@saz

It is an aroTHERM plus according to the label. VWL 75/6 A 230V S2

@transparent 

Hi there.  We are lucky are in some ways where we live, we have unusually high amounts of good light here which will definitely help with the PV generation.  We also have a large number of(and increasing all the time) wind farms both on and offshore.  I did read somewhere that the government are going to try and encourage businesses to move up here due to the huge amounts of available electricity.  We do generate more than we could ever use from here and up, and have the problem of getting the electricity to where it is actually needed.  

I am a little dismayed as to the price increases.  I understand the wholesale price of gas has gone through the roof, but we have been on green energy only tariffs for years now, so why has our bill increased?  I still haven't had a reasonable answer on this.  The price of the energy from wind farms is generally set when the wind farm is built so a set number of years.  Orsted have done a great job of driving the price of wind farm construction down over the past 8 years.  Hopefully I will get an answer one day.  

Posted by: @derek-m

Personally I feel that standing charges for both electricity and gas should be abolished and the costs incorporated into the unit tariff price.

Come now, Derek, but then the owners of the utility companies would not be sure that their fixed costs would be covered and you can't expect capitalists to risk their capital, can you? 🤡 

Posted by: @mjr

Posted by: @derek-m

Personally I feel that standing charges for both electricity and gas should be abolished and the costs incorporated into the unit tariff price.

Come now, Derek, but then the owners of the utility companies would not be sure that their fixed costs would be covered and you can't expect capitalists to risk their capital, can you? 🤡 

You don't expect a capitalist to risk their own capital do you? It is invariably the capital of the shareholders or preferably the taxpayers. 😢

On BBC News today there was some expert stating that the costs of generation from nuclear is in the region of £100 to £125 per MWh, and for some of the later wind farms as low as £25 per MWh. So that would give a kWh cost of 10p to 12.5p for Nuclear and 2.5p for wind.

Whilst getting the electricity from the generator to the consumer will have a cost, where is the rest of the money going?

Posted by: @derek-m

Whilst getting the electricity from the generator to the consumer will have a cost, where is the rest of the money going?

If I tell you the answers to that, it will almost certainly provoke a follow-up letter to your MP!

So here goes...

Point 1. The historical background of the daily Standing Charge is that it has to support three organisations:

• Ofgem themselves (although I have no idea how much of their £90m/annum comes direct from HMG)
• National Grid, who run the Transmission Network (400kV and above), plus the links to directly-connected generation plants
• Your regional DNO, who run the four stages of the Distribution Grid, incl feeds from generation sites below 50MW (G99)

The Network charges differ for each region because it costs more to send electricity to the furthest reaches of the UK, such as SW England and Scotland.

Except that's no longer true. See here... and remember that @drew-pa is in NE Scotland

Posted by: @drew-pa

We do generate more than we could ever use from here and up, and have the problem of getting the electricity to where it is actually needed.  

The extremities of the Grid are rich in renewable energy.

There is so much that the Distribution transformers can't accept the 'reverse power', let alone pass it to the National Grid for the rest of the UK to use.

Whenever an area is rich in a commodity, industry has flocked there to use it. Think of the steel-making around Sheffield and the potteries of Staffordshire.

Posted by: @drew-pa

I did read somewhere that the government are going to try and encourage businesses to move up here due to the huge amounts of available electricity.

Except that isn't happening is it?

Ofgem has instead decided that the renewable-energy riches of the far-flung regions should be sent to SE England and Metropolitan areas. This needs £billions of infrastructure upgrades... for which Ofgem has increased the standing charges for the areas generating the energy.

This means that @drew-pa and his neighbours must now subsidise the plundering of Scotland's abundance of renewable-energy by Londoners! (I'm beginning to sound a bit like Nicola Sturgeon at this point!)

I have access to lots of data from my own DNO, Western Power Distribution (WPD). Have a look at this map showing the status of BSP and Primary transformers at the beginning of 2022

I've marked Fraddon BSP because it sits next to Indian Queens GSP, which is the furthest SW point of the 400kV National Grid. It is also the main link point for the Primary substations to which the large solar farms and onshore wind turbines are connected. Here's the current status of Fraddon BSP (April 2022)

So we have 60MVA transformer already operating at capacity in the forwards (Demand) direction.

The 'Reverse Power' capacity is half that - 30MVA

... of which WPD have accepted almost 150MVA of generation!

How the heck does that work?!

Well on a sunny/windy day, WPD tells the major generation sites to remove large quantities of lovely green renewable energy! It simply gets discarded.

Here is a summary of the relevant contractual clauses

I would expect a very similar situation occurs in NE Scotland.

My view, and probably that of @drew-pa too, is that if electricity users in SE England want to access these abundant sources of renewable electricity, either they should move to where it is, or else they should be paying for the infrastructure upgrades to get it.

Point 2. During 2021, a very large number of domestic Energy Suppliers went bust.

Ofgem guarantees continuity of supply. To achieve this they ask other Suppliers to take on the customers. The system is called Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR).

But the collapsed companies rapidly lose the staff who know the true status of those customer accounts, especially the ones in debt. So the SoLR companies rightly ask Ofgem to pay them for each customer who they take on. That fee covers the additional administration and losses.

To replenish the coffers from 2021's bailout, Ofgem are tapping into some of the Standing Charges. That accounts for the very steep rises we've just seen.

But, hang on a moment.... if that's so, then you'd expect the rises to be roughly equal across all DNO Regions of the UK, wouldn't you?

Why are the consumers in London & SE England not paying their full share of the Supplier losses for 2021? 😡 

Hi@transparent 

Thanks for the information, I must admit that I have been highlighting, for some time on the forum, that the rush to renewable's was being pushed through before the grid system had been updated to receive the power generated. I fully appreciate that this upgrade will have to be funded, but I still maintain that by putting the costs into the per unit price is not only a fairer method, but will also help encourage consumers to reduce demand.

My comment about the potentially large difference between the cost of generation, and the price paid by the consumers, was to question where are these additional costs being applied within the marketplace?

The alternative solution would be for homes in renewable-rich areas to install 14kWh+ storage batteries and run as much as possible 'off grid'.

That would result in a smoothing of the supply/demand curve, which in turn means that fewer infrastructure upgrades are required. The greatest part of the expenditure is to handle the peak flows. The average currents can be handled with relatively little grid enhancement.

... which means that the standing charges can be lowered again.

Ofgem have published a page with a breakdown of the increased charges for Spring '22

These charts combine gas and electricity usage for the 'average' house.

The dark grey segment, which has risen 39%, includes the SoLR levy as well as the operating costs for DNOs and National Grid.

The operating costs for the domestic Energy Suppliers like Octopus, OVO etc are in the darker orange band.

I have yet to discover what they refer to as 'Headroom' and why it is allocated a 59% increase.

Posted by: @transparent

The alternative solution would be for homes in renewable-rich areas to install 14kWh+ storage batteries and run as much as possible 'off grid'.

That would result in a smoothing of the supply/demand curve, which in turn means that fewer infrastructure upgrades are required. The greatest part of the expenditure is to handle the peak flows. The average currents can be handled with relatively little grid enhancement.

... which means that the standing charges can be lowered again.

Having worked for many years in the power generation industry, I fully agree that we should be doing as much as possible to reduce demand, particularly during peak periods. It would appear that some joined up thinking is starting to occur, since the government are now providing some incentives for energy efficiency measures and home solar PV installation, though this incentive is only available for battery storage, if it is installed along with solar PV. As far as I am aware there is no incentive to retrofit battery storage in homes that already have solar PV installed, which I feel is a mistake.

I am now contemplating installing a battery storage system, with or without incentive, even though our average electricity consumption is a whopping 4kWh per day, and during the Summer months can be as high as 1kWh on many days. My primary objective is to reduce our gas consumption, by running our A2A heap pump in a more consistent manner and for longer periods of time.

So I may need your assistance in deciding upon the correct equipment to meet my needs.

Hi @transparent

So if network costs have gone up 39%, why have standing charges gone up almost 100%?

I would be interested to see a breakdown of how they arrive at the wholesale figure.

Posted by: @derek-m

I would be interested to see a breakdown of how they arrive at the wholesale figure.

There are graphs on the same Ofgem page which show the wholesale prices for gas & electricity over the past 3 years. Here's the electric one:

Posted by: @derek-m

I am now contemplating installing a battery storage system, with or without incentive, even though our average electricity consumption is a whopping 4kWh per day, and during the Summer months can be as high as 1kWh on many days. My primary objective is to reduce our gas consumption, by running our A2A heap pump in a more consistent manner and for longer periods of time.

So I may need your assistance in deciding upon the correct equipment to meet my needs.

Great. As you can see over here in the topic about sharing battery costs, I'm very much 'on the case'.

My next import of LiFePO4 cells (15.6kWh) arrived at Felixstowe container port early this morning.

There are two different scenarios to consider here:

1. Technically-capable members of RHH using the guidance here to put together their own self-built storage battery, possibly with sufficient current available to operate a heat-pump
2. Creating the required technology, safety regulations and training for professional installers to fit similar systems widely across UK homes

I can obviously help with the former, provided I don't disclose aspects of commercial design and some of the data-sources I use. We must remain vigilant due to hostile actors who pose a constant threat to the UK's energy supply system.

I am working on the latter, which includes hardware/software R&D for some technology that doesn't yet exist. I am not in favour of the direction being taken by major Energy Supply companies, who are creating products/services which 'lock in' customers to their solution.

Next, I am dismayed by the poor quality of recent HP installations. This is helping to better inform me of the required training, regulatory controls, inspections and certification which will be required for installers of hybrid off-grid storage. That will, in turn, impact on the cost of future 'professional installations'.

As you'll have noticed by now, I'm not starting from the viewpoint of a typical householder facing escalating energy costs. That's extremely important, but I've spent the last 3 years looking at the actual data behind the overall electricity supply system. It's important that we work with the DNOs rather than ignore their RIIO-ED2 obligations, and that the storage technology is firmly founded on the Demand Side Response strategy laid down in 2013 by the coalition government. Thus Smart Meters are at the heart of this, rather than proprietary command protocols sent across the internet.

The levels of storage we're discussing here need to remain effective in the event of an internet outage or cyber attack. If not, then we threaten the integrity of the grid.