MSE News: Budget 2023: Energy Price Guarantee to remain at £2,500 in win for Martin Lewis and MSE

Qyburn

MattMattMattUK said:. 

The distribution networks need to be more reliable before pushing the "all electric" agenda further. We're now seeing Diesel backup generators (funded by SSEN grants) being put into community facilities. 

That would be part of the investment, but overall the UK network in the UK is very reliable, I think 2nd or 3rd globally and the majority of people rarely if ever experiencing power outages. . 

What's striking to me about the recent reduction in reliability is that nobody involved from Government, local authority or the DNO are expecting it to improve. Talk is all about becoming better prepared for future outages.
 
This is a recent change. Over the previous decades I agree it has become more and more reliable, but now we're going back.

MattMattMattUK

Qyburn said:

MattMattMattUK said:. 

The distribution networks need to be more reliable before pushing the "all electric" agenda further. We're now seeing Diesel backup generators (funded by SSEN grants) being put into community facilities. 

That would be part of the investment, but overall the UK network in the UK is very reliable, I think 2nd or 3rd globally and the majority of people rarely if ever experiencing power outages. . 

What's striking to me about the recent reduction in reliability is that nobody involved from Government, local authority or the DNO are expecting it to improve. Talk is all about becoming better prepared for future outages.
 
This is a recent change. Over the previous decades I agree it has become more and more reliable, but now we're going back.

The two main issues that mean there will likely be greater outages in the future are an imbalance between generation and demand and extreme weather events. We have less spare capacity in on the generation side than we have had for many decades, I think you have to go back to the fifties to find narrower margins and back then brownouts were the easy solution, but modern electronics fail in brownouts, we also used to be self sufficient for the required hydrocarbons used in generation, where as now we are reliant on international supplies. The other is extreme weather events, both winter storms and more importantly summer heat, the high voltage transmission infrastructure is not able to cope with 40c+ weather, it is being upgraded as it needs to be replaced, but the older equipment is still likely to have in increased failure rate in hot weather. 

The solution would be investment, but the government do not want to do that, so increased risk of outages is the trade off for doing things on the cheap. 

diystarter7

Hi

It often surprises me that we in the UK accpet a lot of rubbish from our governments of all persuasions. 
I was stagrred to learn that in Paris the other nights there were riots as the gov was proposing moving the retirement age from 62 to 64 and they dont have oli and gas as we do.  I've even heard somewhere the French pay less a lot less for eltric than we do.

The French are good with nuclear power and I was wondering if any country builds their nuclear power plants via fast-track routes, ie with 24 months.


We need more nuclear plants and thet technology to support them makes them much safer but we do need to agree these nucelar power plants need to be in the very north of the UK, just in case their is an accident, tourist attack etc, that parts are the least desnely populated parts of our nation.

A quick google re-building nuclear power stations can be done within 5 years. If there is a will, I guess it could be done sooner.

The longer we wait, the great the risk to the people of the uk and more so to those on lower incomes and benefits.


Thnaks

Section62

diystarter7 said:

We need more nuclear plants and thet technology to support them makes them much safer but we do need to agree these nucelar power plants need to be in the very north of the UK, just in case their is an accident, tourist attack etc, that parts are the least desnely populated parts of our nation.

Scotland and the North of England (Cumbria/Northumberland) are hugely popular tourist destinations, so you'd think that if a "tourist" attack on a power station was a likely occurrence that building them where there are a lot of tourists would be a bad idea, surely?

In fact one of the important factors in locating generation plant is how far it is from where the electricity will be used.  Although high voltage AC transmission is fairly efficient, it isn't 100% efficient, so putting power stations a long way from where people live is not that good an idea.

It is also flawed thinking that putting nuclear power stations in less densely populated areas is a good idea in terms of the effects of an incident.  Chernobyl (just one example) demostrated how large an area could be affected by a major nuclear incident.  Whilst the residents of southern England might be relieved the power station going 'pop' is far away (and they only have to worry about the lights going off), I suspect the residents of Norway, Sweden and Finland would be less than impressed.

The way of minimising the risks from accident or tourist attack is to design and build the power stations so they are safer and more resilient. Not deciding to build them in locations where you think the local population doesn't matter.

The former takes time to do, which is why designing and building safe nuclear power plants (currently) takes so long.  And why the idea of "speeding up" nuclear construction would cause people who know what they are talking about to be deeply concerned.

SAC2334

Sea_Shell said:

diystarter7 said:

superkoopauk said:

bristolleedsfan said:

superkoopauk said:

One thing that doesn't appear to be picked up on is that some customers who were on a fixed tariff originally well above £2500 level will see their prices go up from April as the EPG support they receive is less.  There wont be many still on these tariffs now but it will be counter intuitive for the ones that are to see a price increase notice come through the door!  

 EPG discount from 1 April will be broadly similar to what it was 1 October - 31 December, everyone who was on much more expensive fixes were able to change to SVR around about that time.

Agreed - they should of switched back then but that probably wont soften the blow!

Hi

What the government must do is put a stop to the profiteering by the big boys. The government should also speed up nuclear power rather than just talk about it as this would make supplies a lot cheaper.

Longer term the gov should give grants to everyone with a property to properly insulate their homes.

Thnaks

@diystarter7

Have you watched the series Guy Martin did recently on power.    Really interesting to see what actually goes on behind the scenes of power generation and distribution.   It's an eye opener.   


It's probably still available on Channel 4 catch up.

Yes it was a great show and probably the best ever broadcast  description of how the Grid works
.The secret headquaters where balancing the grid making purchases to keep the Grid between a certain level has never been shown before. As you say, it was a real eye opener . It was so good that it deserves a second watch like all good shows.

Guy Martin has been diagnosed Aspergers which may account for his lack of fear in some of the high places he ends up in .He s lucky to be alive with the crash he went through on the Isle of Man TT and is never happier than when he s repairing HGV s which is main job. Great bloke !

MattMattMattUK

diystarter7 said:

Hi

It often surprises me that we in the UK accpet a lot of rubbish from our governments of all persuasions. 
I was stagrred to learn that in Paris the other nights there were riots as the gov was proposing moving the retirement age from 62 to 64 and they dont have oli and gas as we do.  I've even heard somewhere the French pay less a lot less for eltric than we do.

The French pay a lot more tax than us and even for them 64 is unsustainable. The "rubbish" in the UK is the trade off for the low taxes we pay in the UK, nice things have to be paid for.

diystarter7 said:

The French are good with nuclear power and I was wondering if any country builds their nuclear power plants via fast-track routes, ie with 24 months.

Two years is just not feasible with current reactor designs, also when it comes to mega projects like nuclear reactors significantly reducing the build time generally introduces build quality issues.

diystarter7 said:

We need more nuclear plants and thet technology to support them makes them much safer but we do need to agree these nucelar power plants need to be in the very north of the UK, just in case their is an accident, tourist attack etc, that parts are the least desnely populated parts of our nation.

They need to be built all over the country, not just in one reason. Modern reactors have so many layers of containment that they should be totally safe, even at Fukashima with an earthquake much larger than they were designed for the reactors maintained integrity and the issue was actually with the poor sighting of the backup generators for cooling which were put within the flood zone of the tsunami defences. In the UK with no significant geological faults there would be no such issues.

diystarter7 said:

A quick google re-building nuclear power stations can be done within 5 years. If there is a will, I guess it could be done sooner.

Five years would be realistic when we have a full scale building program up and running but initially we would be more like 7-8 even if we legislated to remove all the planning issues, we could be at a five year build time for reactors started in the early part of the next decade if we kicked it off now. 

diystarter7 said:

The longer we wait, the great the risk to the people of the uk and more so to those on lower incomes and benefits.

In reality the cost is almost an irrelevance, the issue is going to be energy security and continuity of supply, as well as decarbonisaton, cost reduction sits in a very distant third.

dealyboy

I am happy to thank @MSE_Helen_K ... on behalf of Martin Lewis.

He is a high profile national figure and advocate for the welfare of the under privileged. As people say, he doesn't need to do it, but is prepared to stand up and take the brickbats. Martin clearly puts himself into what he does, his emotion at times is tangible, a rare beast in these days of career this and that.

I for one admire him and am proud to use his invention.

Apodemus

Qyburn said:

MattMattMattUK said:. 

The distribution networks need to be more reliable before pushing the "all electric" agenda further. We're now seeing Diesel backup generators (funded by SSEN grants) being put into community facilities. 

That would be part of the investment, but overall the UK network in the UK is very reliable, I think 2nd or 3rd globally and the majority of people rarely if ever experiencing power outages. . 

What's striking to me about the recent reduction in reliability is that nobody involved from Government, local authority or the DNO are expecting it to improve. Talk is all about becoming better prepared for future outages.
 
This is a recent change. Over the previous decades I agree it has become more and more reliable, but now we're going back.

I think the emphasis on community resilience is separate from any objective assessment of network reliability.  In risk assessment terms it is the fact that "impact" has risen hugely, regardless of whether "likelihood" has risen or reduced.  For better or worse, individuals and communities are far more dependant on continuous electricity provision than we ever were in the past.  In previous times, the local loss of electricity had little or no effect on communications, heating, cooking, water and sewerage but that is no longer the case.  It stands to reason, then, that we expect our service providers to have robust emergency planning provisions in place to minimise that impact and it makes perfect sense for companies like SSEN to help remote communities to manage their own emergency cover by contributing towards the costs of local resilience efforts such as back-up generators for village halls.

Chrysalis

Mstty said:

It may be a win for Martin Lewis (debatable as it was a vote winner anyway and he had no influ nice on the chancellor whatsoever) but it is a loss for taxpayers and the future debt burden of generations to come as stated on other threads unnecessary between April-Jun imo.

You think that the unit prices for the typical £3000 bill is not too high for the poorest then?

Including the loss of the £400 it is of course even more.

I find it concerning we moving in a direction thats trying to normalise the new costs in society, it all points to this, gradual reduction of EPG, gradual reduction of cost of living payments (£650 this year and rest the next instead of the reported £900 this year), and of course the removal of the £400..

I know its funded from taxpayers and its subsidising fossil fuels energy, but its not as simple as you make out, because if people have less money due to paying more for energy they spend less in the wider economy, there is less tax revenues, less jobs, less growth which also means its a future burden.

I feel they could have reduced taxpayer exposure by just making it more sensible instead of trying to avoid offending middle and higher earners, two clear options, only discount the first X units of usage, reducing the cost of the scheme, and/or means test the support (with tapering).  This perhaps would be similar to the £400 scheme, a monthly rebate, that dynamically changes based on wholesale cost, and based on income.  This would have a maximum fixed amount so the government wouldnt be exposed to fully subsidising high levels of usage.  The issue being of course they trying to keep as many voters on side as possible hence the wide net.  This scheme I think I would have replaced the WHD and (part of) cost of living payments with it.  To also reduce complexity in energy cost support.

Chrysalis

Malchester said:

Why should Martin Lewis think he has made the government do this? It was always on the cards. It also adds more debt to be repaid in years to come. Give with one hand take away with the other 

Public pressure often has an effect, the govenrment would like you to think they were always going to do this, but we simply dont know.

But bear in mind the cost of keeping it at the current level is not extra money, its out of already budgeted money as the cap was not predicted at the time of the announcement to go as low as it will be going.

I for one am very grateful Martin has brought so much exposure to this and other problems.  There is not many out there with the reach like him.

Depending on point of view of course future debt is worth having if it relieves poverty today.  If your only worry is about future debt, then perhaps you dont understand the extent of the harsh conditions people are living under right now.  There is people celebrating they managing to top up their energy by £10 so they have heating for a few hours for the first time in weeks.