Green Tax costs £149 per Household

Cardew

‘Green tax’ now costs every British household £149 a year,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/01/british-gas-says-green-taxes-will-cost-households-149-year-blames/

Standby for thread to be diverted to cost of Nuclear energy. Generation of which can be 24/7 regardless of sun shining or wind blowing.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/01/british-gas-says-green-taxes-will-cost-households-149-year-blames/

Standby for thread to be diverted to cost of Nuclear energy. Generation of which can be 24/7 regardless of sun shining or wind blowing.

Typical Cardew
Rants about green energy on a green and ethical board.
Obviously trying to cause an argument.
Likes to provoke upset.
Learnt nothing over the last decade.

Always on the wrong side of history/technology.
Lacking in numeracy, economics and accounting knowledge.
Easily annoyed and quick to explode.
Rarely able to see the facts.
Time to give it a rest and accept the world has moved on.

Crowmann

Cardew may be a tad negative on renewables but the point is fair - £149 per year is a lot and non discriminatory to low earners.

Loads of folk on here would have a very different opinion if they did not get a slice of that imposed charge.

The incentives for renewables should have come from the government rather than a regressive tax on all users.

How long before the government reneges on the RPI element? My money is not that long. Think they wont? Student Loan promises got binned - the politics of renewables is largely middle class folk looking for a better return on their savings so giving them a haircut will not provoke must anger and probably some rejoicing?

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Typical Cardew
Rants about green energy on a green and ethical board.
Obviously trying to cause an argument.

It might have escaped your notice that this board is entitled 'Green & Ethical MONEYSAVING'.

Just compare my post to yours and see who is 'ranting'.

You really need to chill out. Why don't you ignore this thread and let there be some sensible discussion - like the points made in the post above.

NigeWick

Crowmann wrote: »

The incentives for renewables should have come from the government rather than a regressive tax on all users.

Doesn't government get money from all tax payers?

And, should government be subsidising fossil fuels and nuclear as they do?

Renewables and battery storage are going to be the cheapest way to power what we call civilisation and the faster we get there, the better for the planet and our health.

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Typical Cardew

I blocked his posts years ago. If everybody ignored him these forums would perhaps be more pleasant.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/01/british-gas-says-green-taxes-will-cost-households-149-year-blames/

Standby for thread to be diverted to cost of Nuclear energy. Generation of which can be 24/7 regardless of sun shining or wind blowing.

Hi

The important element being 'british gas says' ... so easily countered by 'Well they would say that, wouldn't they ?' ...

Perhaps BG neglected to look at their own published data on every bill they supply ... applying falling wholesale energy costs to the large proportion of the bill and offsetting that against the relatively small network & environmental elements would necessitate introducing a huge and formerly 'unknown' cost element .... the odd thing is that there's nothing huge which has been introduced recently which could account for that level of impact (network or environmental) apart from the roll-out of smart-meters.

Smart Meters are being rolled out under EU environmental requirements, so I'd hazard a guess that they'd be included in the 'environmental' element of the bill breakdown .... so, a project costing £12-£15billion adds around £500 to the average bill over time and logically this would need to be less than the anticipated lifespan of a smart-meter, so if capital recovery is over 5 years that's ~£100/year and if 10years then it's ~£50 ... various sources suggest the smart-meter technology has an anticipated lifespan of 10-15 years, though many predict that it'll be much closer to 10 than 15. Anyway, the important point is that a ~£100/year addition to bills attributed to environmental issues seems to be in the right ball-park

Basic information on Smart Meters here - <link>

Rather odd though, the £500 for smart-meters has been known about for years and as the project is only just ramping-up it's more than a little premature for the industry to front-load the full project cost recovery, well before the vast majority of expenditure and installation has been committed .... after-all, chopping the project deadlines, handing responsibility back to the industry and forcing them to install smart-meters (which cost little more than standard meters) within their normal meter replacement schedule would cost the consumer absolutely nothing ....

The industry is simply using the term 'green' as an excuse to line their own pockets in the belief that all of their customer base is the same colour .... green (as in gullible) ... apart from that, BG seem to be haemorrhaging customers at the moment, which doesn't tally with their claim of charging below market value and losing money - people don't leave to pay more - either the group is irresponsibly inefficient, or they have a vertical business structure which moves direct supply margin up the chain, far away from Ofgem's sphere of regulation .... I tend to sway towards the latter ....

HTH
Z

michaels

How much will Hinkley C add to bills if the comparable price for alternative sources to the £92.50 when it starts generating is £50 which I don't think is an unreasonable guess?

Crowmann

Unless anyone has noticed Britain is bankrupt by any reasonable definition. The need to cover base load was an imperative and the Hinckley point bidders knew this and loaded their bid accordingly.

For a pioneer nuclear generating nation that we had to go cap in hand to the French and Chinese is a matter of national shame - but then in large part that's been the story for the last forty years.

Simply put we are between a rock and hard place - God alone knows how we will power the replacement of petrol and diesel. Maybe battery technology will dramatically improve and renewables via stored energy on a huge scale will be the answer but at the point of Hinckley (and even now) being agreed they were not.

We are all dancing towards the cliff edge.

Martyn1981

Crowmann wrote: »

Loads of folk on here would have a very different opinion if they did not get a slice of that imposed charge.

Not me, I was perfectly happy to pay for a shift to renewables long before I realised I could take part myself.

I suspect your claim is false and unsubstantiated.

Plus this focus on homeowners receiving a subsidy is a red herring. All energy gets subsidies, it's just that the FiT allows some of that to go to our neighbours. That's when the faux outrage seems to have started.

I don't have children, but people who have invested in the future of the UK by having two children will receive around £1,500 per year now (or equivalent in the past). I see nothing wrong with that whatsoever, and similarly if I wasn't receiving the FiT I would still support it.

After all, the majority of the UK support renewables (79%) and solar generation (86%). Only a minority oppose them, though they are, admittedly, very loud!

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

How much will Hinkley C add to bills if the comparable price for alternative sources to the £92.50 when it starts generating is £50 which I don't think is an unreasonable guess?

1. Your £50 guess may be a good one. The NAO have dropped future wholesale rates down to £60/MWh, but appear to be considering a further reduction. See page 40 of the NAO report.

2. This prompted them to increase the subsidy element of the £90bn of payments in the first 35yrs from £6bn to £30bn. See page 41.

3. If the wholesale price settles around £50/MWh then the subsidy element will be closer to £45bn.

4. With on-shore wind and PV heading for £50/MWh v's HPC's current index linked price of £97/MWh, then again, we would be looking at having around £45bn spare to spend on back up gas capacity (£2bn) and let's say 30GWh of storage at $95/kWh (Eos are contracting at that price today for 2022 deliveries), so about £2.2bn

5. So let's say the same generation as HPC, plus 3GW of gas capacity, plus 30GWh of storage, plus £40bn in change.

6. Just for fun ..... we currently pay about £3bn pa for nuclear decommissioning (expected to spend that for 75-100 years), which works out at about £120 per household.