OFGEM - Winter 2025/2026 Standing Charge Plans

stripling

@Scot_39
Of  course you could argue that the electricity network costs themselves are in fact largely due to policy, and certainly any recent increases - and Ofgem's predicted significant future increases - are in fact a direct result of govt policy - govt net zero policy.

The truth is that with or without Net Zero policies our grid still needed/s serious upgrades. That's what happens when you privatise these things and they get starved of investment. It is why the previous government brought some of it back into state ownership. 

debitcardmayhem

stripling said:

@Scot_39
Of  course you could argue that the electricity network costs themselves are in fact largely due to policy, and certainly any recent increases - and Ofgem's predicted significant future increases - are in fact a direct result of govt policy - govt net zero policy.

The truth is that with or without Net Zero policies our grid still needed/s serious upgrades. That's what happens when you privatise these things and they get starved of investment. It is why the previous government brought some of it back into state ownership. 

I Disagree the biggest problem is endless planning/consultation/nimby’ism et al. 

MattMattMattUK

debitcardmayhem said:

stripling said:

@Scot_39
Of  course you could argue that the electricity network costs themselves are in fact largely due to policy, and certainly any recent increases - and Ofgem's predicted significant future increases - are in fact a direct result of govt policy - govt net zero policy.

The truth is that with or without Net Zero policies our grid still needed/s serious upgrades. That's what happens when you privatise these things and they get starved of investment. It is why the previous government brought some of it back into state ownership. 

I Disagree the biggest problem is endless planning/consultation/nimby’ism et al. 

The biggest problem is politics and stupid people.

For the amount we have spent on energy subsidies over the last few years we could have built 35-40 GWe of nuclear generation capacity, which is 120% of our average usage and only 3GW below our highest ever demand (which included exporting 4.5GW so we would have been well within our own requirements). 

Even if one is a climate change denier and so sees no benefit in Net Zero from a climate perspective it still makes sense from a national security perspective as Net Zero also means we would not be dependent on external supplies of hydrocarbons to power our nation. 

Scot_39

The costs of the support were staggering, with tge OBR corrected figures all in net of £6bn in windfall tax  - £51bn in 2022-23 - so £57bn.

That's nearly 2 Sizewell outright - let alone fractional public share with private partnership model - funding.

https://obr.uk/box/the-cost-of-the-governments-energy-support-policies/

Ebss, epg, ebrs, £150 council tax rebates, £1500 in 5×£300 to c8m on benefits.  As the Cons rattled the magic money tree and yet still cut NI 3 times by election.

Nuclear - until Cons finally approved Hinkley C around a decade ago - after yearscof project difficulty (including at EDF board financing level) we hadn't commissioned any new nuclear since late Thatcher era.  Around 30 years previous.  Sizewell B the last - started construction in 1987. 
Leaving a dwindling UK industry - the last active / generating plants under the old British Energy iirc - the last cthird govt share - sold under Brown (as PM as c2008 springs to mind but would have to check) - to French now once again 100% state owned EDF.


We could of course develop our own hydrocarbons instead of transporting them 1000s of miles, from US, Gulf, Asia and Australia etc - the later 3 using shiping routes directly impacted by Gulf geopolitical disruptions. 
But then we have our green lobby and courts to contend with, blocking that.

Remember coal - Germany plans to phase theirs out by 2038 - 14 years after we closed the last at Ratcliffe on Soar.

Reliable fossil reserves under our own land and sea left untapped,  to fuel reliable fossil generation ditched in favour of unreliable supposedly low cost renewables.  CfDs last figure c£27 iirc in Ofgems cap letters - even adding to our wholesale costs, let alone the now £1bn plus pef annum forvwind renewables in network curtailment and balancing costs 

The reality is polling shows an increasing scepticism ovef climate change - with more than 10% fewer  believing the threat isnt being overly exagerated. The prediction of which used to drive net zero policy, and i UK specifically our imbalanced unreliable renewables rushed net zero policy and its significant added costs. 

Costs that are finally quickly losing a once sleeping publics tacit support.

By the time even more extra £15s (the share of recent network costs increase attributed to net zero curtailment etc) - as we ramp up to £8bn - and I fear beyond - balancing / £3bn grid thermal constraint curtailment costs etc.

Possibly the majority view by 2029.

But dont forget AFAIK Sizewell C will be adding another £12pa estimated soon to our bills once DESNZ / Ofgem finalises the numbers for the new RAB funding mmodel. ( I'm sure I read that didn't make Oct cap as review not complete.)

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

The costs of the support were staggering, with tge OBR corrected figures all in net of £6bn in windfall tax  - £51bn in 2022-23 - so £57bn.

That's nearly 2 Sizewell outright - let alone fractional public share with private partnership model - funding.

"Nearly two" is rather fewer than the 10-12 that is being suggested in the previous post, though. That would have cost maybe £400 billion (based on HPC costing £40bn in 2024 money).

And we'd have had to have started all this construction in about 2005, if it was to be operational for the winter of 2022-23.

In 2005, no-one expected (or could have reasonably foreseen) the 2022-23 energy price spike.

It's all very well hypothesising about a counterfactual world where the UK carried on building nuclear plants after Sizewell B, but sadly that's not going to help anyone in the real world.

Scot_39

Help anyone ? - well nor sadly is the rush to unreliable renewables to meet a wholly political target by someone clearly under the thrall of the green lobby - unless that is they are wind farm investors.

We dont fund nuclear plant 100% with public funds - just as we dont fund renewables by public funds.  The 95% by 2030 £200bn stinate private investment required - with irc now sub £8bn British Energy public funds since if now has to fund SMR nuclear too.

Hence we are at the mercy of tge likes of Orsted - who have walked away - for now ? - from Hornsea 4 at ar6 prices.  Taking 2/3rds of the new fixed OS capacity sold with it.  The industry it seems doesn't even believe in investing in UKs saturated generation market these days.

Because it certainly isn't helping our current energy costs - for businesses large and small - ask a small, pub or resteraunt owner about theit energy costs these days - or households.

If we didn't have net zero 95% by 2030 renewables driving policy in a rush - we could - and many argue should - have a far more balanced policy.

That 95% by 2030 alone defacto shuts out many other more reliable green energy sources, not just large scale nuclear,  from competing on a level footing in the short / medium term.

It hands wind farm and solar farm operators massive leverage over coming auction round pricing to get there.

Britain might be first to that target (if the policy doesn't collapse around Milibands ears - like Orsted walking away from Hornsea 4s 2.4 GW)  - but at what cost to our industries, their international competitiveness, their even if local service sector pricing and so very ability to survive, the jobs of those they employ and most of our household finances.

wrf12345

Lots of the world is moving towards Tesla megapack battery farms in conjunction with solar and wind, unfortunately Musk is not keen on our government so probably won't be starting some megafactories here to supply demand, although they do want to be an electricity supplier, oddly, but that is probably due to the startlingly high margins that electric retailers enjoy.

QrizB

No need to suck up to Musk, there's plenaty of other BESS suppliers.

Here's a biggish one that's been financed and should break ground soon:
https://renews.biz/102989/fidra-closes-financing-on-14gw-uk-bess/

1.4GW of output, 3.1GWh of capacity.

Yes that's only half the output of a nuke plant and only for 2.5 hours, but it's also only £1bn not £40bn and will be online in 2 years not 10. It's the sort of plant we need for peak-smoothing; it's comparable to Dinorwig.

MattMattMattUK

QrizB said:

Scot_39 said:

The costs of the support were staggering, with tge OBR corrected figures all in net of £6bn in windfall tax  - £51bn in 2022-23 - so £57bn.

That's nearly 2 Sizewell outright - let alone fractional public share with private partnership model - funding.

"Nearly two" is rather fewer than the 10-12 that is being suggested in the previous post, though. That would have cost maybe £400 billion (based on HPC costing £40bn in 2024 money).

The cost of nuclear in the UK is complicated, the cost per reactor (usually built in pairs) that we see reported includes the cost of private finance and various other costs that do not directly relate to the procurement cost, there is also a profit element built into the cost even before the reactor comes online and there is a fairly high cost for fuel, which will be bought at commercial rates, although the UK actually has significant stockpiles. If we were to build reactors in significant numbers the significant economies of scale kick in as well. We would be talking around a quarter of the commercial build cost. In essence if the state were to fund and build a large scale building program then they would be significantly cheaper per unit, the profit once online could also be reinvested. 

QrizB said:

And we'd have had to have started all this construction in about 2005, if it was to be operational for the winter of 2022-23.

In 2005, no-one expected (or could have reasonably foreseen) the 2022-23 energy price spike.

I was not proposing it in that way, I was proposing it on the basis that the government should have let people swallow the price increases, but invested in generation capacity so that it did not happen in the future. Ideally they would commit to building around a hundred reactors over the next thirty years to cover all our generation needs, including moving away from ICE vehicles and the end of gas usage. 

QrizB said:

It's all very well hypothesising about a counterfactual world where the UK carried on building nuclear plants after Sizewell B, but sadly that's not going to help anyone in the real world.

I was not hypothesising about an alternative past, but aiming to build a better future, one that is both greener and with an incredibly high level of energy security. 

MattMattMattUK

QrizB said:

No need to suck up to Musk, there's plenaty of other BESS suppliers.

Here's a biggish one that's been financed and should break ground soon:
https://renews.biz/102989/fidra-closes-financing-on-14gw-uk-bess/

1.4GW of output, 3.1GWh of capacity.

Yes that's only half the output of a nuke plant and only for 2.5 hours, but it's also only £1bn not £40bn and will be online in 2 years not 10. It's the sort of plant we need for peak-smoothing; it's comparable to Dinorwig.

If we really wanted to do it properly we would be setting up a GovCo for battery building which could sell batteries into UK businesses to boost British industry, so the government factory would be building the batteries, but it would hugely boost UK EV production, grid scale batteries, electronics, domestic battery supplies, shipping etc.