From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
.
As we are well aware, the UK has some of the highest electricity prices in the world.
It is commonly claimed that the rapid price rise in recent years has been driven by the soaring price of natural gas. In fact, this is only a small part of the story.
I have analysed OFGEM’s energy price cap workings, comparing this quarter with Jan 2019, when the first cap was implemented.
| £pa | Jan 2019 | Oct 2024 | Increase |
| Electricity Price Cap | 683 | 1118 | 435 |
| Direct Fuel Costs | 195 | 325 | 130 |
| Other Costs | 488 | 793 | 305 |
Direct Fuel Costs reflect the full cost of generation (ie not just fuel). ROCs are not mentioned, but I believe these are also included. What are not included are all of the other green levies, such as Cfds and Capacity Market payments.
The increase in Direct Fuel Costs is 66%, not dissimilar to the increase in natural gas costs of 78% over the period. But this is less than a third of the total cap increase. Most is the £305 rise in Other Costs.
So what has happened since 2019?
Here are a few things to consider:
- CfDs
- Capacity Market
- System Balancing
- Smart Meters
- Constraint Payments
- Grid Upgrades
- Inefficient gas generation, due to intermittent working
You get the picture!
The only thing that has changed since 2019 is the rapid decarbonisation of the grid.
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According to Ed Miliband, the more subsidies which wind farms receive, the cheaper the price of electricity will get. I should mention that Ed Miliband is an imbecile.
He is
Miliband would have to stretch his few brain cells to breaking point to reach intellectual parity with an imbecile.
Imbeciles have feelings too you know 😬
Subsidies are government largess – spending tax payer dollars.
While electricity, per his hypothesis, could get cheaper on a KWH basis, the total cost to the people goes up due to the subsidies and the resulting inflation due to ever increasing debt and government inefficiencies.
I should mention that Ed Miliband is an imbecile.
Miliband’s intelligence is far overstated according to an amoeba.
Why Are UK Electricity Prices So High?
I suppose that you could land that question on a Californian. They are doing to themselves.
When I moved to No. CA in 2006, the PGE electricity tariff was $0.11 per kWhr. At the time there was little wind and solar equipment installed.
Now in 2024, the new rate is $ 0.40 and $ 0/50 for over baseline kWhrs, which here is 330 .
CA on a autumn day has so much solar PV electricity that it pays other utilities to take it.!!! crazy.!
And where would the prices be if the US hadn’t blown up the nord stream pipeline
Where would prices be if George W Bush had allowed oil to be priced in Euros?
https://web.archive.org/web/20110503170958/www.peterdalescott.net/iraq.html
Wrong! There is no evidence the US had anything to do with blowing up up the Nord Stream pipeline. It’s pure fantasy. A delusion invented by the blame America for everything crowd.
The media has reported the name of the chartered ship used for the sabotage. The reports even included the aliases of the Ukrainian operators.
This proves nothing. Every operation like this requires proper proxies to deflect the blame. Media reporting it is the same media that trumpets CAGW scam or whatever the party line is on any subject. So, by media reporting it we can only infer what the ones who did it (and control the media) want the public to accept, not what it is.
Whoever did it, had to have the motive and the ability. I doubt Ukrainians’ ability without help of USA, and I doubt USA would risk help Ukranians’ knowing how poorly such secrets would be kept. After all this was an attack on German infrastructure and interests. So, just IMO, it was much safer to execute and pass the blame on Ukraine.
I also doubt that Ukraine would dare to attack German interests while counting on continued German military help. At least, there would have to be a prior agreement between USA, Germany and Ukraine. But this is not feasible.
USA now exports much more expensive LNG to replace cheap pipeline gas. Whoever executed it, this is the real motive.
Like the RFK assassination, we really do not know what happened.
Believe the speculative media reports if you want, but if there is any truth being reported it is severly suffering from a signal to noise problem with the noise being dominant.
Why not ask the professional anchor dragging ship captains of the Putin axis powers?
Why so expensive? I believe the clerisy would probably call it something like “climate leadership“:
Press release
UK shows international leadership in tackling climate crisis
UK government announces new climate goals at COP29, including reducing emissions by 81% by 2035, as Prime Minister calls on other countries to bring forward ambitious targets.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-shows-international-leadership-in-tackling-climate-crisis
The rest of the document is complete fantasy…
“”There are 640,000 green jobs in the UK, growing at a rate 4 times faster than overall UK employment.“”
Funnily enough, even if that figure were true it would be dwarfed by the [not so] net zero redundancies at Port Talbot, Scunthorpe, Grangemouth, Ford, Vauxhall etc. Car manufacturing has hit the wall and hard.
We could have cheap gas and no need for winter heating payments. But no, everything is going to be sacrificed to show the world how it’s done.
Leadership is only leadership if others are willingly following. The contemptible Keir Starmer can call all he wants, other countries will, if they have any sense, ignore him.
“”Starmer has just finished delivering yet another change of plan, marking the 19th time he’s relaunched himself since becoming Labour leader in 2020. Guido gives you a list of all the rebrands he’s done so far…””
https://order-order.com/#_@/wJLubnJnb8s3yA
Star’lin couldn’t organise a p*** up in a brewery.
But he’s p***ing everything else up.
With Starmer, the old adage, “Don’t ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence” should be inverted.
This is evidence of the malice of his administration towards native Britons:
Same as in the US, the Bidenistas put the Venezuelans up in NYC while hurricane victims in North Carolina are ignored or provided tents to live in during winter.
A leader with no followers is just a man taking a walk.
More like everything is being destroyed to show the world what not to do.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/14256-Maurice_Strong
All according to the plans of the Globalist Eco-Nazis.
“Less is more”
The less we use, the more we pay.
As a chemist, one who studies chemistry, upon first hearing about “decarbonizing” the grid, I thought it silly to get rid of plastics for use as electrical insulators.
What the really intend is de-electrifying the grid.
Going back to old days of less-than-adequate cellulose insulation would still need “carbon”.
In the “old days”, the use of glass or ceramic insulators for power lines was very common. Neither incorporate carbon-based material.
Not for cabling, which has to be flexible.
Duh!
Speaking of “duh!”:
Almost every long distance electrical power transmission line and most “business and residential” distribution electrical lines are flexible, bare wires/cables (i.e., uninsulated) up to the point of tap-off to the end-user’s building.
Admittedly, that’s slowly changing now with more consumer push to put city-distribution power lines underground to minimize visual pollution and to avoid outages that could be caused by bad weather such as windstorms and ice storms, or by tree/tree limb falls.
Do you use uninsulated cabling inside your house?
Answering that question with a question: did your understand the phrase “. . . up to the point of tap-off to the end-user’s building” ?
Are you taking FUD cues from Nitpick Nick?
No.
And where did the METAL for said cables come from??
Whoops!
Indeed, WHOOPS! . . . the topic of this thread was insulation of wires/cables, not what those wires/cables were made from.
And despite your vast technical knowledge you refused to believe that paper was ever used for insulation.
(Sigh) . . . please try again to read—more importantly, to understand—that my previous comment, repeated here for your convenience:
“Almost every long distance electrical power transmission line and most “business and residential” distribution electrical lines are flexible, bare wires/cables (i.e., uninsulated) up to the point of tap-off to the end-user’s building.“
in no way indicated anything about types of insulation that may have be used on electrical lines leading off the point of tap-off and thence into a building and then further for wiring internal to any building.
What you did is commonly known as the logical fallacy of advancing a “strawman argument”.
Good grief!
Let’s [tinu] review:
scissor: “I thought it silly to get rid of plastics for use as electrical insulators”
moi: “Going back to old days of less-than-adequate cellulose insulation would still need “carbon”.”
you: “In the “old days”, the use of glass or ceramic insulators for power lines was very common. Neither incorporate carbon-based material.”
A total non sequitur, followed by a ton of noise to paper over your ignorance that paper was ever used to insulate wire.
He thrives on stepping on others to elevate himself.
A true troll.
Now what was that kiln ‘powered’ by??
Whoops!
Who can say for sure? . . . Whoops!
Many commercial-scale ceramic insulator manufacturers have for decades past and up to today used natural gas to heat their mass-manufacturing kilns, because it is so much cheaper than electricity.
BTW, I’ve attached a photo to remind you that ceramic insulators are pervasive in the power distribution industry. Enjoy!
Gosh, impressive, the torrrrl does browser searching…
Well, your recent comment, “impressive” indicates you found it to be helpful.
You’re welcome.
How big is that hat size?
Now you want to be my fashion advisor?
Didn’t understand the insult?
Oh, I fully understand the attempted insult . . . I just choose to make fun of it. And, for me, that’s quite a bit of fun.
So, please do carry on.
Request DENIED.
Great! . . . I’ll count on that. Thank you!!!
The head communist today re-asserted his government’s intention to decarbonise the grid by 2030. A task that is not technically or financially possible.
I wonder what excuses he will have when it all fails. Global warming?
Has anyone begun to track the ‘peak stupidity’ parameter in regards to all this? Once upon a time the website known as TOD (The Oil Drum) was all-in on ‘peak oil’; This would be a similar metric to track …
Funny thing is, the world has put forth a good effort to decarbonize coal energy plants. CO2 is not carbon and one of the prime contributors to smog back in the 60s and 70s was particulate carbon, aka smoke. Smog = smoke and fog.
They don’t care. They think they will be the priveledged few who have electricity, travel, and meat.
By 2030 other people will give excuses.They will just push the deadline.Sooner or later they will realize that nuclear is needed to provide cheap reliable power and imports of natural gas are needed to stabilize the grid. With these ramifications they will continue the “decarbonization”.
How I wish California were part of the US. California electricity prices are Off The Chart.
Off Peak 34¢/kWh and Peak Demand 56¢/kWh
Doesn’t made sense: Nick Stokes says wind and solar are free.
Well they say THE wind and THE Sun are “free.”
But are they really?! They never gave a moment’s thought to the potential effects of extracting energy from the wind and Sun on an industrial scale. The possible effects of doing so could be quite negative, and will likely cause more harm than all the “global warming” we’ll see before the descent into the next glaciation.
That giant question aside, the unspoken (willfully of course) part of that meaningless meme is that the *cost of COLLECTING* that energy is ENORMOUS.
Absolutely, the energy density is far too thin.
Starmer has significantly changed the net-zero target today, it’s now “on track to at least 95 per cent clean power by 2030”, the phrase “on track” making the target essentially meaningless.
In fact, you could claim that we’re “on track” for 95% clean power today, all we need to do is wait for SMRs to become commercially viable, buy those, and hey presto! 95% clean power by perhaps 2040, without the need for vastly expensive wind and solar.
Congrats to the persistent wind trolls who kept the drumbeat going on this site and elsewhere. It only gets worse from here.
Just don’t accuse the UK of making anything other than market trades and opinion services.
Bottom line in the above article:
“The only thing that has changed since 2019 is the rapid decarbonisation of the [UK] grid.”
Well, that’s not quite true if one looks at the overall picture.
The average rate of inflation across the Great Britain economy from 2019 through 2023 was 4.0%. In particular, note that during that period UK annual inflation moved from a low of 1.0 % (in 2020) to a high of 7.9% (in 2022). WOW!
Some of the predominate causes of that overall jump in inflation were (similar to what happened in the US):
— After the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chains struggled to meet demand,
— Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war disrupted global food markets and ended the era of cheap gas from Russia,
— The fall in the pound after the Brexit vote meant that things businesses get from abroad cost more.
Biggest cause of inflation = stupendous sums of (mostly printed) money being wasted on worse-than-useless garbage like windmills and solar panels which not only contribute nothing to economies, they suck the life out of them by driving up energy costs which are reflected in the price of EVERYTHING.
I strongly disagree. In fact, the total amount of annual US Federal expenditures on “renewable energy” has been has been an essentially insignificant percentage of total US Federal budgets, although it is increasing very slowly.
Let’s put some numbers to that courtesy:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
and
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf#page=28 (see Table A4)
— In 2019, total spending at the Federal level was $5.47 trillion, but only $10.57 billion (0.2 % of the total) was spent on supporting renewable energy directly or via subsidies,
— In 2020, total spending at the Federal level was $7.95 trillion, but only $17.26 billion (0.2 % of the total) was spent on supporting renewable energy directly or via subsidies,
— In 2021, total spending at the Federal level was $7.85 trillion, but only $15.30 billion (0.2 % of the total) was spent on supporting renewable energy directly or via subsidies,
— In 2022, total spending at the Federal level was $6.67 trillion, but only $15.59 billion (0.2 % of the total) was spent on supporting renewable energy directly or via subsidies.
Assuming all of Federal expenditures for “renewable energy” ended up being wasted, it would hardly move the needle on the annual rate-of-inflation meter!
Oh dear!
Your “analysis neglects the externalities from the intermittent nature of Renewable Energy, and the much higher costs of electricity.
“Externalities” . . . nice! You must be a government bureaucrat or work as a commercial policy advisor or publicist. 😜
No, that’s the technical term used by engineers and economists when assessing the wider impacts on society of a project. Thanks for revealing your ignorance.
Perhaps you could now try to answer my question.
He’ll just yell at you some more instead.
Wow, compared to Merriam-Webster’s definition of “externality”, that’s a real stretch (see attached image from Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary)! The dictionary makes no mention of “externality” being a technical term nor the word “society”, but it does mention it being equivalent to a “secondary or unintended consequence”.
I observe, with amusement, that your previous comment to me did NOT contain a question.
Now, you were saying something about ignorance . . .
I invited you to explain why you did not include externalities of RE in your “calculation”.
Note that the third dictionary definition of the word exactly matches my use of it.
Oops…
I thought the topic was UK electricity costs. How did the US federal budget affect that?
Re-read AGW is Not Science‘s comment:
“Biggest cause of inflation = stupendous sums of (mostly printed) money being wasted on worse-than-useless garbage like windmills and solar panels which not only contribute nothing to economies . . .”
to which I replied. Observe that his/her comment said nothing about UK electricity costs.
Do you keep score of your on-line debate triumphs?
No.
Let’s see…
Adding wind.
Adding solar.
Removing coal.
Refusing to frack.
That’d do it.
It could not be simpler,” said the Aztec priests. “We simply cut out beating
hearts and roll heads down the temple steps … and it rains.”
No one can do anything about this except the British people themselves. Your leaders don’t think this is a problem. Your leaders desperately need an attitude adjustment. It is up to you.
Was a little surprising how expensive Poland was, I thought they were still using a low of coal?
The British people need to start understanding what Ronald Reagan said many years ago:
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem….”
— Ronald Reagan, 1981
But first, they need to start understanding the scientific problems with the climate alarmist narrative. I have no idea if and when that will start happening. Same in the U.S.