The great electric rate swindle....

maxmycardagain

I buy leccy at 4.4p per unit (night rate) off British Gas

I am fairly certain they wont be losing on that

so......

How can they get away with some "standard" tarrifs of 11p per unit?

(or my "rate 1" tarrif of 30p! .. "no standing charge sir!"......yeah...pull the other one)

I wonder what they pay per unit...

(the only cheap night electric produced i know of is hydro-electric?)

Loan sharks arent that greedy

bryanb

At night Power stations produce too much, It cannot be stored therefore selling it cheaper is their best bet. Power stations can take up to 24 hours to wind up (Or down) therefore not practicable. Winding up and down also causes problems with expansion and contraction of steam pipework, which causes leaks etc. Hope this helps a bit.

penrhyn

There was a series about the national grid on TV.
Meeting peak demand requires extraordinary solutions like bringing Dinorwig (pumped storage) power station on line.

It can go from a standing start to producing 1800 Megawatts in around 75 seconds, and run for half an hour before running out of water.

KimYeovil

maxmycardagain wrote: »

I buy leccy at 4.4p per unit (night rate) off British Gas

I am fairly certain they wont be losing on that

so......

How can they get away with some "standard" tarrifs of 11p per unit?

(or my "rate 1" tarrif of 30p! .. "no standing charge sir!"......yeah...pull the other one)

I wonder what they pay per unit...

(the only cheap night electric produced i know of is hydro-electric?)

Loan sharks arent that greedy

What utter rubbish.

Garz

Expand Kim. We like to know your reasoning's of these statements...

maxmycardagain

Well im winning with Bgas, so i must be right some of the time, theyve resorted to cancelling 1 bill, repaying (on my account) payments made just to base a new bill on the current (colder)/higher consumption as they had agreed to lowering my DDM inline with what i am actually using, but even the higher level of consumption is below the new DDM being taken, and all this because thier equipment was faulty for 6 months.

I called hydro-electric "cheap night electric" which was erroneous of course, as it USES cheap electric to pump water up ready for peak rate use, we used to live near Dinorwig but didnt get leccy any cheaper (but the water rates were cheaper...)


I see someones still taking the bitter-pills, i hope they know they can choke on em

Cardew

Post#2 has given the answer.

The most efficient power stations just can't be 'switched off and switched on' to match the electrical load on the grid so financial incentives have to be offered for consumers to use electricity during the night.

penrhyn

maxmycardagain wrote: »

Well im winning with Bgas, so i must be right some of the time, theyve resorted to cancelling 1 bill, repaying (on my account) payments made just to base a new bill on the current (colder)/higher consumption as they had agreed to lowering my DDM inline with what i am actually using, but even the higher level of consumption is below the new DDM being taken, and all this because thier equipment was faulty for 6 months.

I called hydro-electric "cheap night electric" which was erroneous of course, as it USES cheap electric to pump water up ready for peak rate use, we used to live near Dinorwig but didnt get leccy any cheaper (but the water rates were cheaper...)


I see someones still taking the bitter-pills, i hope they know they can choke on em

Wish i was there now, I fancy a pint of tea and a cheese and chip butty at Petes Eats!

davidgmmafan

I know its fun to shout rip off but if unless we have some facts, which are difficult to find, its all a bit pointless.

To be devils advocate even on the rates you quote have you seen how much the rates are for 'green' electricity? That's only going make prices go one way if this is used more.

grahamc2003

maxmycardagain wrote: »

I buy leccy at 4.4p per unit (night rate) off British Gas

I am fairly certain they wont be losing on that

so......

How can they get away with some "standard" tarrifs of 11p per unit?

(or my "rate 1" tarrif of 30p! .. "no standing charge sir!"......yeah...pull the other one)

I wonder what they pay per unit...

(the only cheap night electric produced i know of is hydro-electric?)

Loan sharks arent that greedy

But your bills are no longer just to pay for the electricity you use. A higher and higher percentage is going to pay for a great swathe of 'green' subsidies - from fits, to loft lagging, to windmill construction to windmill operation, to windmills just existing (that capacity payment has just been announced), to cheap light bulbs, to carbon permits, to trading carbon permits (should keep plenty of city traders in Lambos for many years), to the renewable obligation etc etc - the list is seemingly never ending. These things simply don't appear from nowhere, they are paid for by you and me, these days in your energy bills. Wait till we see the unavoidable billions we have belatedly realised needs spending on Nuclear stations - I'm afraid we are currently in a cheap and available energy system (believe it or not) and during the coming decade we'll move into an expensive an frequently unavailable energy system, and there is nothing at all can be done to change that at this stage. People seemingly wanted inefficient generation in the form of solar panels, tens of thousands of windmills, etc - and the bills for those are now about to hit us.
Come back here in five years, and you'll then think these were the dream times, energy wise.

grahamc2003

bryanb wrote: »

At night Power stations produce too much, It cannot be stored therefore selling it cheaper is their best bet. Power stations can take up to 24 hours to wind up (Or down) therefore not practicable. Winding up and down also causes problems with expansion and contraction of steam pipework, which causes leaks etc. Hope this helps a bit.

That applies to Nuclear stations (except they take 2 or 3 weeks to start from scratch) and a day or two may be necessary for the biggest coal, but in general almost all non-nuke stations are instructed to start and stop gensets during the day. There are various categories of the 'start' and 'stop' stateds though. The demand curve is met by a combination of many stations simultaneously ramping up, ramping down and steady state generation (ie when demand is rising to the morning peak, more will be ramping up than ramping down, and vv).
Cheap night prices are basically a way of using very cheaply generated power - the marginal cost of night-running stations is very low indeed (and stations are scheduled to meet peaks in merit order (that is rising marginal cost order), so at any one time, we have the cheapest generation. But the prices of nightime is a commercial decision, largely unrelated to cost as you say, there are big profits at 5p/kwh nightime use. The suppliers pay a variable price for every half hour for non-contracted generation, and this varies to very cheap at night (the system marginal price has been zero a few times), to very expensive at 5pm on winter's evenings, when the most expensive generation is scheduled.

Removing generating capacity, as will happen in a few years, like some old Nuclear (which have reached the end of their desiogn lives, and some big coal (which is madness since they are not near the end of their design lives) will see electricity prices rise rapidly, with generating capacity sometimes unable to meet demand (at which time the grid will have to decide which lucky thousands ofpeople get the powercuts).