Can Ovo really be trusted?

jackyann

matelodave wrote: »

I doubt very much that a nationalised energy market would be cheaper - none of them, gas, electric, telephone, railways etc were anywhere near efficient when they were and wouldn't be now. They would have the monopoly and charge what they like.

At least with the system that we've got at the moment we can swap about a bit and save. None of that would be possible if it was government controlled.

The unions would be rubbing their hands with glee as they'd have us by the short & curlies again. Have you noticed how its still the public sector that still have the strike mentality, give them back the energy industry and we'd be well and truly stuffed. Arthur would be rubbing his hands with glee

I don't know how old you are, and of course, we all see things differently in the light of our own experiences.
I have been a householder in the days of nationalised utilities, and am one now.
I can tell you that my own experience is that these days, I feel that I have no more real choice, I have much worse customer service, find that problems are dealt with less efficiently, and worst of all, I feel completely confused (which I am sure is what the companies want).

andy_spoo

Wind can generate at night.

There is also a way of storing solar generation for use at night when it comes to solar 'farms' or excess electricity generated via wind during low demand. Use the excess electricity to split water in to hydrogen and oxygen. Store the gases then burn them when required via any normal steam generator (as used by gas/nuclear, etc). Saying that you can't store electricity from solar is a good old 'conservative ministers' lack of basic chemistry. But yes, they currently run some gas and coal. It takes time to faze this out.

Also, electricity usage at night is a fraction of daytime usage, especially by industry, which used most of it, and so is less of a problem.

Germany

joncombe wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you here, this is a genuine question! Presumably they can't generate electricity from solar at night/after dark. So I presume they must have many power stations to provide power at night (unless they have huge banks of batteries somewhere?). I think this is the problem with solar, it can't generate power at night. So you need something else which means you still have the cost of building and maintaining power stations even though you don't have to run them (or all of them) 24x7.

andy_spoo

Old enough to be a teenager when Thatcher first got in to power, to remember her privatising everything, to remember her persuading everyone to buy a home and then have the interest rates on the mortgage of that home hit a record high and with people then loosing that home to banks (yep, they screwed us then as well). That old :-/

I think you're right. It's seems like a deliberate policy to confuse. Search Google for minsters interests. There's some pretty dodgy stuff going on.

jackyann wrote: »

I don't know how old you are, and of course, we all see things differently in the light of our own experiences.
I have been a householder in the days of nationalised utilities, and am one now.
I can tell you that my own experience is that these days, I feel that I have no more real choice, I have much worse customer service, find that problems are dealt with less efficiently, and worst of all, I feel completely confused (which I am sure is what the companies want).