300% increase in bill not 54% with SSE

Section62

agentcain said:

Not inaccurate at all

At the end of the day, everything that consumes energy within an enclosed space will generate heat in that space. It may be more expensive heat, but heat nonetheless. If heat is welcome, then by definition it's not wasted energy. If we're talking about warmer months or climates, then sure it's unwanted, but as mentioned lighting is used less, people get out more, using devices less etc. 

No justification needed for leaving things on. We just need to be realistic about what the situation is and where the real problem is.

We're in danger of getting into a spherical cow discussion here....

The reality is that buildings are very lossy, so spending money filling them with the wrong kind of energy is wasteful because the theoretical conversion to heat is (a) incomplete, (b) inefficient, and (c) not always needed.

The real problem is people not understanding how much energy is being consumed by different things, and making assumptions that 'small' things don't matter (aka 'can't be bothered to...')

agentcain

No

The real problem is that energy costs are affected by complex political and economical factors, all of which come from a perspective of personal gain and growth.

Energy costs are going up? Isolate energy from the global market. "But companies won't invest anymore!" Eh. We saw how much good current investment has brought us.

I say let people use what energy they want/need and save elsewhere, where real waste happens. Then turn towards education and teach people not to waste in the long run. 

What happens now is a knee jerk reaction to a situation the common Joe has no responsibility in yet is called to bail everyone out of. 

I would prefer to reduce the number of private jets flying over the number of hot tubs. 

Uxb1

Energy costs more come from the sad reality that the availability of "easy" oil and gas to extract is coming to an end. now we have to get the expensive bits and the bits where the environmental lobby will go batsh*t crazy - as in the tar sands of Canada, drilling in the "pristine" frozen N and S pole and the fracking fields with umpteen wells in a short distance.

..and that we have chosen to make ourselves reliant on our main enemy for our supplies within whom we have now started a full scale war.

I wold not be surprised to find said enemy has for decades been funding the green parties in their opposition to virtually everything that might have made us less reliant on them for our gas.
In Germany the greens managed to prevent the construction of LNG terminals for off loading LNG ships

BUFF

Uxb1 said:

..and that we have chosen to make ourselves reliant on our main enemy for our supplies within whom we have now started a full scale war.

Not really true for the UK, it is something like 4% from Russia. Germany etc. are totally different though with ~40.% ...

Uxb1

Yes but oil and gas are an international traded commodity
We may only get 4% from Russia and indeed get most from Norway.
However Germany being up the creek loosing 40% as you say they will bid up the price they are willing to pay to get those supplies and hence Norway will now decide to ship it supply to Germany instead of the UK....unless we too up the price we are willing to pay: all of which leads to an international price for oil/gas only differing by the grade of oil (light/heavy) that each country extracts from the ground beneath it.
So regardless of the fact we don't get much from Russia - we are going to end up just as affected
(Or we could invade and annexe Norway I suppose.....)

Mstty

Uxb1 said:

Yes but oil and gas are an international traded commodity
We may only get 4% from Russia and indeed get most from Norway.
However Germany being up the creek loosing 40% as you say they will bid up the price they are willing to pay to get those supplies and hence Norway will now decide to ship it supply to Germany instead of the UK....unless we too up the price we are willing to pay: all of which leads to an international price for oil/gas only differing by the grade of oil (light/heavy) that each country extracts from the ground beneath it.
So regardless of the fact we don't get much from Russia - we are going to end up just as affected
(Or we could invade and annexe Norway I suppose.....)

Hopefully someone knows but surely we have a long term contract for our gas with Norway so this is hopefully off in the distance for us.

Maybe someone know?

MattMattMattUK

Mstty said:

Uxb1 said:

Yes but oil and gas are an international traded commodity
We may only get 4% from Russia and indeed get most from Norway.
However Germany being up the creek loosing 40% as you say they will bid up the price they are willing to pay to get those supplies and hence Norway will now decide to ship it supply to Germany instead of the UK....unless we too up the price we are willing to pay: all of which leads to an international price for oil/gas only differing by the grade of oil (light/heavy) that each country extracts from the ground beneath it.
So regardless of the fact we don't get much from Russia - we are going to end up just as affected
(Or we could invade and annexe Norway I suppose.....)

Hopefully someone knows but surely we have a long term contract for our gas with Norway so this is hopefully off in the distance for us.

Maybe someone know?

The contracts range from 5-25 years and signed from 2012 onwards, though I cannot find volumes of specific contracts, others may know more. Also the contracts are mostly market linked, hence the price rises.

One limitation on any quick changes of market is infrastructure, there is generally not much spare capacity and it is also very expensive and takes a long time to build. It would take Norway around 6-10 years to be able to transport significantly more gas to the rest of Europe and in that period we should have significantly increased our nuclear and renewable generation capacity. That does not mean that costs will not be drive up though.

jcontest

Uxb1 said:

Energy costs more come from the sad reality that the availability of "easy" oil and gas to extract is coming to an end. now we have to get the expensive bits and the bits where the environmental lobby will go batsh*t crazy - as in the tar sands of Canada, drilling in the "pristine" frozen N and S pole and the fracking fields with umpteen wells in a short distance.

..and that we have chosen to make ourselves reliant on our main enemy for our supplies within whom we have now started a full scale war.

I wold not be surprised to find said enemy has for decades been funding the green parties in their opposition to virtually everything that might have made us less reliant on them for our gas.
In Germany the greens managed to prevent the construction of LNG terminals for off loading LNG ships

I love how pro "Drill Baby Drill" people hate Green party "types"..

They are the same type that complain about Brown* selling Gold.

Shame there wasn't any "Black Gold"** in the ground that we could stop digging up and selling and save it for some later day, that would make those haters happy, but wait, it makes those haters hateful because The Black gold is Green when we don't use it like Brown and Gold.

Wow.... Tough one.

Think about it for a moment, honestly.

If you use (and deplete) your oil and gas reserves, your forced to buy them from abroad.

If you save your oil and gas reserves, while doing so your forced to buy from abroad.

That's your only two options, and there's something common with them both.  Your going to buy, now or later, from abroad.

Fun Fact.  Spain has had to curtail PV generation on Easter Sunday.  They were making more Solar Energy than the country could use.

Just throwing that out there as I get the impression your not keen on the merits of Solar/Wind.

Fun Fact.  Hunterston Scotland has been picked for the location to produce the HVDC link for Morocco to UK!

Back on Topic....

I think the "Huge" price increase is misleading to some because they were on "fixed" price deals, and they are getting hit by a double whammy.  The old SVT was locked and the new one is now higher by 54%, but if your old Fixed deal was discounted 25% then your now seeing around a doubling in price.  As others have said.  You MUST use your usage as a guide (Tho, comparison sites have been trying to train us for years to not know how to do this).  My Direct Debit from So.Energy jumped from £119 to £223, It's not because they are trying to rob me, it's because at current rates they actually expect my yearly average to run around that.

I do fear that later in the year when (if) the price is bumped up again it's going to catch people off guard by eating into that winter reserve they have built up.

*Gordon Brown

** Petroleum and the goodies found with it.

Section62

jcontest said:

Fun Fact.  Spain has had to curtail PV generation on Easter Sunday.  They were making more Solar Energy than the country could use.

What? Even in the middle of the night?

jcontest said:

Fun Fact.  Hunterston Scotland has been picked for the location to produce the HVDC link for Morocco to UK!

For the avoidance of any confusion, Hunterston has been identified as a location where the privately owned company Xlinks propose to manufacture cables for their speculative project to bring electricity from Morocco to the UK via "the longest submarine energy cable ever built".  An interesting 'fact', but not I'm not sure how important it is in the context of the OP's post about energy bills having gone up already.

However, at a time where there are growing concerns about Russia's interest in submarine cables, and the geopolitical situation with Russia, some people might wonder whether it would be wise to rely on 4 sub-sea cables to supply "8 percent of Britain’s electricity needs".  (thinking back to August 2019 when the temporary loss of Hornsea One contributed to "rush hour chaos" across London and the South East).

At a time where geopolitical instability is on the rise, security of supply has to be a consideration... arguably over and above being 'green'.  This is a 'fact', but without much fun.

QrizB

Section62 said:

jcontest said:

Fun Fact.  Hunterston Scotland has been picked for the location to produce the HVDC link for Morocco to UK!

For the avoidance of any confusion, Hunterston has been identified as a location where the privately owned company Xlinks propose to manufacture cables for their speculative project to bring electricity from Morocco to the UK via "the longest submarine energy cable ever built".

Thanks for the additional info. Hunterston did seem an odd place for a HVDC link from Morocco to come ashore, particularly given the existing National Grid transmission capacity limits.

From https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/

Agreement has been reached with National Grid for two 1.8GW connections at Alverdiscott in Devon.

Alverdiscott is on the 400KV grid and in the south of the UK, so a much more credible place for the interconnection.