Posted by: @tim441

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Interesting article on Interconnectors...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a552809abbf2e670

If Interconnectors stopped for any reason (political...energy demand in other countries.. or even Russia cutting them?)... we don't seem to have any backup or alternative to outages?

The problem is not particularly about 'interconnectors' which are merely a symptom, (or propaganda about 'Russians'), the problem is a privatised grid run for years as a source of profit with minimal investment. It's the same story with all our infrastructure in Britain. 

Of course, all you folks who can afford batteries &/or solar are mostly covered. However, most people aren't and as the grid system struggles (which would be happening whether we have renewable generators or not) they are going to pay through the nose for these political failures. This in turn will feed into the naysayers, rinse & repeat. 

The only likelihood of being able to mitigate any of this is community energy installations and P2P trading. But Britain is far behind on both of these scores. Sadly. 

Community energy installations are a great idea, but the public are made afraid by the press, so its unlikely to happen.

Hoping to be proven wrong!

@tim441 I have said it for years to accusations, even here of conspiracy and fear mongering.

Our supply is only as good as the next cycle.

Norway supplies us 40% of our Gas (used for generation) as well as Hydro.

I agree there are no contingency plans for disruption to Interconnects for whatever reason.

Our local council have 'warm spaces' set aside for people cold and struggling with bills, care homes relying on heating to maintain thd vulnerable.

2021, I made contact with a councillor involved with Welfare and highlighted the risks of prolonged Blackouts with no Plan B.

After he contact Ben Wallace MP who came back with the statement that Blackouts "were possible, but unlikely", I received a very snotty "have a great Christmas" reply from the councillor.

This risk is very real and contingency to a boiler operating in a power outage is a matter of having a battery or EV available to run it.

Apparently I'm nuts, but one day I will be proven correct and have kept copies of emails ready for and public enquiry investigating the deaths of care home residents during prolonged outages in Winter.

65kwh batteries here with generator and 5kwh stand alone charger available along with Propane to to run it if needed.

Seems Poland have put their citizens on 5hr availability of call-up today and swords are rattling louder.

@bontwoody I think it is a difference of consumption. I work with heavy users of energy where a minimum system comprises if 16kwh of batteries, usually 32kwh.

My mother is enjoying EDF Sunday Saver today and even batch cooking, washer and drying for herself and my sister with some additional heating would break 10kwh.

We're also on 16hrs free electricity today and currently with 3hrs to go, at over 110kwh taken for free.

Yes - we use a lot of Energy..

For us, it's either free from the roof, Sunday Saver or 12p per kwh at night.

I do not understand why there is no push into Air2Air as a cheaper alternative when I meet many looking at Heat Pumps to a conversation that the Heat Pump is dropped in favourable of Solar / Battery plus A2A instead.

The maths just do not add up on installations with no Solar, Batteries or subsidised Tariffs against a Gas boiler guaranteed to give heat on a very cold nights.

I'm all for going green but here, we buh cheap overnight and run A2A with boiler as back up.

4 nights last winter we used boiler. The rest was A2A saving us £100 per month.

Well.. EDF Sunday Saver..

So far today 116kwh with 3hrs to go.

Currently charging 6x 16kwh batteries at 5kw and unlikely to hit 100% even though the 90'C Solis has been at it since 8am this morning.

1x EV charge 

5x washes cycles

3x dryer cycles

3x dishwasher cycles

3x 80l Hot Water tanks 

5hrs A2A

5hrs Oil Heaters

Scheme just been extended into October so 100+kwh free every weekend for the next 8weeks.

@diverted-energy Big fan of A2A having lived through a couple of Maltese winters. 😁 I also have one in my kitchen which is large but no room for more radiators.

Definitely worth considering rather than A2W as long as blown air heating isn't a problem for you.

@diverted-energy sounds like good tariff for you. Octopus Intelligent Go works for us. It’s finding the right tariff for your usage and home systems.

@julianc Expressed as a flow diagram, I suspect one would require a VERY large sheet (or even roll?) of paper - there are just so many variables involved! Toodles.

Those of you on Agile will do well tomorrow; there are 31 HH’s at 10 pence per kWh or less (even a few negative HH’s! Toodles.

I haven't read in detail what was said. But Octopus, Eon, EDF are disagreeing with the government that electricity prices will fall as we move from gas to non fossil fuel electricity. 

Expensive regulation, high green subsidies (CfD etc), network upgrades.,,, 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/oct/15/britain-biggest-energy-supplier-octopus-bills-on-track-to-rise-by-fifth-in-next-four-years

Seems no confidence that the government has got it's figures right and that renewables are going to net out cheaper for the country as a whole. 

Be interesting to see who turns out to be correct. They can't both be right. 

It is hard to break out what the big drivers really are when I have tried to  look at the figures. There are a lot of high costs getting locked in with contracts for wind, solar, reactors, storage, network upgrades etc. 

Posted by: @jeff

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It is hard to break out what the big drivers really are when I have tried to  look at the figures.

As far as I can tell it's not really infrastructure upgrades to cope with renewables or recent CfDs that are driving the costs.

It's more the legacy renewables subsidies like Renewable Obligation, the cost burden of failed energy suppliers in the energy crisis, social policies like the ECO scheme that just wasted millions on external insulation that's failed, and the new warm homes discount.

I think the energy companies are trying to schock government out of the past easy solution of just loading more and more costs into electricity bills, at a time when we want everyone to move to electrification.  Of course this probably suits their business model too... 

Posted by: @scalextrix

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Posted by: @jeff

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It is hard to break out what the big drivers really are when I have tried to  look at the figures.

As far as I can tell it's not really infrastructure upgrades to cope with renewables or recent CfDs that are driving the costs.

It's more the legacy renewables subsidies like Renewable Obligation, the cost burden of failed energy suppliers in the energy crisis, social policies like the ECO scheme that just wasted millions on external insulation that's failed, and the new warm homes discount.

I think the energy companies are trying to schock government out of the past easy solution of just loading more and more costs into electricity bills, at a time when we want everyone to move to electrification.  Of course this probably suits their business model too... 

The failed energy supplier costs are in theory all off our bills now, but there are now regulatory costs involving the amount of capital Octopus etc have to have access to which some but not all suppliers are moaning about. 

The expensive ROCS for the early renewable generators start to disappear from 2027 and are all gone by 2037. They may even go earlier as some policital parties have said they would scrap them.

I am not so convinced as you about the indexed linked CfDs where we pay generators even if we don't need or can't store the electricity. Coupled with the network upgrades gradually added to our bills, index linked, and the increasing cost of capital in the UK.

We may also be about to get locked into high costs with the 77 shortlisted long duration storage projects and any that follow. The strike price of new reactors is higher than gas to give us some baseline power. 

There are a lot of additional costs coming in the next few years that may make the social policies look like peanuts. 

You may well be right, I just don't know.