Energy news in general

Scot_39

silverwhistle said:

debitcardmayhem said:

And in the meantime, keep buying gas from elsewhere….and kill off UK jobs in the Oil and Gas sector.

We need that skilled labour to help build offshore wind. Besides, it's high cost oil and gas as the 'easy' stuff (and the North Sea has never been easy) has already been exploited. It's a declining field.

As for nuclear, they still haven't solved the waste problem and that's after ~60 years.

Theres been well over 100,000 direct jobs and many more suppliers jobs lost in the North Sea - since the peak years c1999/2000 - and its accelerating again under the current windfall tax extension and Net Zero defacto ban on new fields.  As both SNP and Scotland and Labour but even Cons - pass hostile green legislation.

Some are now predicting another 10,000 pa per year - to nearly half the remaining c110-115,000 - in next five years.  

Theres a difference between running and manning an oil drilling or pump platform - than installing wind farms from a floating crane - they are not the same jobs.  

And most of the firms doing so - foreign made foreign owned ships with foreign workforce - foreign taxes paid by us.

Norway just announced another massive investment in N Sea - the UK has their's shutdown by green lobby, the courts and weak virtue signalling rather than pragmatic govt ministers in past of both hues.

Its sheer hypocrisy for govts and courts to ban UK fields - but continue - and by that - I mean - even many green orgs acknowledge that goes - far far beyond 2050 - let alone the lifetime of the proposed fields - to import oil and gas.

And the recent bans represent a fraction of UK's demand during the transition to net zero by 2050.

Foreign oil and gas - earning foreign companies and govts tax revenue - often produced with far lower environamental standards - and with the impact of 1000s of miles of transportation adding to the final emissions tally.

Scot_39

JKenH said:

Scot_39 said:

Whether taxing solar would save anything on bills would depend on 

a) whether you believed it would say cut the amount exported - e.g. people might store rather than pay the taxes

b) whether you think suppliers margins are higher or lower - a balance of spot wholesale + network delivery costs paid to networks to deliver to our doors - vs that paid to domestic exporters.

It certainly might put a damper on people investing in new solar - possibly no bad thing given commercial solar are now receiving curtailment payments.   

But apart from peak demand slots - I suspect many domestic solar exporters are getting less than other renewables wholesale - like say the upto £120 OS price for OS wind in AR1 for quick delivery (£180 now - 18p/kWh) - and the c£59 that new fixed OS wind got in AR6 (*) - 2012 rates - so if it was online - c£90/MWh at 2025 rates - or 9p/kWh.

That 9p in the 8-9p range google AI gave as an average of SEG rates for last year - but said Octopus dynamic / peak rates far higher now - do they really pay upto 40p/kWh ?.

But then remember we have to add things like the electric share of the as of Oct cap total network cost of £396 - up £24 / c6% - and how that would feed into unit and SC etc etc. to those wholesale rates.

Edit and come to think of it - it solar and wind getting genuine balance based curtailment - I suppose you would have to add the cost of that to the cost of domestic export - as one offsets the other. It's really not a simply time invariant cost - and its changing all the time - weather / demand / generation mix etc..

 

FiT payments are separate from export payments and are paid irrespective of how much is exported - it is a payment for generation and those who got in early get paid over 70p/kWh.

For example, a household that had a solar panel system installed between April 2010 and April 2011 will receive 74.37p for each kWh generated between April 2025 and March 2026.

https://www.sunsave.energy/solar-panels-advice/exporting-to-the-grid/feed-in-tariff

Some of those eligible for FiT also may be on deemed export payments based on 50% of the amount generated. Because I export over 80% of my generation I opted out of deemed export and am paid on actual export. I currently receive 15p/kWh exported. Those on Intelligent Octopus Flux can earn around 30p/kWh at peak times. 

So someone who installed their panels in 2011and is on IOF can potentially earn a total from FiT and export of over £1/kWh. 

New installs dont get FiT payments - the scheme closed c5 years ago completely after some revisions over it's life.  

Its absolute nonsense to pay anyone 75p/kWh for an unreliable source - 3x delivered retail rate today - for solar nominal output - not actual.  

Thats about 8-10 times even winter future supply rates the cap is based on.  Let alone spot rates as low as £20/ 2p/kWh last summer.

Its a scheme that was set generous for a reason - but has long since shown to be another green iniative - adding to the general publics energy costs.  

Its offensive that we have to pay so much - printing money for the rich gaming the system against the rest of us.

And even more so when you realise even commercial solar is now milking us for curtailment payments.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

Its absolute nonsense to pay anyone 75p/kWh for an unreliable source - 3x delivered retail rate today - for solar nominal output - not actual.  

Its a scheme that was set generous for a reason

The scheme was not "set generous" - FIT tariffs were set (and regularly reviewed) with the intention of paying a 4-5% real IRR over the duration of the scheme. That was consistent with other investment returns at that time, and indeed now.

The original briefing papers are still available to read, if you want to bring facts into this.

wrf12345

Those rates did allow you to get free solar panels and use whatever energy they produced whilst the installers got the payments, panels were very expensive back then, as well.

Doc_N

wrf12345 said:

Those rates did allow you to get free solar panels and use whatever energy they produced whilst the installers got the payments, panels were very expensive back then, as well.

Too right! Our 4kW panels cost £14k in 2010, so the scheme had to be attractive to persuade people to spend the money. It kicked off the market and led eventually to much lower prices. It has proved a good investment, but that wasn't a given 15 years ago.

Scot_39

GOOD for the owners, for those paying the 75p though not so much.

And thats still the problem with far too many green initiatives.

Putting low carbon above low energy prices.

Arguably you might say fine as a minor temporary share of our bills - but it isn't anymore.

And people are getting increasingly aware of it with every single rise green policy imposes on far too many of our energy bills.

Like the £15 out of £24 of total network costs increase in the Oct cap network costs attributed to net zero.


UK Policy is driving UK bills higher not market forces - despite wholesale cost falling in Oct cap far too many of our bills will be going up.

And thats not just the wealthy.

Like the 3.3 million plus in existing larher older homes course who were recipients of WHD last winter who have just lost on average c1/3rd - based on £35 at cap - policy just imposed bulk of £51 in extra costs. Yes they now too pay their share of tge £17 extra policy costs.

£17 = c9% above Aprils £11/ c6% rise.  So lost £28 ex vat just on that one line of cap makeup vs last winter.

And whilst the duel fuel cap is up 2% next quarter - the electric only cap - used to set e7 type tariff pricing is up 3%.

Growing curtailment and balancing costs of course an electric only problem.

Which of course disproportionately impacts those who already often face the highest unit costs for heating their homes over winter.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

And thats still the problem with far too many green initiatives.
Putting low carbon above low energy prices.

Low carbon, however, is more important than low prices and should be above it.

That's the international political and scientific consensus.

matt_drummer

QrizB said:

Scot_39 said:

And thats still the problem with far too many green initiatives.
Putting low carbon above low energy prices.

Low carbon, however, is more important than low prices and should be above it.

That's the international political and scientific consensus.

I agree completely.

It's not necessarily meant to be cheaper, the idea is to look after the planet we live on and improve our health.

We can't just keep burning stuff forever because it's the cheapest option.

victor2

QrizB said:

Scot_39 said:

And thats still the problem with far too many green initiatives.
Putting low carbon above low energy prices.

Low carbon, however, is more important than low prices and should be above it.

That's the international political and scientific consensus.

Not the political opinion of the US and China, among others, though...

QrizB

victor2 said:

QrizB said:

Scot_39 said:

And thats still the problem with far too many green initiatives.
Putting low carbon above low energy prices.

Low carbon, however, is more important than low prices and should be above it.

That's the international political and scientific consensus.

Not the political opinion of the US and China, among others, though...

China is definitely inside the tent on this. They're meeting or exceeding their treaty obligations. See for example:

https://theconversation.com/china-leads-the-net-zero-transition-heres-what-we-can-learn-from-its-progress-in-beijing-and-hong-kong-237075

The US is a bit of an outlier on this.