Choice of intelligent switches ?

Martyn1981

orrery wrote: »

Yes - probably. Teams of students were offered money to either invest, or save the planet. The winner was the one who massed the most money, but if they collectively fail to contribute enough to saving the planet then everyone loses. After each round, they could all see a summary of each other's behaviour. The results indicated that there are always enough 'chancers' who will leave it too late for the planet to be saved by a co-ordinated last minute group effort.

That's the problem with society in general. A short term approach to spending, even if it results in greater long term costs. It is a shame that investing in capping future price rises for all, especially the poor, is only ever viewed in the short term.

Although I appreciate that it is a hard sell trying to persuade someone that a smaller increase is better than a larger increase - the focus will always fall on the word increase. Trying to point out the environmental costs is next to pointless. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think.

Hopefully the development of devices such as these will shorten the time period until PV can stand without subsidies. Though I fully accept Roger Black's argument that consuming leccy instead of gas (or exporting gas instead of leccy) probably leads to higher overall CO2 emissions.

New kit, new scheme, new world. But I do wonder if the RECs are delaying accurate metering of export whilst they are still benefitting. Personally I think the FIT is more than generous, so I'm not concerned about the approx 600kWh's @ 3.3p that I don't receive.

Mart.

zeupater

The_Green_Man wrote: »

Are you saying you'd like those who consume more energy to pay more for other people's PV? Is that calculated by kWh used or a more rudimentary percentage figure added to the overall bill (i.e. 1% on top of the total bill in £)? ....

Hi

That's exactly what already happens and it's therefore the point which John has been making ..... people with more money generally have more assets which includes property .... generally the larger the total asset value, the larger the property, the larger the energy bill, the larger the contribution to the CCL ... a point which makes perfect sense to me ...

Anyway, to support this, here is a link to relevant HMRC information on the CCL which describes the included rates so that everybody can calculate what they should be contributing .... ( http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_031183&propertyType=document )

HTH
Z

The_Green_Man_2

EricMears wrote: »

Thanks to a little-known science called 'Mathematics', the 'two formulae' would give pretty well the same result (apart from a small correction for any standing charge.

I'm sure once the other question was answered, its relevance would become apparent

So says a comfortable middle class chap who has never used pre-payment meters. Same consumption, three times the cost.

The_Green_Man_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

That's exactly what already happens and it's therefore the point which John has been making ..... people with more money generally have more assets which includes property .... generally the larger the total asset value, the larger the property, the larger the energy bill, the larger the contribution to the CCL ... a point which makes perfect sense to me ...

Anyway, to support this, here is a link to relevant HMRC information on the CCL which describes the included rates so that everybody can calculate what they should be contributing .... ( http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_031183&propertyType=document )

HTH
Z

Unfortunately that doesn't tally, as evidenced by the large passivhaus developments as seen on TV. Large homes, very little energy use.

What we do see however is that poorer people live in less well insulated properties, who have energy inefficient white goods, boilers and heating controls, who are often subject to pre-payment meters and therefore have a much higher energy useage than other people in much larger homes.

People who rent in the poorer end of the market are even worst hit. The properties are poorly built and maintained and their landlords have zero incentive to spend money on insulation or energy efficient appliances because it is the tenant who pays the utility bills.

zeupater

The_Green_Man wrote: »

So says a comfortable middle class chap who has never used pre-payment meters. Same consumption, three times the cost.

Hi

This is incorrect & irrelevant .... no matter what the rate of charge per unit energy usage charged by the energy supplier, the CCL element remains the same, therefore same consumption, same CCL cost .... more usage, more cost ...

HTH
Z

EricMears

The_Green_Man wrote: »

So says a comfortable middle class chap who has never used pre-payment meters. Same consumption, three times the cost.

Bit of a sweeping generalisation from someone who has never met me !

When I was little, Granny relied upon me to crawl into the back of her cupboard to feed her shillings in.

And according to this survey (for which I only needed to embellish the answers slightly) I'm well and truly one of the 'elite' class. I put that down to a thorough grounding in statistics and a lot of practice in interpreting such foolishness.

tunnel

The_Green_Man wrote: »

Unfortunately that doesn't tally, as evidenced by the large passivhaus developments as seen on TV. Large homes, very little energy use.

What we do see however is that poorer people live in less well insulated properties, who have energy inefficient white goods, boilers and heating controls, who are often subject to pre-payment meters and therefore have a much higher energy useage than other people in much larger homes.

People who rent in the poorer end of the market are even worst hit. The properties are poorly built and maintained and their landlords have zero incentive to spend money on insulation or energy efficient appliances because it is the tenant who pays the utility bills.[/QUOTE]

I found this interesting reading. The link was in John-pierpoints post earlier,if you care to go back and read the full post,not just the bits you want to see


How you’ll be affected by new rules coming into force in 2018

At present, landlords are required to obtain an EPC for any property that they let. However, following the Energy Act 2011, from April 2018 it will be illegal to let a property which has an EPC rating below grade E.
Philip Overend, an accredited Energy Assessor and Chartered Surveyor who carries out energy assessments said: “The forthcoming tightening of the current building regulations, along with new versions of more stringent EPC software (calculates the energy rating) will make it even harder for landlords to achieve the higher EPC bands.”
If you have a property which has an F or G rating, you will need to improve its energy efficiency between now and 2018. This may include better insulation or double glazing. If you don’t, you won’t be able to let out the property after April 2018.

Sort of contradicts what your saying somewhat!

The_Green_Man_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

This is incorrect & irrelevant .... no matter what the rate of charge per unit energy usage charged by the energy supplier, the CCL element remains the same, therefore same consumption, same CCL cost .... more usage, more cost ...

HTH
Z

Ah, the PV boys are 'tag-teaming' again. No matter, I'm not intimidated.

I suggest you look at what we were talking about rather than jumping into the conversation half way through. A quick summary: the question was whether fits we based on consumption (kWh) or Billing (£). Eric thought the two were the same and used his trademark sarcasm as a putdown (which always makes him look silly when he's wrong :rotfl:).

I pointed out that useage and billing are not essentially the same - as evidenced by the use of pre-payment meters where the same amount of energy (hWh) can cost upto 3 times more (£).

The_Green_Man_2

tunnel wrote: »

The_Green_Man wrote: »

Unfortunately that doesn't tally, as evidenced by the large passivhaus developments as seen on TV. Large homes, very little energy use.

What we do see however is that poorer people live in less well insulated properties, who have energy inefficient white goods, boilers and heating controls, who are often subject to pre-payment meters and therefore have a much higher energy useage than other people in much larger homes.

People who rent in the poorer end of the market are even worst hit. The properties are poorly built and maintained and their landlords have zero incentive to spend money on insulation or energy efficient appliances because it is the tenant who pays the utility bills.[/QUOTE]

I found this interesting reading. The link was in John-pierpoints post earlier,if you care to go back and read the full post,not just the bits you want to see


How you’ll be affected by new rules coming into force in 2018

At present, landlords are required to obtain an EPC for any property that they let. However, following the Energy Act 2011, from April 2018 it will be illegal to let a property which has an EPC rating below grade E.
Philip Overend, an accredited Energy Assessor and Chartered Surveyor who carries out energy assessments said: “The forthcoming tightening of the current building regulations, along with new versions of more stringent EPC software (calculates the energy rating) will make it even harder for landlords to achieve the higher EPC bands.”
If you have a property which has an F or G rating, you will need to improve its energy efficiency between now and 2018. This may include better insulation or double glazing. If you don’t, you won’t be able to let out the property after April 2018.

Sort of contradicts what your saying somewhat!

Not at all, we are in 2013 and so 2018 is not now is it?

Remind me how long FiTs will have been running by 2018?

Oh, and do you really believe an E grade is energy efficient? :rotfl:

spgsc531

The_Green_Man wrote: »

Ah, the PV boys are 'tag-teaming' again. No matter, I'm not intimidated.

I suggest you look at what we were talking about rather than jumping into the conversation half way through. A quick summary: the question was whether fits we based on consumption (kWh) or Billing (£). Eric thought the two were the same and used his trademark sarcasm as a putdown (which always makes him look silly when he's wrong :rotfl:).

I pointed out that useage and billing are not essentially the same - as evidenced by the use of pre-payment meters where the same amount of energy (hWh) can cost upto 3 times more (£).

Just thought we should get some facts in there instead of sweeping statements

http://www.confused.com/gas-electricity/articles/ofgem-measures-allow-energy-prepayment-meter-customers-in-debt-to-switch-suppliers


"The average annual bill for a prepayment meter customer on a dual fuel tariff (where you have gas and electricity from the same firm) is £1,306, compared to £1,222 for customers paying by monthly direct debit.
This is according to research by consumer watchdog Consumer Focus and these figures take into account the latest gas and electricity price rises."