General > General Technical Chat
"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: madires on August 25, 2022, 12:42:04 pm ---
--- Quote from: JohanH on August 25, 2022, 11:56:11 am ---All this talk is stalling the inevitable. It works. 2/3 of my house is built in 1927. When switching to ground source heat pump, I installed larger radiators and some insulation in parts of the house and now get a total SCOP of 3.7 (in 2021).
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Over here special protection rules apply to historic buildings. You aren't allowed to change the face of such a building in any way. So you can't simply add insulation. And adding insulation at the inside would most likely damage the walls on the long term by shifting the dew point further inside. Heats pumps are great but not a panacea. We have to check the feasibility for each building.
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Yeah, at one point we have to decide what's more important. Keeping old towns the same shape as a century ago, while living in constant acid rain and 40 degrees outside during the winter, or changing it and having a future. This was a hyperbole.
Miyuki:
--- Quote from: richard.cs on August 25, 2022, 02:15:37 pm ---
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 25, 2022, 01:43:47 pm ---I do see a strong future for hydrogen (or syngas, but probably both will be used.)
Whilst I'm not convinced it makes sense for vehicles, the use of hydrogen as a storage mechanism for renewable energy is just a no brainer. There is no other technology that can possibly compete for seasonal energy storage. Not batteries, not molten salt, not pumped hydro.
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The low efficiency of creating it by electrolysis is unfortunate, but not necessarily a show stopper depending on the source of the energy input. What I can't see is why we would ever use hydrogen as H2 (an inconvenient gas that's hard to liquify, low energy density, explosive in pretty much all concentrations, leaks through almost everything, embrittles metals, etc.) rather than stick it to some carbon atoms and make synthetic methane or synthetic LPG. This carbon could be from an agricultural source making the output fuel carbon neutral, or it could be petroleum-derived, which would still give a significant reduction in net CO2 by increasing the energy content of the fuel.* About the only time pure hydrogen is useful is for fuel cells which does not seem to be the primary use-case when hydrogen is discussed.
That said, in the UK hydrogen seems to be mainly pushed by organisations that own large amounts of gas distribution infrastructure, and it feels a lot like them desperately trying to stay relevant and keep their network of pipes valuable.
* e.g. convert C35H70, a randomly chosen molecule that roughly equates to heavy fuel oil, to 35x CH4. Calculating crudely about an additional 50% more energy is released on combustion, for the same CO2 emission.
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The same pipes that now carry Natural gas around cities used to carry Town/Coal gas in the past and it is about 50% H2 and it worked without any issues.
You can switch to pure H2 distribution without major issues
There is no reason to not do so. It worked fine hundred years back.
It makes sense they want it. With Abundant renewables, there will be windows with electricity at zero or "negative" price. And they can with reasonably big storage make a fortune on using it and storing hydrogen.
It is pretty safe to store it and when it leaks it just safely rises to the sky.
HobGoblyn:
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 25, 2022, 08:22:35 am ---. However, the energy retailers, the companies who buy energy for their customers on the wholesale market, don't make a huge amount of money in any typical year. In a good year they'd make £25 per customer for a gas and electric contract, for a whole year. They're already making a loss at the current SVR tariff because the wholesale price has jumped even further ahead of the capped price, at least for the UK. The anger is directed at the wrong people and risks further collapse of the energy retail market and higher costs for all.
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EDIT, Website I got Centricas profit from, missed out the decimal point, thought 134 billion was a bit high lol, should be 1.34 billion.
Trouble is, a lot of energy providers set themselves up with no real safety net, no real regulations, undercutting others, convincing people to switch to them.
Now, if I’ve read correctly, the reason the daily charge has approx doubled is to claim back the money it cost to take over those failed companies. Many directors etc of those failed companies, happily made hundreds of thousands and we are now paying the cost.
26 companies went bust from Aug 2021 to Dec 2021, compared to 23 companies going bust between Nov 2016 to Jan 2021
According to the FT a few days ago, “The cost to UK households of bailing out nationalised energy retailer Bulb is expected to soar to more than £4bn by the spring unless the government achieves a sale, saddling every home with an additional £150 or more on its bills next year”
From Bloomberg:
“ The owners of some UK energy suppliers that collapsed within the past year are set to walk away with payouts reaching tens of millions of pounds at the same time every household in the country is footing the bill for those failures…….
…
The People’s Energy Company Ltd. came into being with crowdfunded cash and a pledge to tackle fuel poverty in Britain. Four years later, it failed. Even so, founders David Pike and Karin Sode may receive about £50 million once company creditors are satisfied. In addition, they won’t be on the hook for the £283 million cost of shifting their customers to Centrica Plc’s British Gas.
…
It’s all legal, and shareholders of other bust utilities may be compensated, as well. Around 30 energy suppliers in the UK have disintegrated since August because they couldn’t afford electricity or natural gas”
Sure some energy suppliers have little to do with energy generation, but then you have the likes of British Gas etc, sure it could be argued they are different parts of these companies, but when you have say:
British Gas CEO didn’t take his £1.1m bonus THIS year due to soaring household costs (He’ll have to pay his bills from his £750k salary instead),
but Centrica who owns them, profits went from £262 million for 6 months of 2021 to £134 billion for the same 6 months of this year
Shell announced last month that it would return billions of dollars to its shareholders as the oil giant continued to profit from massive energy price hikes following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
BP was accused of “unfettered profiteering” after it said on Tuesday underlying profits had tripled to $8.5bn (£6.9bn) between April and June, thanks to high oil prices. It was its biggest quarterly profit in 14 years and BP said it would hand out nearly £4bn to shareholders as a result
Power generation companies:
Eon £3.4 billion profit first half of 2022 (chief executive pay £1 million)
National grid £3.4 billion profit 2021 - 2022 (chief exec pay over same period £6.5 million)
RWE £2.2 billion profit first half of 2022. (Chief exec pay £3.6 million in 2021)
Scottish Power £925 million first half of 2022 (Chief exec pay £1.35 for 2021
Drax £225 million first half of 2022 (Chief exec pay £2.7 million 2021)
EDF £4.5 billion LOSS first half of 2022 (highest paid director £1 million on 2021)
EDF losses are mainly due to their nuclear power plant problems and other problems in France.
Bearing in mind say Eon, British Gas, Scottish Power etc are household suppliers, when someone on the England (Scotlands the same rate). min wage of £9.50 per hour, has seen the average annual gas and electricity bill rise from:
1st Oct 2021. £1,277 per year (12% rise on previous year)
1st April 2022 £1,971 per year. ((54% rise)
1st October 2022 (Latest predictions, I believe the announcement is tomorrow) £3,554 per year (80% rise)
1st January 2023 (Latest predictions) £4,650 a year (31% rise)
1st April 2023 currently estimated to rise somewhere between £5,300 and £6,550.
So someone on min wage in 2021 was paying an average of £107 a month for gas and electric
Same person is currently paying £165 a month
From October they will be paying £296 per month
From January they will be paying £387 per month
And if the lowest prediction for April 2023 comes true, they will be paying £442 a month
That’s without the fact that the poorest tend to be on prepayment meters, and are charged an extra 2% for the suppliers to have their money in advance.
And those that don’t pay by direct debit but pay when they receive their bills, have to pay an extra 7%
I’m sorry, but I fully understand why they blame all energy companies whether that company produces power or not.
I’m surprised millions aren’t out on the streets etc.
I can only afford Januarys rise by instead of being able to currently save about £200 - £300, to being able to save nothing and go into my savings (which aren’t a lot, about £3k) and when I’ve used that up, if these prices continue, I’ll have no option other than to take money out of my (not very big) drawdown pension to cover my bills, luckily my mortgage is paid, if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to pay Januarys bills.
And I count myself lucky in that while annoying, while I might end up using my pension (only 58), at least I can pay it, at least I won’t be worrying about how I’m going to pay my bills etc, I don’t know how many will cope.
And of course on top of that, prices of everything else is going through the roof, food especially.
Squarewave:
It won't be long until the "Won't pay movement" just turns into a grim reality with a name change to, can't pay. £6k per year for energy? Nah, not getting that out of me and for many people, they simply do not have it, no matter what savings they make.
This is not a good time and some very serious unsettlement is coming to the streets very soon.
HobGoblyn:
--- Quote from: themadhippy on August 25, 2022, 01:47:26 pm ---
--- Quote ---UK imports loads but not from Russia
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Biggest import from russia was coal , https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9523/ Around 2% of uk electricity is generated from coal, in summer we use around a third less electricity than winter so it seems theirs plenty of capacity in summer not to be burning the stuff.Of course we could be digging our own home produced coal but someone put a stop to that,funnily enough the same person was also responsible for selling the north sea oil and gas of to their mates the highest bidder to make the books look good,instead of following norways example.
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Love him or loath him, every single thing Arthur Scargill said, was 100% true. I loath the person you don’t mention, but won’t mention her myself to keep this free from being political.
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