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Energy Bills

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  • Rob7Lee said:
    bobmunro said:
    Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit. 
    It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.   
    Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
    battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity. 
    i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks 
  • Clever bloke MsAA was talking says he turned his heating right down last year and used an electric blanket to keep himself warm. Had a tiny bill compared to years before. Probably doesn’t make sense for a family of three or more. 
  • seth plum said:
    Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing?
    I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil?
    Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
    It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
  • DOUCHER said:
    Rob7Lee said:
    bobmunro said:
    Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit. 
    It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.   
    Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
    battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity. 
    i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks 
    Reliably informed by who?
  • MrWalker said:
    DOUCHER said:
    Rob7Lee said:
    bobmunro said:
    Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit. 
    It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.   
    Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
    battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity. 
    i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks 
    Reliably informed by who?
    a bloke down the pub (although tbf he was reliably informed by his best mate who is a city trader and has lumped on it in a big way)
  • Good enough for me.
    Just got my portfolio manager to sell Shell and lump on Siemens Green Energy.
    Cheers
  • DOUCHER said:
    Rob7Lee said:
    bobmunro said:
    Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit. 
    It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.   
    Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
    battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity. 
    i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks 
    Hydrogen for planes and sports cars. Electric for everything else.
  • edited August 2022
    seth plum said:
    Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing?
    I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil?
    Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
    It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
    It's a good plan but from issuing the license to actually producing any gas or oil normally takes 28 YEARS.
  • I wouldn’t feel too sorry for these developers.

    https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/redrow-record-strong-first-half-23063399

    Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard. 
    Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think. 

    My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention. 

    Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help. 
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  • Huskaris said:
    I wouldn’t feel too sorry for these developers.

    https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/redrow-record-strong-first-half-23063399

    Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard. 
    Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think. 

    My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention. 

    Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help. 
    Yup.

    Why won't these scumbag developers make more cheap housing?

    Why won't these scumbag developers put solar panels on everything?

    I know we are writing the Communist manifesto in here and that's brilliant because it hopefully keeps it off the rest of the forum, but it's largely, to quote Chris Morris, ill informed and pig ignorant. .

    Something does need to be done, but expecting developers to just magic up the solution without increasing the cost is a typical example, of which there are many, where those on the left have no concept of money, which is probably no coincidental thing. 
    Recent events have proved that money grows on trees. With that as the concept of money, it should be easy to fix things!
  • Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
  • Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
    Agree.  I read an article yesterday about the Greenland ice sheet.  Regardless of what is done now, we’re past the point of people able to stop that having an impact on rising sea levels.

    The west and east Antarctic ice sheets are now the ones to watch.  Unfortunately, I believe that we’re already seeing disasters on a cataclysmic scale, but no outside of Pakistan and those affected by the flash floods cares enough.  All that’s going to happen is that as a race, we’ll do more to look after ourselves to the point that the rich and the powerful will simply take what they need and to hell with the rest of it.  

    As land gets subsumed by rising tides, those that can will do what they can with dwindling resources in terms of food, energy and water to save themselves, and wider society will break down as we know it.  I also understand that the rate at which the planet is heating up will speed all of this up, so I expect to see this breakdown sooner rather than later.

    Short of some sort of alien race magically appearing and taking control of the planet and governing us, this is the beginning of the end of our race imo - Might come across as too gloomy and hyper exaggeration, but we’re done for 
  • AndyG said:
    Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/uk-scraps-zero-carbon-home-target
    Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years. 
    This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
    @Huskaris

    Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post 

    Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.

    Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?

    Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)


    I agree with your sentiment totally. Although your on thin ground with you Welsh Government question as tbh they are lol
  • AndyG said:
    Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/uk-scraps-zero-carbon-home-target
    Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years. 
    This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
    @Huskaris

    Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post 

    Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.

    Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?

    Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)


    Before I had a new gas boiler installed I looked at heat pumps and spoke to 3 people who had them (air source), put me off totally. It may be more efficient/better for the environment but they don't work particularly well, especially in deepest darkest winter when you really need them, 2 of the three said they hadn't saved much cost either, one thought it may be dearer!
  • cabbles said:
    Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
    Agree.  I read an article yesterday about the Greenland ice sheet.  Regardless of what is done now, we’re past the point of people able to stop that having an impact on rising sea levels.

    The west and east Antarctic ice sheets are now the ones to watch.  Unfortunately, I believe that we’re already seeing disasters on a cataclysmic scale, but no outside of Pakistan and those affected by the flash floods cares enough.  All that’s going to happen is that as a race, we’ll do more to look after ourselves to the point that the rich and the powerful will simply take what they need and to hell with the rest of it.  

    As land gets subsumed by rising tides, those that can will do what they can with dwindling resources in terms of food, energy and water to save themselves, and wider society will break down as we know it.  I also understand that the rate at which the planet is heating up will speed all of this up, so I expect to see this breakdown sooner rather than later.

    Short of some sort of alien race magically appearing and taking control of the planet and governing us, this is the beginning of the end of our race imo - Might come across as too gloomy and hyper exaggeration, but we’re done for 
    Pessimistic, but at least you are facing the scale of the challenge ahead of humanity 
  • edited August 2022
    AndyG said:
    Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/uk-scraps-zero-carbon-home-target
    Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years. 
    This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
    @Huskaris

    Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post 

    Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.

    Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?

    Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)


    Hey mate, I'm glad your obsession with me isn't abating at all. You make me feel special. 

    I'm just talking about pricing and expectations. Re-read what I wrote and it should go into even the densest of heads.

    We aren't disagreeing at all, well, you are choosing to, but apart from that, we aren't. 

    As long as you are happy with people that currently can't get on the housing ladder, having even higher cash requirements to be able to get on the housing ladder, I'm all cool with that, I'm guessing you aren't on the ladder already otherwise your argument around pricing would come across as ignorant to the extent of being an evil Tory. 

    And as a side note, yes, the Welsh government are a bunch of lefties with no clue about money.
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  • Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
    blimey - and there was me concerned there wasn't enough focus on bringing a striker through the door 
  • edited August 2022
    Rothko said:
    BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall 
    I don't remember anyone saying they were wrong.
  • Huskaris said:
    Rothko said:
    BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall 
    I don't remember anyone saying they were wrong.
    I didn't say anyone did, people were happy to complain about the tactics
  • Rothko said:
    seth plum said:
    Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing?
    I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil?
    Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
    It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
    drill all you like, you won't get to anything within a year, and it all gets sold on the global market, not directly to the UK, so at the prices still stay high. 

    You need to decouple gas from the electric prices, and allow on shore wind and invest in insulating homes, as that's the quickest way to get supply and manage demand. 
    Completely agree with this. Gas and oil are fungible commodity. It's price is set worldwide so as Rothko says it won't make a difference to prices but conceivably may make a marginal difference to supply resiliance. 

    I wonder at what percentage point electricity prices are decoupled from gas (I think about 40% of electricity is currently generated from gas) and who decides. Anyone know? 

  • edited August 2022
    Rothko said:
    Huskaris said:
    Rothko said:
    BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall 
    I don't remember anyone saying they were wrong.
    I didn't say anyone did, people were happy to complain about the tactics
    Well you strongly implied it, but leaving that to one side, as someone who fully believes in climate change, arseholes like that are the biggest harm to the cause. 

    It's the same with many causes, often the strongest advocates are the ones who drive people away. Many things I agree with leave me totally alienated by the obnoxious arseholes who define their life by the cause.
  • edited August 2022
    Everyone is going to have to move away from oil and gas to heat their homes anyway, so to not start that process now, with all the new homes being built is very short sighted.  Much easier to put in renewable sources whilst a property is being built, than to have to install them in 10 years time.

    The climate emergency is here now and we can't keep kicking the can down the road.  Every part of the world is experiencing extreme conditions right now and it will only accelerate in the next few years.

    I have little sympathy with developers, they are in cahoots with the Government and when they apply for planning permission almost always try to reduce the number of affordable properties and get their way with fewer environmental and infrastructure mitigations so they can make more profit.


  • edited August 2022
    This is another very enlightening thread from Richard Murphy, who explains why the idea that borrowing now will saddle future generations with debt, is false.

    It is often said that if the government borrows we, as a generation, will leave debt for our grandchildren to repay. This, however, is wrong. The belief is based on a number of falsehoods, which are compounded to create a myth that both facts and history contradict. A thread….

    — Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) August 30, 2022
  • This is another very enlightening thread from Richard Murphy, who explains why the idea that borrowing now will saddle future generations with debt, is false.

    It is often said that if the government borrows we, as a generation, will leave debt for our grandchildren to repay. This, however, is wrong. The belief is based on a number of falsehoods, which are compounded to create a myth that both facts and history contradict. A thread….

    — Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) August 30, 2022
    That's a pretty dreadful, one-sided article written by an accountant and not an economist (and it shows). 

    It's true that national banks can create money to pay off past borrowing and of course they do. It's not true that they can just do this as much as they want with no consequences. Otherwise we would have brilliantly funded public services and no taxes. In a low inflation, stable exonomy, there's quite a lot of leeway for a country like the UK, with a reasonably stable currency and an excellent record of paying its debts to create money. But too much and you trigger hyper-nflation and devalue the currency significantly. It's right that QE doesn't require payment by future generations of Govt debt - obviously as it is used primarily to actually buy back debt so that the BoE owns it. But Govt borrrowing (usually by issuing bonds) obviously does require repayment (or purchase) plus interest. 
  • Huskaris said:
    I wouldn’t feel too sorry for these developers.

    https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/redrow-record-strong-first-half-23063399

    Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard. 
    Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think. 

    My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention. 

    Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help. 
    Yup.

    Why won't these scumbag developers make more cheap housing?

    Why won't these scumbag developers put solar panels on everything?

    I know we are writing the Communist manifesto in here and that's brilliant because it hopefully keeps it off the rest of the forum, but it's largely, to quote Chris Morris, ill informed and pig ignorant. .

    Something does need to be done, but expecting developers to just magic up the solution without increasing the cost is a typical example, of which there are many, where those on the left have no concept of money, which is probably no coincidental thing. 
    The maximum solar currently allowed to be installed on a residential property is 4kw. AndyG said his company can supply and install this for under £4k. If he can do that at this price so can developers. If this cost is passed on to the house buyer without added profit that would mean that if someone was buying first time with a mortgage the deposit amount at 10% would go up £400 and the amount added to the loan would be £3,600.

    I have a 4kw Solar array on my house and make approximately £800 per year from electricity generated paid at £0.08 per kw. Which would make this worth while even if the amount received doesn’t go up as it should. If however you are at home in the day and can use this electricity instead of buying any in at £0.52 per kw you could potentially save £5,200 per year. Seems worth it to me, providing the developers only actually pass on the true cost.
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