day or year. No, this is not rationing.
Pricing something so the regular customer cannot afford to buy any, because you have not enough to meet demand, is a form of rationing You can chop around the words as much as you want. Rationing of electricity, whether implemented through pricing or blackouts, that’s what’s coming to the UK, entirely due to the insane idea that you can power the country from wind and solar.
These people, and Nick with them, can never have looked seriously about what wind and solar actually deliver in the UK, how it varies with the weather and time of year.
Intellectual dishonesty and wishful thinking.
+1000
“Pricing something so the regular customer cannot afford to buy any, because you have not enough to meet demand, is a form of rationing”
It always surprises me how WUWT folk turn out to be communists. Prices as a means of rationing goods are unfair. It should be to each according to his needs.
But of course, pricing to make supply meet demand is universal in capitalist societies. It is the way markets work. You limit your consumption of electricity because it costs money. So it has always been.
In capitalist societies, Nick, producers work to minimize prices. In our current socialist Western societies (governments) producers are mandated to use the most expensive and least reliable sources of generation. Like in all good socialist economies, they wind up rationing shortages. Rationing shortages through price is the most regressive form of rationing, hurting the poor the most. Free market economies choose to increase supply at the least possible cost to meet demand, avoiding shortages. Christ, which way did people run when the wall went down?
The current Leftist blather about market methods is nothing but totalitarian government-speak to hide their misfeasance and malfeasance. While offering off-peak pricing has been an industry standard, the current imposition of artificially high peak pricing is criminal.
Nick doesn’t care about the poor – let’em eat cake! He should think carefully about the first person who supposedly believed that.
Like most socialists, Nick has absolutely no understanding of economics outside of Marx.
And Nick’s dishonesty continues.
Twisting and turning, and trying to avoid the issue.
That issue is that this is a ploy to try to account for the lack of reliable supply,
He knows it is a response to the erratic and unstable grid that has developed because of wind and solar.
Intellectual deceit is now part of his every post.
Mr. Stokes: Us communists want to get the folks who received this letter to band together and make our own electricity cheaper than this letter-writing electric provider. We could sell off-hour power for less, to advance our commie plot. What stops a free people from doing that?
“a free people”
Very few of those today. Governments would put you in jail for trying to become your own electric business with no operational franchise issued by the government.
Nick, my sincere advice is drop it. Once again its transparent intellectual dishonesty.
Pricing to match supply and demand is universal. The way it works is that rising demand causes rising prices, which increases production and thus supply, and we get equilibrium. There is a loop back from demand to supply. And until recently it worked fine for electricity. 10 years ago prices were reasonable and stable, and when demand increased more came to market.
But what is new and different in the present situation is that its not markets that are matching supply and demand, and that there is no loop back from demand to increased supply.
Its governments (not suppliers) that are adopting measures which will reduce the supply of a necessity. In order then to reduce demand to match they will be driven to what present policies are a rehearsal for: pricing the remaining supply at levels where people can’t afford to buy it when they need it. This is, or will be, basically rationing.
The right solution is to drop this craziness about trying to run the country on wind, drop all the regulation of technology and subsidies to wind and solar, and let the electricity companies do what they are there for, generate electricity using the most cost effective technology, deliver it to their customers, and make a reasonable return for their shareholders.
If they choose wind, fine. But we both know they will not.
I must say that accusing your opponents of Communism is a new low for you. What I object to is government wrecking of a functioning market driven electricity industry, and the regressive taxing of a necessity to reduce demand for it. This is the part of all this that is vaguely reminiscent of Soviet style quota economic planning.
Pretending to defend this self destructive nonsense by calling people who object to it Communists? Look in the mirror.
Like I say, intellectual dishonesty.
What it is going to do is force small numbers of people to form groups where they can find a gas powered generator that will supply everyone in the group. I don’t see gas being cut off anytime soon because the politicians will lose their jobs. We will be going back to the beginning of electricity generation where small generators and dedicated lines to small groups or even communities provided their own power generation.
My grandfather did this right after WWII. He bought a surplus diesel generator from the army and wired the small town I grew up in, about 300 people. Nothing new under the sun!
What the he!! does consumers saving money have to do with rationing what you can have? The money being saved is at the provider end where supply can not be met without additional capital being spent for backup. Your world is totally upside down.
During WWII, my parents couldn’t buy things even if they had the money. Sugar, tires, flour, etc. were rationed because companies couldn’t meet the demand. No different with electricity. What is available is being rationed.
“ What is available is being rationed.”
There is no rationing. You can buy as much electricity as you want.
Here is the schedule of forthcoming retirements of Australia’s coal-fired power plants as taken from Wikipedia in June 2023:
Is it your opinion that Australians will be able to buy as much electricity in the year 2030 — by which time roughly 7,400 MW of coal-fired capacity will have been retired — as they do today?
Yes.
Nick, I have often thought that you misunderstand things on purpose but now you have demonstrated that you actually don’t have clue how things work. You can only “buy as much electricity as you want” if there is enough availability at a price you can afford to pay. Anything else is the equivalent of rationing if not actual rationing.
“if there is enough availability at a price you can afford to pay. Anything else is the equivalent of rationing if not actual rationing.”
You could say the same of any commodity. Lamborghinis, say. Or avocados. You may not be able to afford them, but that doesn’t mean they are rationed.
Again, I am surprised how many communists are coming out of the woodwork.
Your understanding of economics is as bad as your understanding of the climate.
Rising commodity prices in a competitive market induce more providers to enter the market. If the price of corn goes up then more farmers plant corn.
Electricity markets are *NOT* competitive. Competitive providers are not allowed to enter the market. If they were then we would see an increase of competitors building fossil fuel plants to serve customers needs.
The only communist here appears to be *YOU*. Communism implies collective ownership of the means of production. That does *NOT* apply to the electricity market. It is a monopolistic market with private ownership but controlled by the government. That’s called fascism and its what you continue to advocate!
You could say the same of any commodity. Lamborghinis, say. Or avocados.
When the government interferes with the availability or production of those commodities, it is no longer a free market.
No, you can’t !!
It now often isn’t available.
You know that is why this “demand restriction” ploy is being implemented.
So why be disingenuous about it !?
When did you last find the power was off because of generation inadequacy?
Very soon !
That is exactly what this demand curtailment is trying to avoid.
You KNOW that to be the case.
So stop with the twisting and slithering !
“Very soon !”
Hang on. You said
“It now often isn’t available.”
You are just an alarmist rooting for blackouts.
No you can’t. Every household is rationed by the size of its main fuse.
In days gone by, freedom-loving citizens fixed that with fencing wire.
Nick you good little socialist bureaucrat. I understand you guys don’t really understand Economics “Too Good” but when demand exceeds supply you can either increase supply, which is generally accompanied by an increase in pricing or you can ration which is what the Socialists who “don’t know this stuff too good” Do. Of course the bureaucrats always seem to provide themselves “work arounds’ to which the great unwashed and unconnected are excluded.
Here in the States the Socialists demonstrate the increase pricing method of rationing by regulating the suppliers who pass along price increases to consumers and the ruling elite who simple vote themselves COLA increases with the blessing of the Cultural Elite Ruling Class Wealth Holders laugh at higher prices driving down consumption. It’s often referred to as the “Fossil Fuel for me but not for thee” price elasticity for Authoritarian Socialists.
Nonsense, Nick. Until the “climate emergency era,” people and businesses (at least in the U.S.) largely paid flat rates for electricity, 24/7/365. That was because fuel supplies (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro) and generation were reliable and backed by sufficient reserves to balance and meet diurnal and seasonal demand variations and offset unit outages. Rates were steady and cheap. Electricity bills simply reflected seasonal weather changes and personal choices.
In the depraved post-modern “climate emergency era,” load shedding is a desperate means to keep the lights on when the generating assets are unreliable (i.e., wind and solar) and dispatchable reserves have been slashed to the nub.
Customers pay expecting ample and reliable electricity. In return, they are being blamed and penalized for failed governmental policies. We and our lifestyle are being sacrificed at the altar of the evil green gods of this age.
I would urge private and business customers to refuse to play along with this scheme, requiring instead that the government overseers and power industry ramp up reliable generation to exceed the foreseeable demand. If that means building and fueling coal, gas and nuclear plants, so be it.
THERE IS NO “CLIMATE EMERGENCY”
Absolutely – Economy 7; now tell me how many wind turbines were providing intermittent power to the grid when that was introduced? In the intervening period, ignoring the union inspired 3 day week in the 1970’s and the concomitant power cuts (which I remember very well) has the UK ever been threatened by power company rationing until the current era of Unreliable Wind/Solar energy? Smart meters were not around in the ’70’s, the spinning back up capacity was not being deliberately taken out and wind farm developments were not similarly threatening to sink the grid further. Only a one eyed ecogreen intermittent power junkie would believe that power companies pushing smart meters, that to date have been anything but, is for the benefit of customers.
186no,
Smart meters.
These were made large scale in Australia a decade ago by fraudulent claims that they were compulsory and that they would lead to cheaper power.
As one who dislikes socialist market controls, I opted out and made it clear to those concerned that I would never have a smart meter.
Also, I started to investigate the Australian roll out. I asked who would supply them, install them, repair them, assure client confidentiality. No answers. I asked how much they cost the supplier, then how much was charged for them, to the government. That is, who made a profit and how much for this exclusive deal? No answers. I asked if the choice of supplier was by competitive tender. No answer.
The situation today is that there is the appearance of a sweetheart deal of considerable enrichment of some mates in the know.
I would be delighted to see evidence to the contrary.
Geoff S
It appears that the same Camel Committee did the same or something very similar in the UK – the litany of botched software, inability to switch suppliers with some versions keeps on coming. The irony is in the word “SMART” – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant/realistic/timed – not doing to well against these metrics so must have been dreamt up by a politician, designed by a civil servant…
Not savings if you have to pay your labor force premium wages to work at off-peak times. What do the British unions, recently so restive, have say about this?
“It’s entirely voluntary.”
Ok, we all say a resounding...NO !
Fix the darn supply system. !
Businesses that sign up would be asked to reduce their consumption at times when supplies are expected to be stretched, helping to ease pressure on the system.
Like from 3pm until 8am when a country dependent on solar and wind produces little to nil solar and wind could be outside the goldilocks zone
But, but, but “The Science” that our Beloved Leaders bravely follow, shows how cheap and efficient Big Wind is!
Getting even cheaper (and never mind what Big Wind’s Company Accounts say!)
And all those wonderful Green jobs will be created! (Even though mostly in China and children in the Congo).
Most importantly, there could be a delay in those lovely brown envelopes if we aren’t sufficiently enthusiastic!
How many businesses with backup generation systems will join this scheme? Peak times on the UK grid are, according to Gridwatch, from around noon until 8pm. For a factory to cut usage during those times means starting much earlier in the morning or switching to night working
How many factories run 24/7 in order to maximize the production efficiency of their capital investment? It may not be an option of changing work shifts to off-peak times – they may already have work shifts going at the off-peak times! So all this does is raise their production costs leading to price increases – built-in government induced inflation which hurts the poor the most.
Their numbers are even more idiotic/wrong/bad than first glance.
3.3GWh across 9.9 Million homes equates to the figure Government uses for ‘typical household daily consumption‘ in the UK
i.e. 8kWh per day and is what they use when setting the Price Cap
But that is an average demand of 333Watts which is nothing and certainly NOT = Peak Time consumption.
e.g. The big flat screen TV the kids are watching will use that much so how is anyone supposed to do any cooking, circulate water in the heating system, have any lights on.
Even ‘low energy’ LED tubes use 20Watts so a couple of those in the kitchen soon adds up.
Start gaming on a laptop so with Wi-Fi router added in, there’s another 150Watts up in smoke.
Plus the fridge and freezer will fire up with their doors being opened/closed so count on another 150W for them. The extractor fan above the cooker will be pulling 100Watts+ (We don’t want the kids getting Asthma do we?)
Heaven help teenage daughter if she strikes up a hairdryer or a simple fan-heater in her bedroom. There’s 2kW gone just like that.
Then they expect a 10kW (heat equiv) Heat Pump to be running – pulling 3,000Watts and an electric car somewhere, belonging the household but somewhere/anywhere on the grid, sucking another 7,000Watts minimum during ‘Peak Times’
Yes. They really were ‘drunk at the time’ – actions have consequences.
e.g. Boris’ hairdresser gets a knighthood.
nice
I thought the Telegraphs numbers were poor journalism. 333W per hour per house at peak times won’t do much.
The grid designed maximum demand per UK household is 1-2KW and that’s without heatpumps and EV’s.
It wasn’t just poor journalism. It was misleading propaganda from National Grid itself. They keep repeating this false claim in the hope of distracting policy makers and the public from the underlying underwhelming truth that it made very little difference in the real world amounting to around 0.5% of demand.
Timing is everything….
I just now 07:15BST ventured into twitch.tv and an guy in Germany is running a stream of mindless HouseMusiks.
His variation is to go for a drive in his car with a dashcam providing visuals and he himself running a commentary as he rides along )not very busy) main roads, dual carriageways and motorways at a modest 95 to 100kph (about 55mph)
here he is:
https://www.twitch.tv/mctews
I’ve seen him before and the sheer number of windmills that go past is insane.
This morning they are all stationary and it’s grey/cloudy spotting rain.
The Hero Himself is raving about how mad it has all become, the windmills, the solar, the lack of nuclear etc etc
You’ll hate the musiks but you’ll like (chain-smoking) him and, what you see through his camera.
You can do much the same driving from Gretna Green to Glasgow.
If this story was true it would be being carried by a legitimate news service, not just the Telegraph.
Check the source.
You may as well repeat what is claimed in the Morning Star as what is reported in the Mail or the Telegraph. They all prioritise their ‘oh so pure’ beliefs over reality.
Yes, the Telegraph has a very slanted report. It seems to be based on this ESO announcement. That is basically a continuation with modification of last winter’s scheme. The announcement includes this:
“This new innovative service will allow consumers, as well as some industrial and commercial users (through suppliers/aggregators), to be incentivised for voluntarily flexing the time when they use their electricity.”
It isn’t a new scheme for business – it allows some business to participate in the old scheme. And it isn’t anything like rationing.
National Grid say it’s new, but you say it isn’t.
¿Qué?
Yep, distort your whole electric supply system into costly shortages so you can say the scheme isn’t anything like rationing.
You forgot to include in your list the Guardian, Independent, Mirror, Express, Times…
Keir Starmer this morning on TV promising UK totally clean energy by 2030, but oil and gas “in the mix” until 2050
Because more jobs and cheaper more secure power….
And Centrica says it can be done, so it must be true (Centrica UK largest gas distributor)
I couldn’t unpick the sense in all this TBH
He’s a lawyer, he understands nothing even tinged with science.
“Keir Starmer this morning on TV promising UK totally clean energy by 2030”
This should tell you who not to vote for then. Starmer obviously has no clue.
A sign of the times. And to think that (i) when he was competing for the party leadership he was arguably the least dense of the candidates, and (ii) he held one of the top legal positions in the country.
Being a lawyer doesn’t mean he knows anything about electricity generation. He is clueless like most of our politicians.
Starmer has no clue and he is advised by Ed Miliband, who pushed through the UK Climate Change Act when the last Labour Government was in power and who has even less of a clue.
For example, National Grid are already saying that the unreliable projects that are currently in the pipeline will have to wait 10 -15 years to get connected to the grid. These projects will need to be increased considerably to make electricity “totally clean” so no way can this be achieved in the next 7 years!
More jobs to produce less of and more expensive and less reliable power. And to think at one time the sun never sat on the British Empire.
I just heard Starmer being interviewed…
We are doomed
My feeling too. Just think: in 20 years time all those wind turbines will be worn out and rotting all over our beautiful countryside thanks to him. It’s already happening in parts of the USA because no-one wants to pay to take them down when life-expired!
Is that really nobody can afford to take them down even if they wanted to
You have to be joking! This is an admission of complete failure of net zero policies. The business economy will collapse, imagine a factory with computer controlled machines. You stop them, and the time to restart is big, output is reduced and it is quite likely that quality suffers. On a bakery with continuous ovens, or anything which actually needs to happen. This is worse than the 3 day week during the miners strike, bring coal back big time now.
“This is an admission of complete failure of net zero policies.”
That’s what it looks like to me.
No one ever said freezing in the dark and losing industrial productivity to reduce ATM plant food would be painless.
Yes, but this is PROGRESS (apparently)…
The walls come crashing down.
Advance to the rear!
I had to laugh, almost choked on my biscuit when I read, ‘ask our heavy industry to cut demand’…..what heavy industry do they have in mind? It must be a reference to Fred the blacksmith who sometimes fires up his electric induction coil when he needs to hammer just the odd horse shoe for a clients pony. Now he can’t source coal or coke legally he has resorted to more modern alternatives….maybe that should be, unreliable alternatives.
“what heavy industry do they have in mind”
TK Maxx, Primark etc
factories? ah, who needs them – not for jobs, because MILLIONS of green jobs will be created installing clean and green energy /sarc
(A) Stoop labour in the fields is a green job and entirely do-able with current technology.
(B) No one should be bragging about creating net new jobs. That is just bragging you are going to make the country less productive/efficient.
Tell us how you are going to make the country more wealthy. If as a result more people are employed, you can claim a medal then.
You can follow Paul Homewood on twitter (1) Notalotofpeopleknowthat (@Notalotofpeopl1) / Twitter
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid and get rid if these lousy leaders.
How about the government works on SUPPLY FLEXIBILITY !
You know, being able to provide electricity when people want and need it !
It seems they are quite enamoured with placing 9.9 million households in the dark with no heating/cooling/cooking/tv/etc for an hour.
They have forgotten that their job is to provide electricity at all times, not to ration it