OT: UK \"price cap\"...

[Don Y]

This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it? To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)? How is it \"enforced\"? Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like: why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

 

[Martin Brown]

On 28/08/2022 09:10, Don Y wrote:

This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

It is a bit of a misnomer. It is an indication of what an average
household might pay. It is a actually cap of the max unit price per
kWhr. This perhaps requires some explanation too. Under more normal
circumstance you could enter into a fixed term fixed price contract with
your energy supplier for a period (1/2/3yr). If you failed to do this
you would be put on standard variable rate (which was a ripoff price).
In addition if you remained loyal to your regional supply company you
were additionally penalised by a roughly 30% premium.

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate closer to
the contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium pricing. Basically
nervous elderly were afraid to change suppliers and so were being ripped
off. Much like with insurance, mobile phones and internet if you don\'t
change suppliers every now and thenm you get royally ripped off for
being a loyal customer. The \"price cap\" was supposed to sort this
anomaly out.

Critical thing about this price cap is that it only applies to domestic
properties not businesses and so they cross subsidise by charging them
even more as prices rise. It is sending small and medium sized energy
intensive businesses to the wall. Some will close down completely for
the winter and may never reopen.

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it?  To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)?  How is it \"enforced\"?  Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

It is an absolutely crazy privatisation scheme that sounds exactly as
barking mad as it really is.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central Electricity
Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to end public
utility company. They made power, moved it to where it was needed and
sold it to industry and consumers. There were minor regional differences
in the distribution end and differences in the mix of power plant in the
production side.eg. More hydro in Scotland.

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super
grid lines run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North
(they put all the nasty dirty industry there) to London and the South
East where it is used.

Thatcher split it up into a load of private companies and sold them off
on an ideological whim. There is roughly:

Regional infrastructure companies that own the physical network.
Regional generating companies who make electricity (ditto for gas)
A huge number of box shifting resellers to consumers/businesses.

Further deregulation meant that any Tom Dick or Harry could set up as an
energy supplier with no real idea of what they were doing...

The real manufacturers of electricity and gas producers are making money
hand over fist. The clueless box shifting resellers are going bust
because the price cap means they are selling energy on for less than
they have to pay for it. It was supposed to mean more consumer choice
and competition but it resulted in daft companies. You could buy your
power from \"Octopus Energy\" for example - I\'m not making that up.

Our Village Hall buys its electricity from British Gas! There is no
mains gas supply in the village. That\'s how crazy the UK system is!

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross subsidising
their losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on business users
(this includes small bakeries on the high street). Fertiliser plants
shut down last December when prices started to rise - I\'m not sure how
they are continuing to run now. It can\'t make any economic sense.

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like:  why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

If they didn\'t raise the cap then too many of the clueless box shifting
(essentially paper billing operations) would go bust and the tax payer
would have to take on the supply of electricity for them and tidy up the
resulting huge financial mess. We have already had one \"too big to fail\"
\"supplier\" go down and many others were right on the brink.

The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.

The remaining consumers have to pay an additional daily charge for
supply which has gone up enormously to cover sorting out all the billing
\"suppliers\" that have gone bust so far. It is in essence a legalised
white collar scam operation exploiting the situation.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-19/owners-of-bust-energy-suppliers-set-for-million-pound-payouts

I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Don Y]

Christ, I think I know even *less*, now, than I thought I did, before!
<frown>

On 8/28/2022 2:04 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/08/2022 09:10, Don Y wrote:
This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

It is a bit of a misnomer. It is an indication of what an average household
might pay. It is a actually cap of the max unit price per kWhr.

Does it only apply to electricity, then? Or, all energy sources
(though expressed in KWHr)?

E.g., if one heated their home with natural gas, is that part of the
mix? Or, not \"controlled\"?

Regardless, in practical terms, it translates into some number of cents
(\"pence\"?) per KWHr -- on the assumption that an average household
consumes N KWHr/year (month?)

This perhaps
requires some explanation too. Under more normal circumstance you could enter
into a fixed term fixed price contract with your energy supplier for a period
(1/2/3yr).

Do suppliers have monopolies over regions? Is \"supply\" intended to mean
\"production AND distribution\"?

E.g., here, the power is treated separately (in theory) than the
distribution network. The wires to your home are likely owned by
a particular (regional) energy supplier (keeping in mind that
\"regions\" in the US are likely considerably larger). But, the
power delivered to your home OVER those lines could, potentially,
come from another supplier (\"generator\").

If you failed to do this you would be put on standard variable rate
(which was a ripoff price). In addition if you remained loyal to your regional
supply company you were additionally penalised by a roughly 30% premium.

Here, a region typically has a set of approved (gummit agency) \"tariffs\"
under which power can be delivered (speaking of electric, again).

So, a home that was \"all electric\" (incl electric heating/cooling)
would have a different tariff than a \"mixed utility\" (gas + electric)
home. This, presumably, to account for the added cost of heating
via electricity vs. natural gas (or heating oil).

[I think, here, that tariff has been retired. Previously, it
would only have been available to you if your home was verified
to be \"all electric\" -- we have two in the immediate neighborhood.]

Businesses would typically have \"demand\" based tariffs where the
amount they pay is related to the *peak* demand they imposed
on the provider in a given period. This leads to some amusing
load-shifting schemes -- like making vast quantities of *ice*
over night (when your usage is otherwise zero) to eliminate the
need to use refrigeration during the \"working hours\".

Some tariffs apply different rates to different times of day
(Time of Use -- ToU) in an attempt to entice users to shift their
demand to \"off hours\" (doesn\'t work real well in places where you
have long cooling seasons! It\'s not like you can decide to live
without air conditioning during the day and make up for it overnight!)

[I don\'t know any residential customers who would opt for this.
Usage during \"peak\" hours is so exhorbitantly priced that you\'d
either have to use NOTHING during those hours or a SHITLOAD
off-peak to save any money!]

Some tariffs give the utility control over some significant
customer load (like the ACbrrr) in exchange for a slightly
better rate (i.e., the utility can shift the load, to some
extent, for its benefit and share that \"savings\" with the
customer).

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate closer to the
contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium pricing. Basically nervous
elderly were afraid to change suppliers and so were being ripped off. Much like
with insurance, mobile phones and internet if you don\'t change suppliers every
now and thenm you get royally ripped off for being a loyal customer. The \"price
cap\" was supposed to sort this anomaly out.

It just *limits* the extent to which customers could be \"gouged\"...?

Critical thing about this price cap is that it only applies to domestic
properties not businesses and so they cross subsidise by charging them even
more as prices rise. It is sending small and medium sized energy intensive
businesses to the wall. Some will close down completely for the winter and may
never reopen.

So, \"suppliers\" (see caveat above) are free to change their prices
at will?

Much of our bill is \"controlled\" and can only be changed by petitioning
the agency that regulates that \"utility\". (Though their \"petitions\"
are often rubber stamped!)

For example, (again, electric):
Delivery Services (getting the power TO you)
Basic Service and Meter Charge (i.e., the \"right\" to be a customer :> ) ~$13
Tax Expense Adjustor ~4 decicents per KWHr
Delivery, first 500KWHr ~7 cents per KWHr
Delivery, second 500KWHr ~9 cents per KWHr
Delivery, above 1000KWHr ~10 cents per KWHr
Transmission Cost Adjustor ~4 decicents per KWHr
Power Generation
Summer rate ~3 cents per KWHr
PPFAC (no idea!) ~1 cent per KWHr
Surcharges
Renewable Energy Standard Tariff $9
(alphabet soup acronyms) ~0.3 cents per KWHr
Taxes and Assessments
City Franchise Fee
State Sales Tax
City Sales Tax
Public Utility Tax
Regional Transportation Authority Tax

This time of year (hot needing cooling and humid needing dehumidification)
a typical bill would be ~$300/month. That drops substantially in Winter
(but starts climbing again in February as our cooling season is about
9-10 months, now)

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it? To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)? How is it \"enforced\"? Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

It is an absolutely crazy privatisation scheme that sounds exactly as barking
mad as it really is.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central Electricity
Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to end public utility
company.

Were they a \"private corporation\"? Or, \"state owned\"?

They made power, moved it to where it was needed and sold it to
industry and consumers. There were minor regional differences in the
distribution end and differences in the mix of power plant in the production
side.eg. More hydro in Scotland.

But, presumably, you share a single grid so *where* the generation
occurs (and how) isn\'t important? E.g., I don\'t get a discount
if I live next door to a nuke...

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super grid lines
run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North (they put all the
nasty dirty industry there) to London and the South East where it is used.

But, presumably, the industries up north also represent a significant
\"load\"?

Thatcher split it up into a load of private companies and sold them off on an
ideological whim. There is roughly:

Regional infrastructure companies that own the physical network.
Regional generating companies who make electricity (ditto for gas)
A huge number of box shifting resellers to consumers/businesses.

These latter are \"overhead\"? Or, do they add some value?

Further deregulation meant that any Tom Dick or Harry could set up as an energy
supplier with no real idea of what they were doing...

The real manufacturers of electricity and gas producers are making money hand
over fist. The clueless box shifting resellers are going bust because the price
cap means they are selling energy on for less than they have to pay for it. It
was supposed to mean more consumer choice and competition but it resulted in
daft companies. You could buy your power from \"Octopus Energy\" for example -
I\'m not making that up.

Our Village Hall buys its electricity from British Gas! There is no mains gas
supply in the village. That\'s how crazy the UK system is!

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross subsidising their
losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on business users (this includes
small bakeries on the high street).

Is there nothing equivalent to our \"tariff\" structure? I.e., a fixed
pricing scheme approved by regulators and contractually binding to
consumers and producers?

I.e., one of the \"alphabet soup\" line items I mentioned pertains to cost
of fuels. So, as natural gas prices rise, that portion of the power
generated by burning it is increased above the \"basic\" price per KWHr
to pass the cost on to the consumer (some of these factors are 8
decimals!)

Fertiliser plants shut down last December
when prices started to rise - I\'m not sure how they are continuing to run now.
It can\'t make any economic sense.

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like: why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

If they didn\'t raise the cap then too many of the clueless box shifting
(essentially paper billing operations)

So, the \"value\" they add is the \"itemized consumption\". The producers
and distributors just deal with \"bulk\" (?)

would go bust and the tax payer would
have to take on the supply of electricity for them and tidy up the resulting
huge financial mess. We have already had one \"too big to fail\" \"supplier\" go
down and many others were right on the brink.

It would seem a smarter approach would be for those folks to just represent a
couple of line items on each consumer\'s bill. E.g., cost of preparing this
bill (and some portion of the risk associated with policing it, absorbing
bad checks, etc.).

E.g., our automobile registration has a line item that charges each
registrant for the cost of *postage* (!) to mail the registration to
the driver/owner!

The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a chocolate
fireguard.

The remaining consumers have to pay an additional daily charge for supply which
has gone up enormously to cover sorting out all the billing \"suppliers\" that
have gone bust so far. It is in essence a legalised white collar scam operation
exploiting the situation.

This just seems overly (and unnecessarily) complicated!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-19/owners-of-bust-energy-suppliers-set-for-million-pound-payouts


I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron scam
failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it is geared to
ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Suppliers can, of course, alter the supply-demand relationship artificially
(if unscrupulously). Creating artificial shortages means the available power
is more costly (\"precious\").

But, that\'s true in any market; I can withhold some or all of my cabbages
from the market in the hope that cabbage prices will rise, making my
cabbages worth more. OTOH, if I am selling *fewer* of them, I may end
up making less profit (as the cabbages not sold aren\'t worth anything!)

How often is this \"cap\" set/reset? If it is a single figure, then,
presumably, more efficient firms can make more profit (by raising
their rates \"to the limit\" instead of \"to reflect their costs\")

 

[Martin Brown]

On 28/08/2022 11:10, Don Y wrote:

Christ, I think I know even *less*, now, than I thought I did, before!
frown

On 8/28/2022 2:04 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 28/08/2022 09:10, Don Y wrote:
This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

It is a bit of a misnomer. It is an indication of what an average
household might pay. It is a actually cap of the max unit price per kWhr.

Does it only apply to electricity, then?  Or, all energy sources
(though expressed in KWHr)?

E.g., if one heated their home with natural gas, is that part of the
mix?  Or, not \"controlled\"?

Regardless, in practical terms, it translates into some number of cents
(\"pence\"?) per KWHr -- on the assumption that an average household
consumes N KWHr/year (month?)

Electricity and mains gas but not heating oil, wood, coal or bottled gas.

This perhaps requires some explanation too. Under more normal
circumstance you could enter into a fixed term fixed price contract
with your energy supplier for a period (1/2/3yr).

Do suppliers have monopolies over regions?  Is \"supply\" intended to mean
\"production AND distribution\"?

No it is completely insane. I actually buy my power from Scottish Power
who actually do have their own physical generating plant - but the
billing operation is entirely separate. A lot of the \"suppliers\" are
quite literally book keeping operations that own nothing at all.

E.g., here, the power is treated separately (in theory) than the
distribution network.  The wires to your home are likely owned by
a particular (regional) energy supplier (keeping in mind that
\"regions\" in the US are likely considerably larger).  But, the
power delivered to your home OVER those lines could, potentially,
come from another supplier (\"generator\").

The UK \"system\" such as it is was modelled on the US one I think.
Obvious failing is that making electricity is done in the north but most
consumption occurs in the south.

If you failed to do this you would be put on standard variable rate
(which was a ripoff price). In addition if you remained loyal to your
regional supply company you were additionally penalised by a roughly
30% premium.

Here, a region typically has a set of approved (gummit agency) \"tariffs\"
under which power can be delivered (speaking of electric, again).

So, a home that was \"all electric\" (incl electric heating/cooling)
would have a different tariff than a \"mixed utility\" (gas + electric)
home.  This, presumably, to account for the added cost of heating
via electricity vs. natural gas (or heating oil).

There is a discount for taking dual fuel from the same supplier but that
obviously isn\'t available to those of us not of the gas supply network.

[I think, here, that tariff has been retired.  Previously, it
would only have been available to you if your home was verified
to be \"all electric\" -- we have two in the immediate neighborhood.]

Businesses would typically have \"demand\" based tariffs where the
amount they pay is related to the *peak* demand they imposed
on the provider in a given period.  This leads to some amusing
load-shifting schemes -- like making vast quantities of *ice*
over night (when your usage is otherwise zero) to eliminate the
need to use refrigeration during the \"working hours\".

Businesses in the UK covers everything from a mom & pop shop up to a
multintional. The ultimate load dump for balancing is the chlor-alkali
plant in Runcorn which can absorb huge amounts of power at a moments
notice and so long as the cells are kept warm can accept any residual
power that the grid wants to dispose of. They get a preferential
interruptable tariff as do other high energy use businesses.

Some tariffs apply different rates to different times of day
(Time of Use -- ToU) in an attempt to entice users to shift their
demand to \"off hours\" (doesn\'t work real well in places where you
have long cooling seasons!  It\'s not like you can decide to live
without air conditioning during the day and make up for it overnight!)

We don\'t have much aircon except in office so there is afternoon peak.

[I don\'t know any residential customers who would opt for this.
Usage during \"peak\" hours is so exhorbitantly priced that you\'d
either have to use NOTHING during those hours or a SHITLOAD
off-peak to save any money!]

Some tariffs give the utility control over some significant
customer load (like the ACbrrr) in exchange for a slightly
better rate (i.e., the utility can shift the load, to some
extent, for its benefit and share that \"savings\" with the
customer).

They are talking about allowing preferential time based tariffs if you
have a smart meter and don\'t use high current appliances during the day.
I\'m not sure how this will work in practice. I have a smart meter so I
may get to find out. My instinct is that they will cock up the software!

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate closer
to the contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium pricing.
Basically nervous elderly were afraid to change suppliers and so were
being ripped off. Much like with insurance, mobile phones and internet
if you don\'t change suppliers every now and thenm you get royally
ripped off for being a loyal customer. The \"price cap\" was supposed to
sort this anomaly out.

It just *limits* the extent to which customers could be \"gouged\"...?

It stopped the practice where people (typically elderly pensioners) too
nervous to change supplier were being charged about 30% more than
everyone else. Customer loyalty was rewarded by paying much higher
prices. I have learnt that lesson well and remain serially disloyal.

Critical thing about this price cap is that it only applies to
domestic properties not businesses and so they cross subsidise by
charging them even more as prices rise. It is sending small and medium
sized energy intensive businesses to the wall. Some will close down
completely for the winter and may never reopen.

So, \"suppliers\" (see caveat above) are free to change their prices
at will?

Much of our bill is \"controlled\" and can only be changed by petitioning
the agency that regulates that \"utility\".  (Though their \"petitions\"
are often rubber stamped!)

For example, (again, electric):
Delivery Services (getting the power TO you)
  Basic Service and Meter Charge (i.e., the \"right\" to be a customer :
)  ~$13
  Tax Expense Adjustor     ~4 decicents per KWHr
  Delivery, first 500KWHr   ~7 cents per KWHr
  Delivery, second 500KWHr  ~9 cents per KWHr
  Delivery, above 1000KWHr  ~10 cents per KWHr
  Transmission Cost Adjustor  ~4 decicents per KWHr
Power Generation
  Summer rate   ~3 cents per KWHr
  PPFAC (no idea!)  ~1 cent per KWHr
Surcharges
  Renewable Energy Standard Tariff     $9
  (alphabet soup acronyms)   ~0.3 cents per KWHr
Taxes and Assessments
  City Franchise Fee
  State Sales Tax
  City Sales Tax
  Public Utility Tax
  Regional Transportation Authority Tax

This time of year (hot needing cooling and humid needing dehumidification)
a typical bill would be ~$300/month.  That drops substantially in Winter
(but starts climbing again in February as our cooling season is about
9-10 months, now)

We are up around 30p/kWhr at the moment. It will be 50p from 1st Oct
(that is the effect of the latest announcement).

I am looking very seriously at solar panels for the roof because on
average we could be approximately self sufficient for electricity and
the payback time has halved in the past 6 months. Also with inflation
rising to >10% physical objects hold their value better.

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding
(misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it?  To whom does it apply (individuals,
residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)?  How is it \"enforced\"?  Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

It is an absolutely crazy privatisation scheme that sounds exactly as
barking mad as it really is.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central Electricity
Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to end public
utility company.

Were they a \"private corporation\"?  Or, \"state owned\"?

State owned - which is why they were smashed up and sold off.

They did the same for the water companies too which has now resulted in
post Brexit brown flag beaches (notably for this Bank Holiday weekend)
which are no longer safe to swim in because of raw sewage discharge.

They made power, moved it to where it was needed and sold it to
industry and consumers. There were minor regional differences in the
distribution end and differences in the mix of power plant in the
production side.eg. More hydro in Scotland.

But, presumably, you share a single grid so *where* the generation
occurs (and how) isn\'t important?  E.g., I don\'t get a discount
if I live next door to a nuke...

How can be since there are green only tariffs (where you pay more).
Likewise I prefer to buy my electricity from a supplier that does at
least in principle have vertical integration.

But the vast majority of market entrants selling electricity to
consumers are little more than an office with a billing system.

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super
grid lines run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North
(they put all the nasty dirty industry there) to London and the South
East where it is used.

But, presumably, the industries up north also represent a significant
\"load\"?

They did, but there aren\'t many of them left. The big aluminium smelter
and the Teesside steelworks both closed down about 5 years ago. Last man
standing of the really big electrical loads is Runcorn chlor-alkali.

Thatcher split it up into a load of private companies and sold them
off on an ideological whim. There is roughly:

Regional infrastructure companies that own the physical network.
Regional generating companies who make electricity (ditto for gas)
A huge number of box shifting resellers to consumers/businesses.

These latter are \"overhead\"?  Or, do they add some value?

They add no value at all - like all middlemen they are parasites.

Further deregulation meant that any Tom Dick or Harry could set up as
an energy supplier with no real idea of what they were doing...

The real manufacturers of electricity and gas producers are making
money hand over fist. The clueless box shifting resellers are going
bust because the price cap means they are selling energy on for less
than they have to pay for it. It was supposed to mean more consumer
choice and competition but it resulted in daft companies. You could
buy your power from \"Octopus Energy\" for example - I\'m not making that
up.

Our Village Hall buys its electricity from British Gas! There is no
mains gas supply in the village. That\'s how crazy the UK system is!

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross subsidising
their losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on business users
(this includes small bakeries on the high street).

Is there nothing equivalent to our \"tariff\" structure?  I.e., a fixed
pricing scheme approved by regulators and contractually binding to
consumers and producers?

Apart from the price cap for consumers no. It is like the wild west.
Electricity is worth whatever you have to pay for it.

I.e., one of the \"alphabet soup\" line items I mentioned pertains to cost
of fuels.  So, as natural gas prices rise, that portion of the power
generated by burning it is increased above the \"basic\" price per KWHr
to pass the cost on to the consumer (some of these factors are 8
decimals!)

There is almost no scope to do that since the gas turbines are mostly
running flat out to make electricity which is in short supply. They
nearly lost it completely during that very hot spell.

Fertiliser plants shut down last December when prices started to rise
- I\'m not sure how they are continuing to run now. It can\'t make any
economic sense.

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like:  why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

If they didn\'t raise the cap then too many of the clueless box
shifting (essentially paper billing operations)

So, the \"value\" they add is the \"itemized consumption\".  The producers
and distributors just deal with \"bulk\" (?)

Yes.

would go bust and the tax payer would have to take on the supply of
electricity for them and tidy up the resulting huge financial mess. We
have already had one \"too big to fail\" \"supplier\" go down and many
others were right on the brink.

It would seem a smarter approach would be for those folks to just
represent a
couple of line items on each consumer\'s bill.  E.g., cost of preparing this
bill (and some portion of the risk associated with policing it, absorbing
bad checks, etc.).

E.g., our automobile registration has a line item that charges each
registrant for the cost of *postage* (!) to mail the registration to
the driver/owner!

The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.

The remaining consumers have to pay an additional daily charge for
supply which has gone up enormously to cover sorting out all the
billing \"suppliers\" that have gone bust so far. It is in essence a
legalised white collar scam operation exploiting the situation.

This just seems overly (and unnecessarily) complicated!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-19/owners-of-bust-energy-suppliers-set-for-million-pound-payouts


I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Suppliers can, of course, alter the supply-demand relationship artificially
(if unscrupulously).  Creating artificial shortages means the available
power
is more costly (\"precious\").

But, that\'s true in any market; I can withhold some or all of my cabbages
from the market in the hope that cabbage prices will rise, making my
cabbages worth more.  OTOH, if I am selling *fewer* of them, I may end
up making less profit (as the cabbages not sold aren\'t worth anything!)

How often is this \"cap\" set/reset?  If it is a single figure, then,
presumably, more efficient firms can make more profit (by raising
their rates \"to the limit\" instead of \"to reflect their costs\")

It used to be adjusted every 6 months but too many of the resellers have
gone spectacularly bust in the last few months to hold them to that. It
is now reset every 3 months and before long I expect them to abandon it
altogether. The government is promising \"jam tomorrow\" - they CBA to
even put up a spokesperson on the day that Ofgem announced this rise.

This is what one of the UK money saving gurus had to say on the BBC
shortly after the Ofgem announcement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-62685067

Our government CBA to do anything. Too busy electing their new leader.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[server]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:04:58 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 28/08/2022 09:10, Don Y wrote:
This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

It is a bit of a misnomer. It is an indication of what an average
household might pay. It is a actually cap of the max unit price per
kWhr. This perhaps requires some explanation too. Under more normal
circumstance you could enter into a fixed term fixed price contract with
your energy supplier for a period (1/2/3yr). If you failed to do this
you would be put on standard variable rate (which was a ripoff price).
In addition if you remained loyal to your regional supply company you
were additionally penalised by a roughly 30% premium.

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate closer to
the contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium pricing. Basically
nervous elderly were afraid to change suppliers and so were being ripped
off. Much like with insurance, mobile phones and internet if you don\'t
change suppliers every now and thenm you get royally ripped off for
being a loyal customer. The \"price cap\" was supposed to sort this
anomaly out.

Critical thing about this price cap is that it only applies to domestic
properties not businesses and so they cross subsidise by charging them
even more as prices rise. It is sending small and medium sized energy
intensive businesses to the wall. Some will close down completely for
the winter and may never reopen.

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it?  To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)?  How is it \"enforced\"?  Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

It is an absolutely crazy privatisation scheme that sounds exactly as
barking mad as it really is.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central Electricity
Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to end public
utility company. They made power, moved it to where it was needed and
sold it to industry and consumers. There were minor regional differences
in the distribution end and differences in the mix of power plant in the
production side.eg. More hydro in Scotland.

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super
grid lines run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North
(they put all the nasty dirty industry there) to London and the South
East where it is used.

Thatcher split it up into a load of private companies and sold them off
on an ideological whim. There is roughly:

Regional infrastructure companies that own the physical network.
Regional generating companies who make electricity (ditto for gas)
A huge number of box shifting resellers to consumers/businesses.

Further deregulation meant that any Tom Dick or Harry could set up as an
energy supplier with no real idea of what they were doing...

The real manufacturers of electricity and gas producers are making money
hand over fist. The clueless box shifting resellers are going bust
because the price cap means they are selling energy on for less than
they have to pay for it. It was supposed to mean more consumer choice
and competition but it resulted in daft companies. You could buy your
power from \"Octopus Energy\" for example - I\'m not making that up.

Our Village Hall buys its electricity from British Gas! There is no
mains gas supply in the village. That\'s how crazy the UK system is!

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross subsidising
their losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on business users
(this includes small bakeries on the high street). Fertiliser plants
shut down last December when prices started to rise - I\'m not sure how
they are continuing to run now. It can\'t make any economic sense.

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like:  why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

If they didn\'t raise the cap then too many of the clueless box shifting
(essentially paper billing operations) would go bust and the tax payer
would have to take on the supply of electricity for them and tidy up the
resulting huge financial mess. We have already had one \"too big to fail\"
\"supplier\" go down and many others were right on the brink.

The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.

The remaining consumers have to pay an additional daily charge for
supply which has gone up enormously to cover sorting out all the billing
\"suppliers\" that have gone bust so far. It is in essence a legalised
white collar scam operation exploiting the situation.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-19/owners-of-bust-energy-suppliers-set-for-million-pound-payouts

I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Most states in the US have one or more regulated utilities, which
agree to supply power and gas for a guaranteed return on investment.
That has worked well for about a century, but politicians and greenies
are working hard to break it.

We get gas and electricity at home from PG&E, a regulated untilty.
Electricity is billed in tiers based on usage, about 10 cents/KWH for
a baseline amount, up to about 30 cents/KWH if you use a lot. Average
here is around 21 cents. We dip into the top tier now and then.

Luckily our climate near the coast is mild, 59F at 8 AM, so
gas+electric cost us maybe $150 a month. No a/c.

Our utility service is very reliable. If anything ever goes wrong,
worker-guys show up fast and free.

A tree fell and sent a shock wave down the block, and our big feeder
wires pulled a fascia board off our cabin and all the power and cable
and phone wires fell. The little local utility was great. They kluged
a quick fix and came back twice more for the serious repair, no
charge.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lt38qw0yxrulr6v/AABtcYQNALQjZFqOfHV291dea?dl=0

The whole fiasco cost us about $400 to fix.

 

[Don Y]

On 8/28/2022 6:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/08/2022 11:10, Don Y wrote:
This perhaps requires some explanation too. Under more normal circumstance
you could enter into a fixed term fixed price contract with your energy
supplier for a period (1/2/3yr).

Do suppliers have monopolies over regions? Is \"supply\" intended to mean
\"production AND distribution\"?

No it is completely insane. I actually buy my power from Scottish Power who
actually do have their own physical generating plant - but the billing
operation is entirely separate. A lot of the \"suppliers\" are quite literally
book keeping operations that own nothing at all.

So, why don\'t the energy producers \"do their own billing\"?
Do they not want the hassle? Or, do they want the insertion of
a middle-man that can be on the hook for the cap overages?

E.g., here, the power is treated separately (in theory) than the
distribution network. The wires to your home are likely owned by
a particular (regional) energy supplier (keeping in mind that
\"regions\" in the US are likely considerably larger). But, the
power delivered to your home OVER those lines could, potentially,
come from another supplier (\"generator\").

The UK \"system\" such as it is was modelled on the US one I think. Obvious
failing is that making electricity is done in the north but most consumption
occurs in the south.

Generation *tends* to be reasonably well distributed, here. E.g., nearby,
we have hydro from the Hoover dam, a local nuke, gas-fired plants, etc.
And, of course, tie-ins to other regions to help deal with peaks and
surpluses.

If you failed to do this you would be put on standard variable rate (which
was a ripoff price). In addition if you remained loyal to your regional
supply company you were additionally penalised by a roughly 30% premium.

Here, a region typically has a set of approved (gummit agency) \"tariffs\"
under which power can be delivered (speaking of electric, again).

So, a home that was \"all electric\" (incl electric heating/cooling)
would have a different tariff than a \"mixed utility\" (gas + electric)
home. This, presumably, to account for the added cost of heating
via electricity vs. natural gas (or heating oil).

There is a discount for taking dual fuel from the same supplier but that
obviously isn\'t available to those of us not of the gas supply network.

AFAIK, there are no suppliers of electricity AND natural gas, here.
They are treated as separate utilities and are local monoplies (at
least when it comes to transporting the fuel).

The same is true of most utilities -- (wired) phone, CATV, etc. Inet being
an exception.

[I think, here, that tariff has been retired. Previously, it
would only have been available to you if your home was verified
to be \"all electric\" -- we have two in the immediate neighborhood.]

Businesses would typically have \"demand\" based tariffs where the
amount they pay is related to the *peak* demand they imposed
on the provider in a given period. This leads to some amusing
load-shifting schemes -- like making vast quantities of *ice*
over night (when your usage is otherwise zero) to eliminate the
need to use refrigeration during the \"working hours\".

Businesses in the UK covers everything from a mom & pop shop up to a
multintional. The ultimate load dump for balancing is the chlor-alkali plant in
Runcorn which can absorb huge amounts of power at a moments notice and so long
as the cells are kept warm can accept any residual power that the grid wants to
dispose of. They get a preferential interruptable tariff as do other high
energy use businesses.

But, they have to be willing (capable) of having their supply vary greatly.
And, likely without notice.

It\'s hard to come up with loads that fit that supply pattern. E.g., the
typical \"give the utility control over a big residential user load\"
tariff manages HVAC as you can fudge the time you turn on (\"enable\")
that service without imposing too much inconvenience on the user.

(Hotels typically stagger the \"enables\" to the per-room HVAC units
to similarly manage their peaks)

Rooftop solar, here, would be smarter to dump their excess power into
heating a swimming pool than to resell it to the utility (cuz you get
very little money for the *energy* you are producing AND have
constraints placed on your installation if you grid-tie)

Some tariffs apply different rates to different times of day
(Time of Use -- ToU) in an attempt to entice users to shift their
demand to \"off hours\" (doesn\'t work real well in places where you
have long cooling seasons! It\'s not like you can decide to live
without air conditioning during the day and make up for it overnight!)

We don\'t have much aircon except in office so there is afternoon peak.

We looked into a TU tariff, here, and realized our bill would roughly
*double*. It *may* make sense for people who are out of the house
during the peak times (e.g., at work). But, I can\'t imagine the house
could be made comfortable before returning home for less money than
*keeping* it comfortable (on the old tariff)

[I don\'t know any residential customers who would opt for this.
Usage during \"peak\" hours is so exhorbitantly priced that you\'d
either have to use NOTHING during those hours or a SHITLOAD
off-peak to save any money!]

Some tariffs give the utility control over some significant
customer load (like the ACbrrr) in exchange for a slightly
better rate (i.e., the utility can shift the load, to some
extent, for its benefit and share that \"savings\" with the
customer).

They are talking about allowing preferential time based tariffs if you have a
smart meter and don\'t use high current appliances during the day. I\'m not sure
how this will work in practice. I have a smart meter so I may get to find out.
My instinct is that they will cock up the software!

I designed a ToU meter some 35 years ago. At the time, data collection was
an issue (no easy/cheap way to get the data back to the utility so the
\"meter-reader\" was the transport mechanism).

I now see meters with comms built in so, presumably, this would be
easier to do -- even with a meter that wasn\'t set up to compartmentalize
usage (e.g., poll the meter frequently and do the compartmentalizing
server-side).

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate closer to the
contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium pricing. Basically nervous
elderly were afraid to change suppliers and so were being ripped off. Much
like with insurance, mobile phones and internet if you don\'t change
suppliers every now and thenm you get royally ripped off for being a loyal
customer. The \"price cap\" was supposed to sort this anomaly out.

It just *limits* the extent to which customers could be \"gouged\"...?

It stopped the practice where people (typically elderly pensioners) too nervous
to change supplier were being charged about 30% more than everyone else.
Customer loyalty was rewarded by paying much higher prices. I have learnt that
lesson well and remain serially disloyal.

The same is true of many \"providers\". Stick with an insurance provider and
expect to pay more. Stick with an employer and expect to have smaller
increases. etc.

OTOH, bouncing around too much is likely a \"visible\" practice that would
merit some sort of response.

For example, (again, electric):
Delivery Services (getting the power TO you)
Basic Service and Meter Charge (i.e., the \"right\" to be a customer :> ) ~$13
Tax Expense Adjustor ~4 decicents per KWHr
Delivery, first 500KWHr ~7 cents per KWHr
Delivery, second 500KWHr ~9 cents per KWHr
Delivery, above 1000KWHr ~10 cents per KWHr
Transmission Cost Adjustor ~4 decicents per KWHr
Power Generation
Summer rate ~3 cents per KWHr
PPFAC (no idea!) ~1 cent per KWHr
Surcharges
Renewable Energy Standard Tariff $9
(alphabet soup acronyms) ~0.3 cents per KWHr
Taxes and Assessments
City Franchise Fee
State Sales Tax
City Sales Tax
Public Utility Tax
Regional Transportation Authority Tax

This time of year (hot needing cooling and humid needing dehumidification)
a typical bill would be ~$300/month. That drops substantially in Winter
(but starts climbing again in February as our cooling season is about
9-10 months, now)

We are up around 30p/kWhr at the moment. It will be 50p from 1st Oct (that is
the effect of the latest announcement).

Factoring in all of the fees, taxes, surcharges, etc. we\'re at about 16c/KWHr
(and we are \"energy hogs\" with much of our consumption in the highest tier)

I am looking very seriously at solar panels for the roof because on average we
could be approximately self sufficient for electricity and the payback time has
halved in the past 6 months. Also with inflation rising to >10% physical
objects hold their value better.

The typical place for (residential) panels, here, is the roof.

But, roofs need to be serviced and replaced pretty regularly.
So, install panels, get inspected... remove panels, service
roof, reinstall panels, get inspected...

This quickly eats up any savings.

In our location, we frequently encounter microbursts from the north.
So, having the northern edge of panels elevated (flat roof or roof
not pitched N-S) makes them prone to catching those wind blasts
and tearing them off the roof.

[Roofs are meant to support (a little) weight, not cling to the
structure!]

We\'d thought of putting a row of panels on the south edge of the
house (past the outer wall) as a sort of awning. This lets
the house act as a \"wind shade\". But, then you\'re building a
structure where there is none (and it would interfere with
some of our citrus)

<shrug> If we really want to cut our electric consumption, then
we can just *cut* our consumption (more efficient HVAC, turn
off some of the computers, etc.) There hasn\'t been enough
economic pressure to do so.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central Electricity
Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to end public utility
company.

Were they a \"private corporation\"? Or, \"state owned\"?

State owned - which is why they were smashed up and sold off.

Ah. The gummit can\'t do anything right (gee, why are THEY responsible
for defending the nation??) so lets privatize... panacea (that doesn\'t
work, either!)

They did the same for the water companies too which has now resulted in post
Brexit brown flag beaches (notably for this Bank Holiday weekend) which are no
longer safe to swim in because of raw sewage discharge.

The opposite happened, here. We used to be on a private well -- an independant
water provider with locally sourced water. City eventually took over (bought)
their operation (by making it harder for them to comply with regulations,
etc.).

Of course, now water is squarely the city\'s problem. And, they have to
answer to folks who wonder why the city wants to keep \"developing\"
when water is in short supply (developer isn\'t going to set up his own
water company cuz the city has made that too burdensome).

They made power, moved it to where it was needed and sold it to industry and
consumers. There were minor regional differences in the distribution end and
differences in the mix of power plant in the production side.eg. More hydro
in Scotland.

But, presumably, you share a single grid so *where* the generation
occurs (and how) isn\'t important? E.g., I don\'t get a discount
if I live next door to a nuke...

How can be since there are green only tariffs (where you pay more). Likewise I
prefer to buy my electricity from a supplier that does at least in principle
have vertical integration.

But the actual *wires* at your house are owned by *someone*. The use
of those wires is \"rented\" to the company that is pushing power to you
(figuratively). Other \"generators\" could similarly tie in to that
distribution network -- regardless of whether they are generating via
solar, wind, hydro, nuke, gas, etc.

But the vast majority of market entrants selling electricity to consumers are
little more than an office with a billing system.

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super grid
lines run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North (they put
all the nasty dirty industry there) to London and the South East where it is
used.

But, presumably, the industries up north also represent a significant
\"load\"?

They did, but there aren\'t many of them left. The big aluminium smelter and the
Teesside steelworks both closed down about 5 years ago. Last man standing of
the really big electrical loads is Runcorn chlor-alkali.

So, easier for those businesses to fold (or relocate) than the electric
utilities?

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross subsidising their
losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on business users (this
includes small bakeries on the high street).

Is there nothing equivalent to our \"tariff\" structure? I.e., a fixed
pricing scheme approved by regulators and contractually binding to
consumers and producers?

Apart from the price cap for consumers no. It is like the wild west.
Electricity is worth whatever you have to pay for it.

Wow! Here, a utility (phone, CATV, electric, etc.) is granted a
limited monopoly *constrained* by regulators. If the costs of providing
increase more than the regulators will allow you to pass on (to consumers),
*you* go broke.

Of course, the regulators are trying to keep that from happening AND
keep you from \"getting too rich\" off of the CAPTIVE consumers.

One reason solar is fought so actively, here, is that providers
realize it gives customers alternatives. E.g., conceivably,
a development could generate its own power (install panels
on every rooftop as part of the master plan and *pool* the
electricity).

I.e., one of the \"alphabet soup\" line items I mentioned pertains to cost
of fuels. So, as natural gas prices rise, that portion of the power
generated by burning it is increased above the \"basic\" price per KWHr
to pass the cost on to the consumer (some of these factors are 8
decimals!)

There is almost no scope to do that since the gas turbines are mostly running
flat out to make electricity which is in short supply. They nearly lost it
completely during that very hot spell.

Gas is used as a \"peak demand\" tool. Nuke, hydro, solar, etc. are expected
to carry the \"base\" load with gas fired up as needed (because it is easy to
bring on-line with short notice).

But, that\'s true in any market; I can withhold some or all of my cabbages
from the market in the hope that cabbage prices will rise, making my
cabbages worth more. OTOH, if I am selling *fewer* of them, I may end
up making less profit (as the cabbages not sold aren\'t worth anything!)

How often is this \"cap\" set/reset? If it is a single figure, then,
presumably, more efficient firms can make more profit (by raising
their rates \"to the limit\" instead of \"to reflect their costs\")

It used to be adjusted every 6 months but too many of the resellers have gone
spectacularly bust in the last few months to hold them to that.

If *you* have contracted with reseller X and X goes broke, what happens
to your service? The lights obviously stay on. But, what sort of
\"surprise\" awaits when you later learn that Y has taken up your
contract (on different terms)?

Don\'t the \"providers\" fear that the demise of the middlemen will mean
the gummit/public will turn their attention on *them*?

I.e., it would seem like the right strategy would be to squeeze
the middlemen (stuck between \"caps\" and \"energy selling price\")
as much as possible (extracting maximum profit in their
\"selling price\") but just short of causing them to fail?

It is now reset
every 3 months and before long I expect them to abandon it altogether. The
government is promising \"jam tomorrow\" - they CBA to even put up a spokesperson
on the day that Ofgem announced this rise.

This is what one of the UK money saving gurus had to say on the BBC shortly
after the Ofgem announcement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-62685067

Our government CBA to do anything. Too busy electing their new leader.

(sigh) It seems politicians are equally bad -- universally.
Perhaps we (the nations of the world) buy an island, someplace,
and AFTER A SINGLE TERM IN OFFICE, \"retire\" each politician to
said island where all of their needs will be forever met -- at
the consent of the previously governed (which can change on a whim)?

 

[Ricky]

On Sunday, August 28, 2022 at 4:11:00 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it? To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)? How is it \"enforced\"? Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like: why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

1. What is the price cap?

The system, introduced in January 2019 by Ofgem during Theresa May’s administration, was designed to save money for consumers as it sets out how much suppliers could charge homes per unit for the power and gas they use. It covers most households, about 24 million in the UK, on a so-called standard variable tariff, and caps the level of profits an energy supplier can make at 1.9%. It has offered protection for those who haven’t been able to shop around and switch suppliers regularly. More savvy consumers have traditionally saved many hundreds of pounds per year by switching supplier.

I think nearly every utility in the US has price regulations that set the profit of the utility.

What\'s unusual about this?

 

[Ricky]

On Sunday, August 28, 2022 at 4:11:00 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

This *seems* to be the uppermost dollar-amount (pound sterling) that
brits will have to pay for \"energy\".

But, that, of course, is a zeroth order understanding (misunderstanding??)

What *specifically* is it? To whom does it apply (individuals, residences,
\"energy customers\", etc.)? How is it \"enforced\"? Where do the extra
funds that the energy suppliers demand *above8 that limit come from
(or, do they *eat* it)?

Likely the answers to those Qs will shed light on other *obvious*
questions (like: why *raise* the cap at all if you\'re hoping to
protect consumers)

I can\'t fathom an (existing) equivalent mechanism in the US market...

1. What is the price cap?

The system, introduced in January 2019 by Ofgem during Theresa May’s administration, was designed to save money for consumers as it sets out how much suppliers could charge homes per unit for the power and gas they use. It covers most households, about 24 million in the UK, on a so-called standard variable tariff, and caps the level of profits an energy supplier can make at 1.9%. It has offered protection for those who haven’t been able to shop around and switch suppliers regularly. More savvy consumers have traditionally saved many hundreds of pounds per year by switching supplier.

What utility in the US isn\'t regulated like this?

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[rbowman]

On 08/28/2022 03:09 PM, Don Y wrote:

Generation *tends* to be reasonably well distributed, here. E.g., nearby,
we have hydro from the Hoover dam, a local nuke, gas-fired plants, etc.
And, of course, tie-ins to other regions to help deal with peaks and
surpluses.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/us/hoover-dam-hydropower-drought-climate/index.html

https://www.circleofblue.org/2022/world/what-happens-if-glen-canyon-dams-power-shuts-off/

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2022-05-08/arizona-nuclear-plant-seeking-alternative-source-of-water

It won\'t be the first time the desert southwest had a problem. Whoever
built the extensive irrigation network at Casa Grande was long gone when
Father Kino got there.

I see someone floated out the idea to build a desalinization plant at
Puerto Penasco. Damn, there goes the peace and quite at Ajo.

 

[Don Y]

On 8/28/2022 3:49 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 08/28/2022 03:09 PM, Don Y wrote:
Generation *tends* to be reasonably well distributed, here. E.g., nearby,
we have hydro from the Hoover dam, a local nuke, gas-fired plants, etc.
And, of course, tie-ins to other regions to help deal with peaks and
surpluses.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/us/hoover-dam-hydropower-drought-climate/index.html

https://www.circleofblue.org/2022/world/what-happens-if-glen-canyon-dams-power-shuts-off/

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2022-05-08/arizona-nuclear-plant-seeking-alternative-source-of-water

I think dead pool affects the Navajo nation and places like Vegas, most -- at
least in terms of electricity generation.

The bigger problem is just *water*; you can move electricity around the country
with considerably less difficulty than moving water!

It won\'t be the first time the desert southwest had a problem. Whoever built
the extensive irrigation network at Casa Grande was long gone when Father Kino
got there.

I see someone floated out the idea to build a desalinization plant at Puerto
Penasco. Damn, there goes the peace and quite at Ajo.

Unfortunately, water is (too) cheap. So, the economics look wrong.
What needs to happen is the real value of water has to be reflected in
its price; *then*, the cost of a desalinization plant isn\'t as unrealistic.

Ideally, a solar farm could power the plant -- oversized to produce
water only during daylight hours (when solar power is available).

[water can be easily stored for use when needed -- much easier than
electricity!]

 

[rbowman]

On 08/28/2022 05:08 PM, Don Y wrote:

I think dead pool affects the Navajo nation and places like Vegas, most
-- at
least in terms of electricity generation.

Two of the plants at Four Corners were retrofitted and are operational
but Navajoland has deeper problems:

https://www.indiancountryextension.org/how-are-navajo-people-getting-electricity-now

They may have regrets about not taking over the Navajo Generating
Station. That was a significant revenue source for the nation and even
moreso for the Hopi.

LV may be whistling past the graveyard. They haven\'t used their whole
yearly water allotment and so \'have water in the bank\'. That assumes
there is water in the bank.

 

[Don Y]

On 8/28/2022 7:50 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 08/28/2022 05:08 PM, Don Y wrote:
I think dead pool affects the Navajo nation and places like Vegas, most
-- at
least in terms of electricity generation.

Two of the plants at Four Corners were retrofitted and are operational but
Navajoland has deeper problems:

https://www.indiancountryextension.org/how-are-navajo-people-getting-electricity-now

Native Americans are essentially screwed, regardless.

It\'s puzzling ot see the money \"dropped\" in their casinos -- and
wonder where the profits are going?!

They may have regrets about not taking over the Navajo Generating Station. That
was a significant revenue source for the nation and even moreso for the Hopi.

I think it\'s coal fired and likely obsolescent in that regard.

And, the rez is so ... \"rural\" is an understatement! ... maybe
\"desolate\" would be a better adjective? You gotta wonder if they
have enough of \"the right people\" available proximate to the
facility -- along with outlying parts of the distribution network
(that would have to be supported).

LV may be whistling past the graveyard. They haven\'t used their whole yearly
water allotment and so \'have water in the bank\'. That assumes there is water in
the bank.

We opted to take our allotments and *bank* them \"locally\" -- so some gummit
\"bank manager\" can\'t change the rules before the actual \"withdrawal\".

I think NV/Vegas has taken big steps to reduce their consumption.
Can\'t make the same claim about California. I.e., I wouldn\'t be
banking on \"senior water rights\" to save my ass if the gummit
gets involved! (they *may* let you keep your share but likely
will have a big voice in how you *use* it!)

 

[Martin Brown]

On 28/08/2022 22:09, Don Y wrote:

On 8/28/2022 6:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 28/08/2022 11:10, Don Y wrote:
This perhaps requires some explanation too. Under more normal
circumstance you could enter into a fixed term fixed price contract
with your energy supplier for a period (1/2/3yr).

Do suppliers have monopolies over regions?  Is \"supply\" intended to mean
\"production AND distribution\"?

No it is completely insane. I actually buy my power from Scottish
Power who actually do have their own physical generating plant - but
the billing operation is entirely separate. A lot of the \"suppliers\"
are quite literally book keeping operations that own nothing at all.

So, why don\'t the energy producers \"do their own billing\"?

Government intervention - it was set up that way for reasons that must
have made sense to the ideological idiots that did it.

Do they not want the hassle?  Or, do they want the insertion of
a middle-man that can be on the hook for the cap overages?

The price cap is a fairly recent addition only dates back to 2017 they
had been able to rip off loyal customers for several decades since 1990.

E.g., here, the power is treated separately (in theory) than the
distribution network.  The wires to your home are likely owned by
a particular (regional) energy supplier (keeping in mind that
\"regions\" in the US are likely considerably larger).  But, the
power delivered to your home OVER those lines could, potentially,
come from another supplier (\"generator\").

The UK \"system\" such as it is was modelled on the US one I think.
Obvious failing is that making electricity is done in the north but
most consumption occurs in the south.

Generation *tends* to be reasonably well distributed, here.  E.g., nearby,
we have hydro from the Hoover dam, a local nuke, gas-fired plants, etc.
And, of course, tie-ins to other regions to help deal with peaks and
surpluses.

UK is a bit odd. NIMBYs down south have a lot of influence. The whole
country is run pretty much for the benefit of London and the SE.

If you failed to do this you would be put on standard variable rate
(which was a ripoff price). In addition if you remained loyal to
your regional supply company you were additionally penalised by a
roughly 30% premium.

Here, a region typically has a set of approved (gummit agency) \"tariffs\"
under which power can be delivered (speaking of electric, again).

So, a home that was \"all electric\" (incl electric heating/cooling)
would have a different tariff than a \"mixed utility\" (gas + electric)
home.  This, presumably, to account for the added cost of heating
via electricity vs. natural gas (or heating oil).

There is a discount for taking dual fuel from the same supplier but
that obviously isn\'t available to those of us not of the gas supply
network.

AFAIK, there are no suppliers of electricity AND natural gas, here.
They are treated as separate utilities and are local monoplies (at
least when it comes to transporting the fuel).

They aren\'t local monopolies here. You can buy your electricity off
anyone - even Electricity de France (aka EDF). One peculiarity of the
British system is that there is nothing we won\'t sell off.

About half of UK electricity supply is in foreign ownership and only one
major player (British Gas is still UK owned). Germany, France and Spain
state electricity companies own large chunks of our power generation
infrastructure (and repatriate the profits they make).

Water is a monopoly because the pipes don\'t go far enough to make a full
water grid. Big problem again because huge reservoirs and plenty of
rainfall in the North (intended for the steel works that closed) and dry
conditions and few reservoirs in the south where many people live. Add
to that lack of investment in Victorian pipework that now leaks like the
proverbial sieve and you have another disaster in a drought year like
this. It won\'t have to get much worse before they are trucking water in
tankers from North to South (already hosepipe bans etc).

The same is true of most utilities -- (wired) phone, CATV, etc.  Inet being
an exception.

[I think, here, that tariff has been retired.  Previously, it
would only have been available to you if your home was verified
to be \"all electric\" -- we have two in the immediate neighborhood.]

Businesses would typically have \"demand\" based tariffs where the
amount they pay is related to the *peak* demand they imposed
on the provider in a given period.  This leads to some amusing
load-shifting schemes -- like making vast quantities of *ice*
over night (when your usage is otherwise zero) to eliminate the
need to use refrigeration during the \"working hours\".

Businesses in the UK covers everything from a mom & pop shop up to a
multintional. The ultimate load dump for balancing is the chlor-alkali
plant in Runcorn which can absorb huge amounts of power at a moments
notice and so long as the cells are kept warm can accept any residual
power that the grid wants to dispose of. They get a preferential
interruptable tariff as do other high energy use businesses.

But, they have to be willing (capable) of having their supply vary greatly.
And, likely without notice.

Again a dodgy UK NHS practice by beancounters has been to put hospitals
onto cheaper interruptible tariffs on the assumption that it would never
happen. That looks like it could be a real mess this winter.

The industrial users did know what they were doing. Some bigger chemical
sites even had their own power stations which fed into the grid.

It\'s hard to come up with loads that fit that supply pattern.  E.g., the
typical \"give the utility control over a big residential user load\"
tariff manages HVAC as you can fudge the time you turn on (\"enable\")
that service without imposing too much inconvenience on the user.

They pretty much have to be big loads fairly close to supergrid network
nodes. There used to be several but they are getting fewer and fewer.

Rooftop solar, here, would be smarter to dump their excess power into
heating a swimming pool than to resell it to the utility (cuz you get
very little money for the *energy* you are producing AND have
constraints placed on your installation if you grid-tie)

UK feed in tariffs were once quite generous. Problem is at our high
latitude it isn\'t that much use in mid winter when you need heating.

The price cap was intended to bring the standard variable rate
closer to the contract rate and get rid of the loyalty premium
pricing. Basically nervous elderly were afraid to change suppliers
and so were being ripped off. Much like with insurance, mobile
phones and internet if you don\'t change suppliers every now and
thenm you get royally ripped off for being a loyal customer. The
\"price cap\" was supposed to sort this anomaly out.

It just *limits* the extent to which customers could be \"gouged\"...?

It stopped the practice where people (typically elderly pensioners)
too nervous to change supplier were being charged about 30% more than
everyone else. Customer loyalty was rewarded by paying much higher
prices. I have learnt that lesson well and remain serially disloyal.

The same is true of many \"providers\".  Stick with an insurance provider and
expect to pay more.  Stick with an employer and expect to have smaller
increases.  etc.

OTOH, bouncing around too much is likely a \"visible\" practice that would
merit some sort of response.

Generally they offer you more favourable terms provided you pick the
optimum gap between visits. Works for supermarket discount vouchers too.
We used to alternate between the four major brands leaving each one
unshopped in for just long enough to convince their computer we had
defected. If you reward serial disloyalty then so be it...

We are up around 30p/kWhr at the moment. It will be 50p from 1st Oct
(that is the effect of the latest announcement).

Factoring in all of the fees, taxes, surcharges, etc. we\'re at about
16c/KWHr
(and we are \"energy hogs\" with much of our consumption in the highest tier)

I was talking about base rate. There is another tier if you use more
than some threshold. We don\'t so I have no idea what that number is.

I am looking very seriously at solar panels for the roof because on
average we could be approximately self sufficient for electricity and
the payback time has halved in the past 6 months. Also with inflation
rising to >10% physical objects hold their value better.

The typical place for (residential) panels, here, is the roof.

But, roofs need to be serviced and replaced pretty regularly.
So, install panels, get inspected... remove panels, service
roof, reinstall panels, get inspected...

UK roofs are slate or clay/concrete pantiles typically lasting 100 years
or more. My roof failed in 2006 (and only because the roof gradient on
the north side of the house was too shallow for the type of tiles used).
They stayed wet in winter and freeze thaw did for them. It was built in
1890. I am a bit nervous about disturbing the roof to attach the solar
panels but no more than that.

[Roofs are meant to support (a little) weight, not cling to the
structure!]

My house is massively over engineered from the Victorian era. The beams
are all 4\"x12\" pitch pine or larger and about 18\" apart! Modern homes
are built of matchsticks by comparison.

We\'d thought of putting a row of panels on the south edge of the
house (past the outer wall) as a sort of awning.  This lets
the house act as a \"wind shade\".  But, then you\'re building a
structure where there is none (and it would interfere with
some of our citrus)

shrug>  If we really want to cut our electric consumption, then
we can just *cut* our consumption (more efficient HVAC, turn
off some of the computers, etc.)  There hasn\'t been enough
economic pressure to do so.

Once upon a time there was a relatively efficient Central
Electricity Generating Board that was a vertically integrated end to
end public utility company.

Were they a \"private corporation\"?  Or, \"state owned\"?

State owned - which is why they were smashed up and sold off.

Ah.  The gummit can\'t do anything right (gee, why are THEY responsible
for defending the nation??) so lets privatize... panacea (that doesn\'t
work, either!)

The rail network is even more hilarious. Same track different train
operators so that you can\'t catch just any train going from A to B you
have to get on one with the right operator to match your ticket.
(unless an emergency has been declared - too hot - leaves on line -
wrong sort of snow etc.)

They did the same for the water companies too which has now resulted
in post Brexit brown flag beaches (notably for this Bank Holiday
weekend) which are no longer safe to swim in because of raw sewage
discharge.

The opposite happened, here.  We used to be on a private well -- an
independant
water provider with locally sourced water.  City eventually took over
(bought)
their operation (by making it harder for them to comply with regulations,
etc.).

When I first moved to the village we were on sweet borehole water. Now
we are on the supply from Kielder (originally intended for steelworks).
It is one of the largest man made lakes in Europe so never runs dry.

They made power, moved it to where it was needed and sold it to
industry and consumers. There were minor regional differences in the
distribution end and differences in the mix of power plant in the
production side.eg. More hydro in Scotland.

But, presumably, you share a single grid so *where* the generation
occurs (and how) isn\'t important?  E.g., I don\'t get a discount
if I live next door to a nuke...

How can be since there are green only tariffs (where you pay more).
Likewise I prefer to buy my electricity from a supplier that does at
least in principle have vertical integration.

But the actual *wires* at your house are owned by *someone*.  The use
of those wires is \"rented\" to the company that is pushing power to you
(figuratively).  Other \"generators\" could similarly tie in to that
distribution network -- regardless of whether they are generating via
solar, wind, hydro, nuke, gas, etc.

Indeed. One other problem is that some wind farms are in remote areas
not well served by power networks so they have to pay for electricity
generated but not delivered to the grid. It is crazy!

But the vast majority of market entrants selling electricity to
consumers are little more than an office with a billing system.

There never was enough generating capacity in the South so two super
grid lines run N-S to shift power from where it is made in the North
(they put all the nasty dirty industry there) to London and the
South East where it is used.

But, presumably, the industries up north also represent a significant
\"load\"?

They did, but there aren\'t many of them left. The big aluminium
smelter and the Teesside steelworks both closed down about 5 years
ago. Last man standing of the really big electrical loads is Runcorn
chlor-alkali.

So, easier for those businesses to fold (or relocate) than the electric
utilities?

Typically they were sold off to multinationals who then closed them down
to help create an artificial market shortage. UK workers are by far the
cheapest and easiest to sack or make redundant in Europe.

No cap applies to businesses or industry so they are cross
subsidising their losses on domestic supply by usurious increase on
business users (this includes small bakeries on the high street).

Is there nothing equivalent to our \"tariff\" structure?  I.e., a fixed
pricing scheme approved by regulators and contractually binding to
consumers and producers?

Apart from the price cap for consumers no. It is like the wild west.
Electricity is worth whatever you have to pay for it.

Wow!  Here, a utility (phone, CATV, electric, etc.) is granted a
limited monopoly *constrained* by regulators.  If the costs of providing
increase more than the regulators will allow you to pass on (to consumers),
*you* go broke.

That\'s right as things stand there is nothing to prevent them charging
what they like. Competition was supposed to be good for consumers but it
has gone very very badly wrong during this recent period of volatile
pricing. The writing was on the wall when we came out of Covid lockdown
and the competition for LNG with China became fierce.

Of course, the regulators are trying to keep that from happening AND
keep you from \"getting too rich\" off of the CAPTIVE consumers.

One reason solar is fought so actively, here, is that providers
realize it gives customers alternatives.  E.g., conceivably,
a development could generate its own power (install panels
on every rooftop as part of the master plan and *pool* the
electricity).

That seems more than a bit myopic at your lower latitude.

I.e., one of the \"alphabet soup\" line items I mentioned pertains to cost
of fuels.  So, as natural gas prices rise, that portion of the power
generated by burning it is increased above the \"basic\" price per KWHr
to pass the cost on to the consumer (some of these factors are 8
decimals!)

There is almost no scope to do that since the gas turbines are mostly
running flat out to make electricity which is in short supply. They
nearly lost it completely during that very hot spell.

Gas is used as a \"peak demand\" tool.  Nuke, hydro, solar, etc. are expected
to carry the \"base\" load with gas fired up as needed (because it is easy to
bring on-line with short notice).

UK had a dash for gas (for electricity). The intention was to get rid of
the coal mines and with it the troublesome coal miners led by one Arthur
Scargill. Parts of the country where mining was once the main employer
have never recovered. It also made CO2 reductions look good for a while.

But, that\'s true in any market; I can withhold some or all of my
cabbages
from the market in the hope that cabbage prices will rise, making my
cabbages worth more.  OTOH, if I am selling *fewer* of them, I may end
up making less profit (as the cabbages not sold aren\'t worth anything!)

How often is this \"cap\" set/reset?  If it is a single figure, then,
presumably, more efficient firms can make more profit (by raising
their rates \"to the limit\" instead of \"to reflect their costs\")

It used to be adjusted every 6 months but too many of the resellers
have gone spectacularly bust in the last few months to hold them to that.

If *you* have contracted with reseller X and X goes broke, what happens
to your service?  The lights obviously stay on.  But, what sort of
\"surprise\" awaits when you later learn that Y has taken up your
contract (on different terms)?

You get dumped onto a whatever it is right now default tariff with some
other supplier. Snag is the other suppliers started refusing to take on
new customers (from failed suppliers) because they would lose money by
doing so. The government than had to act and de facto now owns one of
the companies that was \"too big to fail\". This is how it plays out:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/26/octopus-take-failed-avro-energy-stranded-customers-ofgem

Don\'t the \"providers\" fear that the demise of the middlemen will mean
the gummit/public will turn their attention on *them*?

Not really they are virtually untouchable.
Half of them are not even British owned!

I.e., it would seem like the right strategy would be to squeeze
the middlemen (stuck between \"caps\" and \"energy selling price\")
as much as possible (extracting maximum profit in their
\"selling price\") but just short of causing them to fail?

That is what raising the cap so much is meant to achieve. The problem is
that a large proportion of ordinary consumers cannot cope with their
annual energy bills doubling or more likely tripling (neither an
businesses except that have already seen tripling and looking at worse).

It is now reset every 3 months and before long I expect them to
abandon it altogether. The government is promising \"jam tomorrow\" -
they CBA to even put up a spokesperson on the day that Ofgem announced
this rise.

This is what one of the UK money saving gurus had to say on the BBC
shortly after the Ofgem announcement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-62685067

Our government CBA to do anything. Too busy electing their new leader.

(sigh)  It seems politicians are equally bad -- universally.
Perhaps we (the nations of the world) buy an island, someplace,
and AFTER A SINGLE TERM IN OFFICE, \"retire\" each politician to
said island where all of their needs will be forever met -- at
the consent of the previously governed (which can change on a whim)?

Plato I think it was said that anyone who wanted to be a politician
should be automatically debarred from standing for office. He favoured a
technocratic rota of experts who were obliged to serve a for one year.

https://iep.utm.edu/platopol/#H1

There don\'t appear to be any good options going forwards.


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 28/08/2022 15:58, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:04:58 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:


The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.
[snip]

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Most states in the US have one or more regulated utilities, which
agree to supply power and gas for a guaranteed return on investment.
That has worked well for about a century, but politicians and greenies
are working hard to break it.

That sounds very socialist to me. Why aren\'t they allowed to obtain the
full market value for the product that they are selling?

We get gas and electricity at home from PG&E, a regulated untilty.
Electricity is billed in tiers based on usage, about 10 cents/KWH for
a baseline amount, up to about 30 cents/KWH if you use a lot. Average
here is around 21 cents. We dip into the top tier now and then.

It was about the same in the UK last year before this massive gas price
hike (which is only partly due to the Ukrainian war). It had already
peaked high enough that major UK fertiliser plants shut down completely
for a while before Xmas threatening a short supply of CO2 (byproduct).

Luckily our climate near the coast is mild, 59F at 8 AM, so
gas+electric cost us maybe $150 a month. No a/c.

Our utility service is very reliable. If anything ever goes wrong,
worker-guys show up fast and free.

That used to be true of the previous infrastructure franchise that
covered my area. They did preventative maintenance in summer cutting
back trees that might foul the lines replacing poles that were rotting
through at the base etc. The new lot do none of that and have a replace
on fail policy which means when the wind blows hard large numbers of
poles (all roughly the same age) fall over like dominoes.

They are OK for sporadic events but completely useless at dealing with
major storm damage. Not even any good at providing accurate info to
their customers. Some of the field engineers they sent out to my village
were clueless desk jockeys with near zero fault finding ability. They
wouldn\'t take anybodies word for it that the entire village was off
supply because their system said it was \"on\".

A tree fell and sent a shock wave down the block, and our big feeder
wires pulled a fascia board off our cabin and all the power and cable
and phone wires fell. The little local utility was great. They kluged
a quick fix and came back twice more for the serious repair, no
charge.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lt38qw0yxrulr6v/AABtcYQNALQjZFqOfHV291dea?dl=0

The whole fiasco cost us about $400 to fix.

That happened in my village a few years ago. The offending tree landed
on my hedge. It still hasn\'t quite recovered. Impressively the three
wire platted round a steel hawser LT mains cable held the weight of the
tree (although it bent every pole in the village and ripped the
connectors off all the houses on the side it fell from. The poles are
now all banana shaped and marked \"do not climb - use cherry picker\"

Mains did go off but recovered. I have a photo somewhere of farmer with
chain saw cutting it through. The recoil when he broke through was
impressive (and dangerous to him). I wish I had videoed it.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Don Y]

On 8/29/2022 1:35 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

E.g., here, the power is treated separately (in theory) than the
distribution network. The wires to your home are likely owned by
a particular (regional) energy supplier (keeping in mind that
\"regions\" in the US are likely considerably larger). But, the
power delivered to your home OVER those lines could, potentially,
come from another supplier (\"generator\").

The UK \"system\" such as it is was modelled on the US one I think. Obvious
failing is that making electricity is done in the north but most consumption
occurs in the south.

Generation *tends* to be reasonably well distributed, here. E.g., nearby,
we have hydro from the Hoover dam, a local nuke, gas-fired plants, etc.
And, of course, tie-ins to other regions to help deal with peaks and
surpluses.

UK is a bit odd. NIMBYs down south have a lot of influence. The whole country
is run pretty much for the benefit of London and the SE.

I don\'t think that\'s any different, *anywhere*. :-/

A neighbor was griping about what he could and couldn\'t do on/with *HIS*
property. Another neighbor (of his) agreed -- straight faced -- commenting,
\"If I want to sell my (residential) property to a company that wants to
put up a MEAT RENDERING PLANT, I should be able to do so!\"

First neighbor\'s jaw snapped shut and he skulked away.

AFAIK, there are no suppliers of electricity AND natural gas, here.
They are treated as separate utilities and are local monoplies (at
least when it comes to transporting the fuel).

They aren\'t local monopolies here. You can buy your electricity off anyone -
even Electricity de France (aka EDF). One peculiarity of the British system is
that there is nothing we won\'t sell off.

I believe one can (or soon can) purchase electricity from a variety of
*generators*. But, the local \"distribution network\" is owned by a monopoly.
They have campaigned to set the tariffs in such a way that distribution
represents the lion\'s share of your cost. So, another \"generator\" can
only make a few pennies per KWHr from you as a customer; the lion\'s
share of the revenue comes from GETTING the power to your home.

[And, similarly, if you want to sell power back into the grid (cogeneration),
you\'ll only get pennies per KWHr -- despite your investment saving the
utility from having to make an investment in new generating capacity!]

About half of UK electricity supply is in foreign ownership and only one major
player (British Gas is still UK owned). Germany, France and Spain state
electricity companies own large chunks of our power generation infrastructure
(and repatriate the profits they make).

Water is a monopoly because the pipes don\'t go far enough to make a full water
grid. Big problem again because huge reservoirs and plenty of rainfall in the
North (intended for the steel works that closed) and dry conditions and few
reservoirs in the south where many people live. Add to that lack of investment
in Victorian pipework that now leaks like the proverbial sieve and you have
another disaster in a drought year like this. It won\'t have to get much worse
before they are trucking water in tankers from North to South (already hosepipe
bans etc).

There is an incentive for the local (municipal) water utility to maintain the
integrity of the distribution system as they can\'t just \"generate more water\".
Recently invested in installing smart meters so they can more accurately
monitor consumption (water meters are notoriously inaccurate).

Businesses in the UK covers everything from a mom & pop shop up to a
multintional. The ultimate load dump for balancing is the chlor-alkali plant
in Runcorn which can absorb huge amounts of power at a moments notice and so
long as the cells are kept warm can accept any residual power that the grid
wants to dispose of. They get a preferential interruptable tariff as do
other high energy use businesses.

But, they have to be willing (capable) of having their supply vary greatly.
And, likely without notice.

Again a dodgy UK NHS practice by beancounters has been to put hospitals onto
cheaper interruptible tariffs on the assumption that it would never happen.
That looks like it could be a real mess this winter.

Most (?) hospitals, here, have backup generators for *key* services.
The hallways might go dark but no surgeries would be interrupted.
One can readily see which electric outlets are \"uninterruptible\"
due to color coding -- even in the exam rooms! (cuz an outage
doesn\'t stop folks from coming through the ER doors!)

Rooftop solar, here, would be smarter to dump their excess power into
heating a swimming pool than to resell it to the utility (cuz you get
very little money for the *energy* you are producing AND have
constraints placed on your installation if you grid-tie)

UK feed in tariffs were once quite generous. Problem is at our high latitude it
isn\'t that much use in mid winter when you need heating.

Heat, here, would be from natural gas. Electric/heat pump tends to be
inefficient -- but there are incentives to encourage that. Sadly, virtually
none of the homes/businesses, here, take advantage of below grade construction
to capitalize on soil temperature consistency.

We\'re starting to look into ground sourced heat pumps as air sourced
are far less efficient. And, you only have to dig up the yard *once*...

The same is true of many \"providers\". Stick with an insurance provider and
expect to pay more. Stick with an employer and expect to have smaller
increases. etc.

OTOH, bouncing around too much is likely a \"visible\" practice that would
merit some sort of response.

Generally they offer you more favourable terms provided you pick the optimum
gap between visits. Works for supermarket discount vouchers too. We used to
alternate between the four major brands leaving each one unshopped in for just
long enough to convince their computer we had defected. If you reward serial
disloyalty then so be it...

Agreed. We tend not to shop \"coupons\" but watch to see who has the
best prices, overall.

We are also the sorts who have no problem visiting several stores
to obtain everything we want, rather than letting a \"loss-leader\"
coax us into doing all of our shopping at one place.

[Different stores also have different products so why should we
\"settle\" for the products that a single store chooses to offer]

We are up around 30p/kWhr at the moment. It will be 50p from 1st Oct (that
is the effect of the latest announcement).

Factoring in all of the fees, taxes, surcharges, etc. we\'re at about 16c/KWHr
(and we are \"energy hogs\" with much of our consumption in the highest tier)

I was talking about base rate. There is another tier if you use more than some
threshold. We don\'t so I have no idea what that number is.

About half of our consumption is in the highest (open-ended) tier.
So, our \"average rate\" is likely higher than many of our neighbors
who don\'t have the same \"constant\" loads as us.

I am looking very seriously at solar panels for the roof because on average
we could be approximately self sufficient for electricity and the payback
time has halved in the past 6 months. Also with inflation rising to >10%
physical objects hold their value better.

The typical place for (residential) panels, here, is the roof.

But, roofs need to be serviced and replaced pretty regularly.
So, install panels, get inspected... remove panels, service
roof, reinstall panels, get inspected...

UK roofs are slate or clay/concrete pantiles typically lasting 100 years or
more. My roof failed in 2006 (and only because the roof gradient on the north
side of the house was too shallow for the type of tiles used). They stayed wet
in winter and freeze thaw did for them. It was built in 1890. I am a bit
nervous about disturbing the roof to attach the solar panels but no more than
that.

The intense heat raises hell with roofs, here. Some folks have pitched
roofs with asphalt shingles (the sun eats them in short order). Some
have concrete tile (leaks seem to develop that aren\'t easily repairable as they
reside *under* the tiles and manifest in different locations than their
actual causes). Flat \"built up\" roofs are fairly common and need the most
maintenance (easy for organic matter to collect on the roof and trap water
which eventually causes the roof to fail in that spot -- hard to imagine
cluttering the roof with lots of support mechanisms wouldn\'t increase the
likelihood of stuff collecting around those supports!).

Our roof is over 30 years old -- likely a record! Most neighbors have
had theirs replaced once or twice in that time period. (I actively
maintain ours, on an annual basis)

Roofs are also not designed to support much weight as we don\'t have to worry
about snow loads (and rainwater runs off pretty quick).

[Roofs are meant to support (a little) weight, not cling to the
structure!]

My house is massively over engineered from the Victorian era. The beams are all
4\"x12\" pitch pine or larger and about 18\" apart! Modern homes are built of
matchsticks by comparison.

Typical construction is 16 inch centers. Here, they push that to 24 inch
(again, due to the lack of expected load). Exterior walls are invariably
masonry but interior construction (and roof) are timber.

They did the same for the water companies too which has now resulted in post
Brexit brown flag beaches (notably for this Bank Holiday weekend) which are
no longer safe to swim in because of raw sewage discharge.

The opposite happened, here. We used to be on a private well -- an independant
water provider with locally sourced water. City eventually took over (bought)
their operation (by making it harder for them to comply with regulations,
etc.).

When I first moved to the village we were on sweet borehole water. Now we are
on the supply from Kielder (originally intended for steelworks). It is one of
the largest man made lakes in Europe so never runs dry.

Our domestic water is ground sourced (municipal wells around town) supplemented
with water from the Central Arizona Project (man-made irrigation channel
that brings water from the colorado river to us). The CAP water has a bad
reputation so \"citizen\'s initiative\" mandated that it be \"treated\" before
being injected in the distribution system.

So, they let it seep into the ground in man-made catch basins. *Then*,
pump it out of the aquifer (adjacent to the catch basins... <rolls eyes>)

Is there nothing equivalent to our \"tariff\" structure? I.e., a fixed
pricing scheme approved by regulators and contractually binding to
consumers and producers?

Apart from the price cap for consumers no. It is like the wild west.
Electricity is worth whatever you have to pay for it.

Wow! Here, a utility (phone, CATV, electric, etc.) is granted a
limited monopoly *constrained* by regulators. If the costs of providing
increase more than the regulators will allow you to pass on (to consumers),
*you* go broke.

That\'s right as things stand there is nothing to prevent them charging what
they like. Competition was supposed to be good for consumers but it has gone
very very badly wrong during this recent period of volatile pricing. The
writing was on the wall when we came out of Covid lockdown and the competition
for LNG with China became fierce.

The regulators make a feeble attempt to protect consumers *and* guarantee
a \"fair rate of return\" to the utility. Of course, as with most things, here,
they rely on the utility to decide what\'s fair!

(E.g., the local phone company dumped excess profits into buying new vehicles
for all of their servicemen. \"Surely, we have to turn a profit on that
INVESTMENT?\" No one thinks to ask if they *needed* all new vehicles...)

Anyway, the tariffs include \"adjustments\" that allow the utility to
pass along some of the volatility in their suppliers to their customers.
So, adjustments for natural gas MARKET price increases, etc.

OTOH, if something disasterous happened (like a natural disaster
that caused lots of damage to their infrastructure), they would have
to ask for compensation to cover those costs -- arguing that they
shouldn\'t bear the RISKS (of doing business).

[Gee, I wish someone would cover *my* risks!]

Of course, the regulators are trying to keep that from happening AND
keep you from \"getting too rich\" off of the CAPTIVE consumers.

One reason solar is fought so actively, here, is that providers
realize it gives customers alternatives. E.g., conceivably,
a development could generate its own power (install panels
on every rooftop as part of the master plan and *pool* the
electricity).

That seems more than a bit myopic at your lower latitude.

Not at all! They don\'t want to lose their market.

Lately, they have been trying creative ways to take advantage
of the installation subsidies and have homewowners (effectively)
\"rent\" the equipment -- that they were able to purchase under
those subsidies.

Solar installers won\'t quote you a larger system than you \"need\"
as you aren\'t supposed ot be in the generation market!

Etc.

Gas is used as a \"peak demand\" tool. Nuke, hydro, solar, etc. are expected
to carry the \"base\" load with gas fired up as needed (because it is easy to
bring on-line with short notice).

UK had a dash for gas (for electricity). The intention was to get rid of the
coal mines and with it the troublesome coal miners led by one Arthur Scargill.
Parts of the country where mining was once the main employer have never
recovered. It also made CO2 reductions look good for a while.

Coal is obsolescent, here. The number of coal-fired plants has steadily
decreased. (I doubt any NEW plants have been built!) The writing is on
the wall and the powers that be are smart enough to not get caught throwing
money into a technology that will be increasingly under threat (from
politicians, regulators, environmentalists, etc.)

Coal MINING will be an export product. Until someone gets wise to the
fact that burning coal *elsewhere* is just as bad as burning it *here*
and takes (legislative) steps to shut that down.

Amusingly, many of the reddest states are the biggest \"green producers\".
(but don\'t tell them that! :> )

If *you* have contracted with reseller X and X goes broke, what happens
to your service? The lights obviously stay on. But, what sort of
\"surprise\" awaits when you later learn that Y has taken up your
contract (on different terms)?

You get dumped onto a whatever it is right now default tariff with some other
supplier. Snag is the other suppliers started refusing to take on new customers
(from failed suppliers) because they would lose money by doing so. The
government than had to act and de facto now owns one of the companies that was
\"too big to fail\". This is how it plays out:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/26/octopus-take-failed-avro-energy-stranded-customers-ofgem

<rolls eyes>

I.e., it would seem like the right strategy would be to squeeze
the middlemen (stuck between \"caps\" and \"energy selling price\")
as much as possible (extracting maximum profit in their
\"selling price\") but just short of causing them to fail?

That is what raising the cap so much is meant to achieve. The problem is that a
large proportion of ordinary consumers cannot cope with their annual energy
bills doubling or more likely tripling (neither an businesses except that have
already seen tripling and looking at worse).

But, this (recently) is an \"exceptional\" condition. Presumably, things will
settle down after the \"disturbance\" passes (?)

It is now reset every 3 months and before long I expect them to abandon it
altogether. The government is promising \"jam tomorrow\" - they CBA to even
put up a spokesperson on the day that Ofgem announced this rise.

This is what one of the UK money saving gurus had to say on the BBC shortly
after the Ofgem announcement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-62685067

Our government CBA to do anything. Too busy electing their new leader.

(sigh) It seems politicians are equally bad -- universally.
Perhaps we (the nations of the world) buy an island, someplace,
and AFTER A SINGLE TERM IN OFFICE, \"retire\" each politician to
said island where all of their needs will be forever met -- at
the consent of the previously governed (which can change on a whim)?

Plato I think it was said that anyone who wanted to be a politician should be
automatically debarred from standing for office. He favoured a technocratic
rota of experts who were obliged to serve a for one year.

https://iep.utm.edu/platopol/#H1

There don\'t appear to be any good options going forwards.

Make it unattractive to become one! E.g., pay very little, no pensions,
poor benefits, ban from certain jobs thereafter, require lots of invasive
disclosures, limit the amount of time you can be in \"public office\", etc.

It should be SERVICE to country, not self-enrichment!

Think of it like The Draft or Jury Duty -- something you DREAD but
can\'t get out of!

 

[Michael Kellett]

On 29/08/2022 09:51, Martin Brown wrote:

I\'ve snipped MB\'s absurd rant.

For non UK residents please allow me to apologise for for him. He seems
to rather have lost the plot and favour running the UK down rather than
bothering too much with facts.

I\'m sure most people will spot the political ranting easily enough but
I\'ll correct two of his errors that may not be obvious to all.

\"UK is a bit odd. NIMBYs down south have a lot of influence. The whole
country is run pretty much for the benefit of London and the SE. \"

This is why government spending in Scotland (North end of UK) is about
£2000 per person per year higher than in England. It has it\'s own
devolved administration but all the money comes from down south. (I live
in Scotland so speak of what I know.)


\"The UK \"system\" such as it is was modelled on the US one I think.
Obvious failing is that making electricity is done in the north but most
consumption occurs in the south.\"

It wasn\'t and it isn\'t.

The web site below has some useful maps showing where and what we
generate. Unsurprisingly the nukes are distributed around the coast, the
coal in the mid to north of England with a bit of hangover around
Edinburgh (because that\'s where the coal was to be found) and the gas
plants are centred somewhat further south (because that\'s where the
people are.)

https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-the-uk-generates-its-electricity/


MK (from SW Scotland, the UK isn\'t perfect but (IMHO) it\'s better than
the alternatives.)

 

[Ricky]

On Monday, August 29, 2022 at 4:51:29 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/08/2022 15:58, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:04:58 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:


The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.
[snip]

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Most states in the US have one or more regulated utilities, which
agree to supply power and gas for a guaranteed return on investment.
That has worked well for about a century, but politicians and greenies
are working hard to break it.
That sounds very socialist to me. Why aren\'t they allowed to obtain the
full market value for the product that they are selling?

Originally, there was no \"free\" market in energy. It was a series of local monopolies. Now that the various utilities have grown and interconnected, the generation and transmission of electricity has been deregulated. The local utilities are still regulated, with an allowed profit for distribution and billing, based on a return on the capital investment. It is not socialistic to allow regulated monopolies when that is the only practical solution. The state does not run the utility, they just limit the profits.

The local utilities obtain electricity through contracts with the suppliers, but often buying electricity on the spot market for peak needs. This works well until there are conflicting demands for generation, and political resistance to building more generation, such as in California. California is going through growing pains as they transition to renewable energy. They presently have enough solar generation that it dramatically impacts the power available through the day, creating the \"duck curve\". You can Google that.

We get gas and electricity at home from PG&E, a regulated untilty.
Electricity is billed in tiers based on usage, about 10 cents/KWH for
a baseline amount, up to about 30 cents/KWH if you use a lot. Average
here is around 21 cents. We dip into the top tier now and then.
It was about the same in the UK last year before this massive gas price
hike (which is only partly due to the Ukrainian war). It had already
peaked high enough that major UK fertiliser plants shut down completely
for a while before Xmas threatening a short supply of CO2 (byproduct).

The lack of a stable supply plays hell with prices.

Luckily our climate near the coast is mild, 59F at 8 AM, so
gas+electric cost us maybe $150 a month. No a/c.

Our utility service is very reliable. If anything ever goes wrong,
worker-guys show up fast and free.
That used to be true of the previous infrastructure franchise that
covered my area. They did preventative maintenance in summer cutting
back trees that might foul the lines replacing poles that were rotting
through at the base etc. The new lot do none of that and have a replace
on fail policy which means when the wind blows hard large numbers of
poles (all roughly the same age) fall over like dominoes.

Yeah, many places in the US had that problem 20 years ago. They learned and now are proactive about eliminating threats to the power grid.

They are OK for sporadic events but completely useless at dealing with
major storm damage. Not even any good at providing accurate info to
their customers. Some of the field engineers they sent out to my village
were clueless desk jockeys with near zero fault finding ability. They
wouldn\'t take anybodies word for it that the entire village was off
supply because their system said it was \"on\".

The UK seems to be sliding backwards. I also hear from many how the grid will never support BEV charging and how it will be impossible to install charging points for street parking. Sorry to see this happen to the UK. You guys used to be at the forefront of modern life.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[server]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2022 09:51:19 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 28/08/2022 15:58, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:04:58 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:


The spineless and toothless UK regulator Offgem is as much use as a
chocolate fireguard.
[snip]

I would hope that you don\'t have anything like it. Although the Enron
scam failure suggests that you probably do in some fashion but that it
is geared to ensuring that suppliers can price gouge their customers.

Most states in the US have one or more regulated utilities, which
agree to supply power and gas for a guaranteed return on investment.
That has worked well for about a century, but politicians and greenies
are working hard to break it.

That sounds very socialist to me. Why aren\'t they allowed to obtain the
full market value for the product that they are selling?

It was recognized that some public services were fundamentally
monopolies, like the roads and the army, so the regulated,
guaranteed-return public service was invented.

The end-user price is probably similar to what it would be with
multiple competing providers, and likely less. It wouldn\'t make sense
to have competing power lines and water and sewer pipes.

Telecom/internet does now make sense to have competition, and that
drives down prices and profit.

We get gas and electricity at home from PG&E, a regulated untilty.
Electricity is billed in tiers based on usage, about 10 cents/KWH for
a baseline amount, up to about 30 cents/KWH if you use a lot. Average
here is around 21 cents. We dip into the top tier now and then.

It was about the same in the UK last year before this massive gas price
hike (which is only partly due to the Ukrainian war). It had already
peaked high enough that major UK fertiliser plants shut down completely
for a while before Xmas threatening a short supply of CO2 (byproduct).

Luckily our climate near the coast is mild, 59F at 8 AM, so
gas+electric cost us maybe $150 a month. No a/c.

Our utility service is very reliable. If anything ever goes wrong,
worker-guys show up fast and free.

That used to be true of the previous infrastructure franchise that
covered my area. They did preventative maintenance in summer cutting
back trees that might foul the lines replacing poles that were rotting
through at the base etc. The new lot do none of that and have a replace
on fail policy which means when the wind blows hard large numbers of
poles (all roughly the same age) fall over like dominoes.

They are OK for sporadic events but completely useless at dealing with
major storm damage. Not even any good at providing accurate info to
their customers. Some of the field engineers they sent out to my village
were clueless desk jockeys with near zero fault finding ability. They
wouldn\'t take anybodies word for it that the entire village was off
supply because their system said it was \"on\".

A tree fell and sent a shock wave down the block, and our big feeder
wires pulled a fascia board off our cabin and all the power and cable
and phone wires fell. The little local utility was great. They kluged
a quick fix and came back twice more for the serious repair, no
charge.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lt38qw0yxrulr6v/AABtcYQNALQjZFqOfHV291dea?dl=0

The whole fiasco cost us about $400 to fix.

That happened in my village a few years ago. The offending tree landed
on my hedge. It still hasn\'t quite recovered. Impressively the three
wire platted round a steel hawser LT mains cable held the weight of the
tree (although it bent every pole in the village and ripped the
connectors off all the houses on the side it fell from. The poles are
now all banana shaped and marked \"do not climb - use cherry picker\"

Mains did go off but recovered. I have a photo somewhere of farmer with
chain saw cutting it through. The recoil when he broke through was
impressive (and dangerous to him). I wish I had videoed it.

The cabin crash dumped all the wires on or near the ground but we
miraculously didn\'t lose power. A neighbor saw the mess, called TDPUD,
and they came out right away and did the rope kluge then emailed me
about it. Later they worked with the wood repair guys to do it right.
Great guys. All the services in Truckee are great; I think a lot of
people are glad to have a job up there.

There was also a POTS pair, which hasn\'t been used in decades, so I
tied that off to a tree about halfway to the street.

The cable/internet coax ripped, and I fixed that myself. Have I ever
mentioned what garbage the F connector is?

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 12:27:36 AM UTC+10, Ricky wrote:

On Monday, August 29, 2022 at 4:51:29 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 28/08/2022 15:58, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:04:58 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

The local utilities obtain electricity through contracts with the suppliers, but often buying electricity on the spot market for peak needs. This works well until there are conflicting demands for generation, and political resistance to building more generation, such as in California. California is going through growing pains as they transition to renewable energy. They presently have enough solar generation that it dramatically impacts the power available through the day, creating the \"duck curve\". You can Google that.

That actually represents an opportunity for somebody to invest in a grid scale battery, buy up power when it is cheap (when the sun is shining) and sell it back for more money when it isn\'t.

About half of Elon Musks grid battery in South Australia is devoted to doing just that, and it makes about $A5 million per year

https://hornsdalepowerreserve.com.au/

The other half is devoted to very short term corrections, keeping the waveform clean and the phase correct, which makes about ten times more.

California seems to be short of entrepreneurs.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2022 00:40:15 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

On 8/28/2022 7:50 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 08/28/2022 05:08 PM, Don Y wrote:
I think dead pool affects the Navajo nation and places like Vegas, most
-- at
least in terms of electricity generation.

Two of the plants at Four Corners were retrofitted and are operational but
Navajoland has deeper problems:

https://www.indiancountryextension.org/how-are-navajo-people-getting-electricity-now

Native Americans are essentially screwed, regardless.

They now have houses, farms, trucks, horses, guns, medicine,
universities, written language, internet, and no more tribal warfare.

Not many seem to be returning to their pre-Columbian lifestyles.