Opposition proposals to freeze the price cap - fair for people who have fixed?

brewerdave

The_Green_Hornet said:

A new proposal to add to this pointless discussion:

Green party calls for nationalisation of big five energy firms

Greens also want energy price cap rolled back to last autumn’s level, part-funded by taxes on rich people

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/17/green-party-calls-for-nationalisation-of-big-five-energy-firms

I needed a laugh this morning -thanks very much @The_Green_Hornet.

littleteapot

That certainly cheered me up too .

Spend hundreds of millions to nationalise the consumer arms of these companies (aka middle-men) whilst their parent companies (producers) can still charge the now nationalised middle-man international market rates and continue to make huge profits for their shareholders.

In my view, once the CEGB was disbanded and the generating units divvied up between various private companies there was little or no hope of renationalising energy production in this country.

France can much more easily renationalise energy production and supply as their privatised energy industry was still largely a monopoly (EDF).

sienew

Effician said:

It's just occurred to me or am i overthinking .

The Starmer plan of almost £30bn is supposed to save the average user £1000 over the  6 months from Oct to April, i presume this is an average of the £1600ish & £2200ish projected  increases in Oct & Jan based on a yearly average use, BUT doesn't the average user consume around 70-75% of their energy over these 6 months.

Does this mean he's missed a trick to say he's saving us more or is he hiding the fact that the funding costs will be considerably higher.

This is an important point that I, and I don't think others, have thought about.

pochase

Effician said:

It's just occurred to me or am i overthinking .

The Starmer plan of almost £30bn is supposed to save the average user £1000 over the  6 months from Oct to April, i presume this is an average of the £1600ish & £2200ish projected  increases in Oct & Jan based on a yearly average use, BUT doesn't the average user consume around 70-75% of their energy over these 6 months.

Does this mean he's missed a trick to say he's saving us more or is he hiding the fact that the funding costs will be considerably higher.

It will be about 50% for electricity if they don't heat using electricity. Gas I would agree with 66% to 75% Lets say 75%. 3000KWh 1st quarter and 6000KWh for second quarter.



Problem is of course that somebody who heats with Oli/Wood/LPG will have much lower savings. Or somebody in a flat who heats with electricity.

I think he just used £1000 as nice number that is easy to remember.

Effician

pochase said:

Effician said:

It's just occurred to me or am i overthinking .

The Starmer plan of almost £30bn is supposed to save the average user £1000 over the  6 months from Oct to April, i presume this is an average of the £1600ish & £2200ish projected  increases in Oct & Jan based on a yearly average use, BUT doesn't the average user consume around 70-75% of their energy over these 6 months.

Does this mean he's missed a trick to say he's saving us more or is he hiding the fact that the funding costs will be considerably higher.

It will be about 50% for electricity if they don't heat using electricity. Gas I would agree with 66% to 75% Lets say 75%. 3000KWh 1st quarter and 6000KWh for second quarter.

So just another £10bn ish  then, more if there is a higher proportion of electric heating.

sienew

Effician said:

pochase said:

Effician said:

It's just occurred to me or am i overthinking .

The Starmer plan of almost £30bn is supposed to save the average user £1000 over the  6 months from Oct to April, i presume this is an average of the £1600ish & £2200ish projected  increases in Oct & Jan based on a yearly average use, BUT doesn't the average user consume around 70-75% of their energy over these 6 months.

Does this mean he's missed a trick to say he's saving us more or is he hiding the fact that the funding costs will be considerably higher.

It will be about 50% for electricity if they don't heat using electricity. Gas I would agree with 66% to 75% Lets say 75%. 3000KWh 1st quarter and 6000KWh for second quarter.

So just another £10bn ish  then, more if there is a higher proportion of electric heating.

Electricity is usually a bit more in Winter as well. People are generally at home/inside much more which means more lighting, cooking, electronics use, more tumble dryers (weather) which does add up.

MattMattMattUK

littleteapot said:

That certainly cheered me up too .

Spend hundreds of millions to nationalise the consumer arms of these companies (aka middle-men) whilst their parent companies (producers) can still charge the now nationalised middle-man international market rates and continue to make huge profits for their shareholders.

In my view, once the CEGB was disbanded and the generating units divvied up between various private companies there was little or no hope of renationalising energy production in this country.

France can much more easily renationalise energy production and supply as their privatised energy industry was still largely a monopoly (EDF).

I certainly would not do it in the way that the Greens propose, but in the UK it would be possible fairly easily. The National Grid would need to be purchased at the market rate, but that would be relatively uncontroversial and certainly workable. Existing generation would be problematic, but the easiest way to manage that would be for the government to fund and build 50-100 nuclear power plants under state ownership. Older commercial plants would be decommissioned over time, those with longer life expectancies would probably be happy to sell back to the state at a reasonable price. Both for climate and energy security reasons I favour a large scale nuclear building program, but it would require investment and medium-long term planning, so no current political party is going to implement it. 

pochase

You can add to that that the Ofgem "average" is not really the real average, it is higher.

Even so the cost is already almost £36 billion for 28.1 million households.


Reality will be more like over £40 billion. They have not mentioned where the additional money can be found, did they?

[Deleted User]

I ran my target numbers for the maximum I hope to use in the next 6 months.  Yearly usage target being 2500/6800 kWh Electric/Gas.  My target usage I hope to use in the period being a 1350/5600 kWh split of Elec/Gas lower than the 1450/9000 split used in pochases's table.  On the April 22 Cap numbers the  predicted cost would be circa £909 whereas the Cap forecasts (based on the Cornwall data) would cost circa £1839 so an extra £930. 

I agree that it seems highly likely that the Starmer costs (their total £29 billion) cannot be correct and underestimates the true cost of the package (£36 billion +). 
   

sienew

MattMattMattUK said:

littleteapot said:

That certainly cheered me up too .

Spend hundreds of millions to nationalise the consumer arms of these companies (aka middle-men) whilst their parent companies (producers) can still charge the now nationalised middle-man international market rates and continue to make huge profits for their shareholders.

In my view, once the CEGB was disbanded and the generating units divvied up between various private companies there was little or no hope of renationalising energy production in this country.

France can much more easily renationalise energy production and supply as their privatised energy industry was still largely a monopoly (EDF).

I certainly would not do it in the way that the Greens propose, but in the UK it would be possible fairly easily. The National Grid would need to be purchased at the market rate, but that would be relatively uncontroversial and certainly workable. Existing generation would be problematic, but the easiest way to manage that would be for the government to fund and build 50-100 nuclear power plants under state ownership. Older commercial plants would be decommissioned over time, those with longer life expectancies would probably be happy to sell back to the state at a reasonable price. Both for climate and energy security reasons I favour a large scale nuclear building program, but it would require investment and medium-long term planning, so no current political party is going to implement it. 

This proposal is fairly reasonable and workable (unlike most people who seem to just say "NATIONALISE ENERGY" without a real practical plan).

The main issue being Nuclear is still controversial. People seem to now like the idea until it's suggested that a plant would be anywhere near their house which means it's almost political suicide, especially building so many.