Surge pricing via back door !

quasar9

quasar9

Screwfix Select
Heavy promotion by all channels on TV, about electricity suppliers paying back up to £3/Kw not used between 5 and 8pm. This might save you UP TO £100 per year ! This raises some interesting questions.

1. How will they determine energy not used ? How is the data for before and after gathered ?

I half suspect the those with smart meters will be asked to switch to half hour readings where readings are sent every 30minutes. Daily or longer intervals will not be of much use.

Once they get everyone to do that, surge pricing could be introduced where as demand goes up the unit prices will go up in step forcing people to cut back.

Failing that, there could be rotating blackouts targeting domestic customers via the smart meters , thereby keeping services like hospitals, transport etc running. Already many cash strapped councils are thinking of turning off the street lights around 12am. Others, not so cash strapped may only run one in every two lights in side streets while keeping those fully on in the main roads. Manufactures have offered smart street lights where they go down to half power or less but go to full power when they detect someone but most councils cannot afford this.

It’s seems that the government policy instead of building up reliable supply of energy is hoping a form of energy rationing by pricing out people is better, cheaper and faster, at least for them. Already there are talks of cutting back on nuclear, on shore wind and solar farms.

In the meanwhile many countries have restarted coal production !
 
The way I see it this is all about control rather than sensible policy. If they cared that much about energy they would stop wasting it.

Look at cars for example, I've never seen so many large powerful cars on the road. It's not like there's even a need for it.... Modern 1.6 family car has more power than an car my dad owned which in many cases were 2.8 upwards. Yet people buy huge SUVs and pick up trucks .....if they wanted us to save energy those sort of choices would be a lot more difficult.

People buying electric cars....another complete lie. The batteries are incredibly bad for the environment both in production and recycling....and the raw materials incredibly rare.

I long for simpler times but I think that's my age....
 
To offer such an amazing reward for not using electricity says only one thing to me..... PANIC! The National Grid and the generators will not have enough electricity to fulfil demand over this winter. I agree with the contributors that this is also a back door method to encourage us down the smart meter route, one they have good coverage the supplies can cut us off one at a time for a period just below the compensation level. It's a con.
On the positive side, if Sunak does away with standing charges, it might be a good idea to have another supply fitted to the house on the pretext that you are going to turn it into flats, then switch between the supplies as the financial incentive dictates.
 
Standing charges pay for the upgrade and maintenance of the network, get rid of it and you'll have to pay some other way. The largest Network is Cadent which is privately owned and makes over a billion a year. You can't have more than one supply to a single property....you would need to convert first and each dwelling would be issued a mprn . If there is no meter attached to an mprn the network is legally bound to remove the service within 12 months.

My advice to you is never have a smart meter installed. They are valved and when they fault the valve moves into it's default off position cutting you off. The batteries in these meters are good for just 5 years after that you are on borrowed time. I've have been to breakdowns on Christmas day where the customer has been left with no gas and no way to get the meter fixed .....

It strikes me that since the 1980s the transfer of wealth from the lowest paid to the highest earners has been completed with blessings from our so called representatives. The selling off of treasured assets like water, telecoms and energy is now coming to fruition.

We are now facing an environmental catastrophe both in global warming and the destruction of our natural world. And yet our politicians have no real solution other than make it even harder for individuals to do anything about it. If you can afford to pollute then that's ok but if your poor then it's just going to be miserable with no way out.

As a heating engineer I'm doing my best to help my customers save energy but there's a balance because a lot of new technology is also very expensive and it all adds to the bill. Try telling a family who's boilers broke and have emptied their savings to replace it they need weather compensation and all new controls....they simply can't afford it
 
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Bob Rathbone said:
To offer such an amazing reward for not using electricity says only one thing to me..... PANIC! The National Grid and the generators will not have enough electricity to fulfil demand over this winter.
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Don't see it myself. it's been a mild autumn and fossil fuels and their derivatives are falling in price. Gas, by all accounts, will be a third of the price it reached following the initial phases of the Ukraine crisis and we have normal gas supplies for this time of year.

As for this "innovative" scheme to credit customers I am a great believer in the cock-up theory around all organised human endeavor rather than on cunning plans by the powers that be. Someone has come up with this idea which will vanish along with the many other brilliant ideas dreamed into existence by organisations large and small over the years.

So, I am not in the slightest bit worried about power cuts this winter as I can see no reason for them. Something may happen of course to make them necessary but that is no different to any year. We shall soon find out and it will be interesting to disinter this thread come the end of February.
 
I think UK has sleep walked into this position, none of the political parties thinking beyond their own survival at the next election.

While a return of utilities to state ownership might be sensible in the long run, a far stricter regime of control over existing setup can be introduced very quickly, if only the government saw sense or had the will. One of the benefit of such state owned utilities is that planning and control is long term and does not change every time the govt changes. This weighed against the inbuilt inefficiency of a system that knows its survival is guaranteed no matter how bad the service. Having said that, many private utilities also have appalling service levels knowing full well that government will have difficulties finding a replacement.


one study concluded, that had British Rail been given the same level of subsidies, tax breaks and power of close services, we would have had a rail service comparable to many countries in Europe.

many of our utilities and transport (buses/rail) companies are offshoots of state owned corporations in Europe but their behaviour here is at total odds with how they operate back home.
 
Thatcher closed the coalmines; the present government closed the gas storage plants. Political commentators are forecasting that the Government will scrap the build of the nuclear Sizewell reactor and also make it unlawful to build solar farms on land which could be used for farmers. The rush to gas, and gas only.
 
As I understand it, the payments will be made to "invited customers" who will have had smart meters installed with several months worth of data that allows their energy supplier to say "between XX:00 and X2:00, you typically use say 5kWh, if you can reduce that to 1kWh, then you will be rewarded"

What it does not do is address thos customers who have already gone to solar and have already taken significant load off the grid - my idependence is estimated at 70%. What to I get for any I put into te grid? 4p, which OVO then sells for 35p - they pay 20-25p at a guess for grid power.
 
It's a voluntary thing. If you have a smart meter you can sign up if your energy company are taking part in the scheme. Octopus were trialling this last year so I'm guessing the figures taken have shown a good reason to offer it to a wider community.
Reading what's being said by various organisations I doubt very much there will be blackouts. And really doubt the numbers who sign up to the scheme will make a huge difference where that's concerned but if it saves someone's energy use and they are able to claim the £100, then why not? Especially if they are struggling.

As for street lights.....in the side roads round my way (south east England) the lights have gone off at 12 for donkeys years. Fun when you're staggering home after a good night out especially the night before bin day lol But it's not a new thing bought in this year. And surely any energy saving has got to be good for the environment, the country and our wallets?

To be fair shouldn't we all be doing our bit whilst the war, and any other factors that are affecting available energy sources, are going on? Rally together rather than putting obstacles in the way. Regardless of who's fault it is?
Theres a definite generation of entitled snowflakes who expect everything handed to them on a plate,. And these are becoming our country's downfall
 
Bob Rathbone said:
To offer such an amazing reward for not using electricity says only one thing to me..... PANIC! The National Grid and the generators will not have enough electricity to fulfil demand over this winter. I agree with the contributors that this is also a back door method to encourage us down the smart meter route, one they have good coverage the supplies can cut us off one at a time for a period just below the compensation level. It's a con.
On the positive side, if Sunak does away with standing charges, it might be a good idea to have another supply fitted to the house on the pretext that you are going to turn it into flats, then switch between the supplies as the financial incentive dictates.
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Hell68 said:
It's a voluntary thing. If you have a smart meter you can sign up if your energy company are taking part in the scheme. Octopus were trialling this last year so I'm guessing the figures taken have shown a good reason to offer it to a wider community.
Reading what's being said by various organisations I doubt very much there will be blackouts. And really doubt the numbers who sign up to the scheme will make a huge difference where that's concerned but if it saves someone's energy use and they are able to claim the £100, then why not? Especially if they are struggling.

As for street lights.....in the side roads round my way (south east England) the lights have gone off at 12 for donkeys years. Fun when you're staggering home after a good night out especially the night before bin day lol But it's not a new thing bought in this year. And surely any energy saving has got to be good for the environment, the country and our wallets?

To be fair shouldn't we all be doing our bit whilst the war, and any other factors that are affecting available energy sources, are going on? Rally together rather than putting obstacles in the way. Regardless of who's fault it is?
Theres a definite generation of entitled snowflakes who expect everything handed to them on a plate,. And these are becoming our country's downfall
Click to expand...

I don't think it's this generation we need to be worried about. It's our generation and it's reluctance to change is the reason our world is falling apart. It's a world run by mad old men and we can't blame that on our children.....they want no part in it.

Sometimes think if we saw the world like children do we would be a hell of a lot better off than we are now.
 
dubsie said:
I don't think it's this generation we need to be worried about. It's our generation and it's reluctance to change is the reason our world is falling apart. It's a world run by mad old men and we can't blame that on our children.....they want no part in it.

Sometimes think if we saw the world like children do we would be a hell of a lot better off than we are now.
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It's not so much the 'old men' issue but more of vested interests. Our political system allows lobbyists to influence how a party behaves on specific issues, also there are the funders of the party, usually big business such as the energy companies, these may also fund the lobbyists. So you see that certain groups can have a large impact on the decisions of our elected leaders, this is hardly democracy in action. For real change to happen we must ensure the complete impartiality of our elected representatives in Parliament, that will mean no cash or gifts from external sources, no paid lobbyists, no shares for our Politicians in companies and a fully funded government system from the tax payer as it's only source of revenue. I do believe that Hell will freeze over before this occurs. Just think, without all of this interference from vested interests we could all put solar panels on our roof, no MCS carp and a good FIT, that would go a long way to solving global warming, power shortages and high costs, and the best bit is that it would not cost the UK Government a penny as it would all be funded by the house holder who would recognise the investment and the quick return on his investment.
 
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