Energy news in general

QrizB

brewerdave said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Rishi Sunak is considering scaling back help to pay for heating bills to pay for maintaining the pension triple lock.

Been rumoured before -also ,perhaps more logical ,make the WFP taxable as the state pension.

Would be even more logical to roll WFP et al into the state pension, eg. by having a £12/wk enhancement to the pension during Dec/Jan/Feb.

MattMattMattUK

QrizB said:

brewerdave said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Rishi Sunak is considering scaling back help to pay for heating bills to pay for maintaining the pension triple lock.

Been rumoured before -also ,perhaps more logical ,make the WFP taxable as the state pension.

Would be even more logical to roll WFP et al into the state pension, eg. by having a £12/wk enhancement to the pension during Dec/Jan/Feb.

It would make more sense to abolish the WFP entirely and raise pensions by the desired amount. 

QrizB

MattMattMattUK said:

QrizB said:

brewerdave said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Rishi Sunak is considering scaling back help to pay for heating bills to pay for maintaining the pension triple lock.

Been rumoured before -also ,perhaps more logical ,make the WFP taxable as the state pension.

Would be even more logical to roll WFP et al into the state pension, eg. by having a £12/wk enhancement to the pension during Dec/Jan/Feb.

It would make more sense to abolish the WFP entirely and raise pensions by the desired amount. 

That depends on various factors, including whether you believe that £3/wk all year round would achieve the same goal (the goal being "help pensioners pay their winter fuel bills"), and whether you continue to make the state pension directly proportional to the number of NI years accrued.

Currently, all state pensioners get the same flat rate WFP, regardless of whether their pension is £50 a week or £200 a week. Increasing the rate by £3/wk would mean the £50 pensioner only receiving 75p.

molerat

Gas prices rise on possible sabotage of Finland - Estonia Baltic inter connector along with a communications cable.  Not helped by the uncertainties of the Israeli situation

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-gas-prices-surge-finland-135935726.html

peterf83

molerat said:

Gas prices rise on possible sabotage of Finland - Estonia Baltic inter connector along with a communications cable.  Not helped by the uncertainties of the Israeli situation

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-gas-prices-surge-finland-135935726.html

I saw this reported earlier and am wondering what other views are on fixing. British Gas are offering a fix (The Fixed One V25) electricity @ 29.92p per kWh & gas @ 7.57p per kWh. 

I’m tempted to sign up to it for piece of mind as I doubt we’ll see the EPG returned if gas prices balloon again. 

mmmmikey

peterf83 said:

molerat said:

Gas prices rise on possible sabotage of Finland - Estonia Baltic inter connector along with a communications cable.  Not helped by the uncertainties of the Israeli situation

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-gas-prices-surge-finland-135935726.html

I saw this reported earlier and am wondering what other views are on fixing. British Gas are offering a fix (The Fixed One V25) electricity @ 29.92p per kWh & gas @ 7.57p per kWh. 

I’m tempted to sign up to it for piece of mind as I doubt we’ll see the EPG returned if gas prices balloon again. 

FWIW I would definitely fix if I was on an SVR tariff as this seems like a one way bet, i.e. prices are unlikely to go down significantly but they could easily rise significantly. The world is a turbulent place right now, who knows how things will pan out in the Middle East, for example. 

Having said that, because I'm on Agile, fixing would double my prices so it's worth taking the risk in my case, and I suspect the Finnish thing will blow over fairly quickly, but who knows?

markin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector

"Balticconnector started commercial operations on 1 January 2020. During the first month of operation it supplied over a third of Finnish gas demand, 885 GWh. By comparison, the domestic Estonian consumption was 565 GWh.[17]

After the commissioning of a gas interconnection between Poland and Lithuania in 2022, Estonia and (via the Balticconnector) Finland have been connected to the Polish and internal EU gas markets,[18] and vice versa; Estonia received LNG shipments via Inkoo LNG terminal in 2023.[19]

Pressure drop 2023

The pipeline was transporting 30 GWh/day from Finland to Estonia. On 8 October 2023, around 02:00 local time, the two operating companies Gasgrid Finland and Elering (Estonia) noticed a sudden drop in pressure in the line, from 34.5 bar to 12 bar, and then to 6 bar.[20] The operators closed the valves to stop the flow. They later discovered a leak caused by a damaged pipe in the sea.[3]

On 10 October 2023, the Finnish government announced that the damage to the pipeline may have have been deliberate and caused by "external activity"

"Inkoo LNG terminal is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping terminal, situated near Ingå, Finland on the Gulf of Finland. It became operational in January 2023, and received first gas in April 2023,[1] with some shipments for Estonia.[2] The floating regasification equipment and port facility was built to offload marine-shipped LNG to Finland following the cutoff of Russian pipeline gas in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and will have the capability over time to supply gas to the Baltic countries as well.[3]
Planning for an LNG port in Finland had been variously considered since the 2000s,[4] but was accelerated following the global natural gas supply crisis. Inkoo LNG terminal is Finland's first LNG shipping terminal.[4]"

superkoopauk

Looks like warrant force fitting of PPM's will commence sooner rather than later

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67156172

NorfolkCanary

Sounds like a positive, assuming consumers can trust the application process to be followed.

"....suppliers to make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer and conduct a "site welfare visit".
Is anyone able to clarify what 10 attempts consist of? Is it defined anywhere? If it's 1 visit per month, no wonder why debts such as "The court heard details of a selection of cases in which customers had not paid energy bills, often having built up to more than £2,000 for gas and the same for electricity" have been accrued.

The_Green_Hornet

Prepayment fears delaying smart meter roll-out, warn MPs

Customers' fears that they could be forcibly switched on to prepayment energy meters may be putting people off getting smart meters, MPs have warned.

Last winter smart meters were used to switch some households remotely on to prepayment meters, leaving them at risk of running out of power.

That is one reason smart meter roll-out remains "too slow", the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.

Prepayment fears delaying smart meter roll-out, warn MPs - BBC News