@toodles it's like the saying goes:

In theory, theory and practice are the same;

In practice, they are different.

Im certain sodium-ion, solid state, quantum, organic, doo-dad-what-cher-ma-call-its will save us all.  Probably.

The V2G thing is real and gives a huge battery for next to no added cost, its only a problem of interoperability standards (don't laugh).

I think home batteries are now very inexpensive, £1000 will get you 16kWh from Aliexpress - I expect +shipping, £1400 all in price from fogstar in the uk.  Similarly, PV panels are now very inexpensive at around £80 for a 500W panel.  Of course, these prices do NOT include installation.  Installation labour costs generally dominate, and these costs are not going down any time soon in the UK.  

I'm not sure I'd call £1,400 "inexpensive", @robl, but I get  your point nonetheless. I'd be happy to settle for "a lot cheaper than they were"....

Posted by: @technogeek

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Posted by: @jeff

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Let's hope the costs don't escalate. 

😀 😀 that is almost guaranteed in the UK. This is one of the reasons why the UK is getting a reputation of being uninvestable. 

Well, these types of guaranteed investments with cfd are fine for investors that can get them. 🙂

One way to rationalise it is that there is a premium being paid to investors to offset the extreme uncertainty of the planning application regime?m

Posted by: @robl

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I think home batteries are now very inexpensive, £1000 will get you 16kWh from Aliexpress - I expect +shipping...

Of course, these prices do NOT include installation.  Installation labour costs generally dominate, and these costs are not going down any time soon in the UK.  

I agree and I posted about the fact battery prices are now much lower (and issues with Fogstar). 

But with all due respect, saying it would be due to labour costs is merging the huge cost of a mythical MCS monopoly (in name, perhaps..) with electrician/labour.  

@batpred I think the real issue being solved with CfDs is to give investors certainty, but it's more to do with competitive ROI than planning.

You can plop your funds into AI and make unlimited gains (just get out before the bubble bursts), or renewables and make a pittance, so where are you gonna go?

Bear in mind cheaper renewables substitute for gas generation, which reduces demand for imported gas, which not only makes electricity cheaper but domestic gas too, because without renewables we would be importing significantly more LNG.  So as a renewables investor you are subsidising other people, for an otherwise poor ROI.

Posted by: @scalextrix

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@batpred I think the real issue being solved with CfDs is to give investors certainty, but it's more to do with competitive ROI than planning.

You can plop your funds into AI and make unlimited gains (just get out before the bubble bursts), or renewables and make a pittance, so where are you gonna go?

Bear in mind cheaper renewables substitute for gas generation, which reduces demand for imported gas, which not only makes electricity cheaper but domestic gas too, because without renewables we would be importing significantly more LNG.  So as a renewables investor you are subsidising other people, for an otherwise poor ROI.

Interesting logic. 

We could also drill for more gas in the North Sea during the transition to net zero. 

This wouldn't necessarily reduce costs unless it was cheaper than LNG but it would dramatically reduce our contribution to CO2, would generate jobs in the UK, would generate taxes that could be ring fenced for net zero, further reducing the UK renewable energy transition costs.

https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/news-publications/north-sea-gas-is-almost-four-times-cleaner-than-lng-imports/#:~:text=The%20report%20shows%20that%20around,more%20carbon%20intensive%20gas%20imports.

@jeff I don't know about the costs, but I've heard with the global glut of oil production the North Sea reserves are fairly uneconomic to extract at the moment?

Gas is a different story perhaps as demand and prices are high and that could be worthwhile.  Certainly we need a just transition to renewables, it's real people and real jobs in oil & gas.

In any case even the most bullish predictions show we could meet just half of domestic demand from our own resources if we "drill baby drill", versus a third on our current trajectory. Offsetting one sixth of demand doesn't feel like a game changer, to me.

The best way seems to build electrification and invest for the long term, rather than pile money into what must become a bunch of stranded assets at some point fairly soon.

Posted by: @scalextrix

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... as a renewables investor you are subsidising other people, for an otherwise poor ROI.

ahem, a few thousand pounds of "investment", should not entitle me to wear an investor "hat"... 

You may mean the windfarms. As those investors have cfd guarantees, it may be enough to compensate them for the opportunity cost of leaving their money in them.. 

@batpred Some ‘investers’ have lost out when a wind farm project failed before fruition; I had investments in one such but claimed them back under a ‘section 75 claim’. Next summer, I may start to receive some returns on my Derril Water Solar Park investment.Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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@scalextrix What we need is much cheaper battery systems so that we may store sufficient energy during the times of lowest grid strain (which we buy at the cheapest rate of course), and this supplies our power needs for the rest of the day/night when the grid is under strain from other users. 

I will always be doing my bit on that. The cost of home batteries is now minimal, compared with the cost of MCS "monopoly" paperwork. 

Now seriously, I still believe the main challenge with most of the renewables in the UK is the dream of self sufficiency in all seasons. When the sun shines elsewhere, making sure that we can help use that power not just to help us cope in Jan/Feb, it is our duty to not waste electrons @transparent ?

I'm out in Italy and the current wholesale price of electricity here is ca. 11 or 12c per kWh. This is what I pay our supplier each month (monthly average wholesale price) plus network costs, taxes etc, and currently translates into a bill price of 26c to 29c or so per kWh.

There's a company here (an ENEL company) offering a 12 month fixed-rate deal of 8.6c per kWh, or ca. 20.5c bill price. Now, whenever I've seen these tempting fixed-rate deals my initial reaction is that the company must think the average kWh price over the course of the contract must be, in this case, 8.6c or below. Given the subject of this thread, does anyone think wholesale electricity prices are going to drop and remain a third cheaper than present over the course of the next 12 months?

A quick google brought up a few articles suggesting wholesale prices might stay stable or be slightly reduced from present. My fear is that the supplier is always going to win with a fixed rate deal, no?