Taxation - New powerstations, or Free appliances ?

antrobus

zeupater wrote: »

....Now, taking light-bulbs as an example, if every household was offered a reasonable selection of LED light-bulbs which meant that the average property reduced their average lighting from say 100W to 15W then the gross effect would be ~2.12GW. ....

Yes but you're kinda assumming that households haven't already reduced their 'average lighting' by switching to CFLs, so it might be more of a case that buying LEDs gets you from 20W to 15W, so you've overstated the gains by some significant factor, and that the gross effect could be more like 0.12 GW. Or 4% of Hinkley.:)

zeupater wrote: »

....So there's the question, where would you like your money spent - New powerstations, or Free appliances ? ....

The country needs new powerstations to replace the old ones. I'm not so sure there's a choice, other than you might be able to get away with building 9 instead of 10.

penrhyn

80% of households, and industry rely on gas.
We are increasingly dependent on imports from dodgy sources.
A rated boilers might help a bit but we must regain security of supply, whether it means fracking or reopening the coal mines and start making town gas again.

zeupater

antrobus wrote: »

Yes but you're kinda assumming that households haven't already reduced their 'average lighting' by switching to CFLs, so it might be more of a case that buying LEDs gets you from 20W to 15W, so you've overstated the gains by some significant factor, and that the gross effect could be more like 0.12 GW. Or 4% of Hinkley.:)



The country needs new powerstations to replace the old ones. I'm not so sure there's a choice, other than you might be able to get away with building 9 instead of 10.

Hi

Pretty good point, but I still believe that there is ample scope for households to save at least an average of 85W on lighting. I agree that many would already have CFLs in place in BC or ES fittings, but many don't (including people I know).

As an example ... over the last decade(?) there has been a pretty major swing towards inset down-lighters throughout the house, many (the majority ?) of which use 35W or 50W GU10 bulbs. The problem with GU10 bulbs (and therefore the reason for mentioning these) is that although CFL alternatives are available, they're oversized and damn ugly - which is why you rarely see them fitted. Using downlights/spotlights usually results in a 'block' of lights being used at a time ... we have 3 groups of 4, so with 35W bulbs that's 140W with standard bulbs, which could be replaced by ~18 to 20W if fitting LEDs, however, it's pretty rare that we would only use one group of 4 lights at a time - it's usually 8 lights on or off ... then again, we only have a few - I know someone with something like 21 x 35W bulbs in the living room alone (yes it is bright!), with at least double this throughout the rest of the house ... yes, it's pretty extreme, but certainly forms part of what averages are made of.

Yes, the country needs power stations, but the total output (& therefore the number) is related to the maximum demand at peak conditions, plus a safety factor, so reducing the maximum demand through such measures simply results in lower investment in plant, lower subsidies, lower energy bills, lower imports of costly fuels etc - the main point being that, from a taxpayer's/consumer's viewpoint, it should be a self-financing moneysaving measure.

HTH
Z

zeupater

penrhyn wrote: »

80% of households, and industry rely on gas.
We are increasingly dependent on imports from dodgy sources.
A rated boilers might help a bit but we must regain security of supply, whether it means fracking or reopening the coal mines and start making town gas again.

Hi

Agree, but another way of looking at it is that close to 100% of households and industry rely on electricity. The proposal for discussion isn't the source of the fuel to be converted into electricity, but reducing demand actually meets the criteria you raise, the fewer electrons less we need, the lower the dependence on 'imports from dodgy sources'.

Looking at gas heating, a scheme for supplying 'free' boilers has no reduction in investment & subsidies to offset the costs against, although energy security and balance of trade for the UK as a whole would benefit. Another factor is the supply chain - replacing something like a boiler or cooker isn't simple and introduces the likelihood of the installation industry 'making hay' whilst introducing considerable lead-times through the creation of a skill-limited bottleneck. Simply concentrating on a range of simple consumer goods offers a low-input, effectively DIY solution for most ...

HTH
Z

penrhyn

Indeed, about to replace !y G rated boiler, All the lights in the house are now led. Pity about the tumble drier.

nigelpm

Always preferable to heavily subsidise these low energy items and that IMHO is what the government should be doing.

The trouble with giving things out for free is plenty of folk will just sell them on, take the money and use their old kit.

Martyn1981

nigelpm wrote: »

Always preferable to heavily subsidise these low energy items and that IMHO is what the government should be doing.

The trouble with giving things out for free is plenty of folk will just sell them on, take the money and use their old kit.

Yep. Both of my ENViR energy monitors are Eon models given away free to their customers, and subsequently sold on fleabay. Still, I did ok out of it.

Mart.

zeupater

nigelpm wrote: »

Always preferable to heavily subsidise these low energy items and that IMHO is what the government should be doing.

The trouble with giving things out for free is plenty of folk will just sell them on, take the money and use their old kit.

What a cynical view of society ....

With low value goods such as LEDs, I would certainly agree that some would hit the market .... however, seeing that the market would effectively be flooded with subsidised 'free' (/voucher purchased) units, the price would likely need to be pretty low, thus making the savings available from keeping/using them much more attractive ....

When it comes down to higher value energy efficient goods, there would need to be some form of like-for-like trade-in scheme, minimum energy efficiency differential and prioritisation of the exchange program in order to target the least efficient units first .... but, if planned correctly, it's all doable.

HTH
Z

nigelpm

zeupater wrote: »

What a cynical view of society ....


Z

Indeed, unfortunately experience tells me sadly it's also a realistic view

silverwhistle

zeupater wrote: »

As an example ... over the last decade(?) there has been a pretty major swing towards inset down-lighters throughout the house, many (the majority ?) of which use 35W or 50W GU10 bulbs.

Whenever I read articles about reducing consumption, replacing downlighters always gets mentioned, but as I don't have a single one in the house have less scope to reduce my already low bills. They can look good but never had sufficient money to justify installing them. I tend to rely on task lighting (reading lamps etc.) and with those have started to convert to LED.

On the cynical point about subsidised or free items being sold on, some years ago Robert Dyas had a good deal on CFLs as they were subsidised by the RECS to meet their green obligations. On holiday in the UK I wanted to buy some ES models to take back to Italy, but the shelves had been almost cleared by, according to the shop assistant, the local Polish community who obviously saw a good arbitrage opportunity!:-)