A big week for energy – but we need radical changes

I couldn’t agree with you more Malcolm. I think Which? are behaving as badly as a populist tabloid with this kind of campaign. We need hard detailed facts and, furthermore, it needs a proper proposal on who should pay for the green initiatives that apparently cost so much.
The impact of fracking on prices in the USA has been dramatic and yet the green lobby are up in arms about it. What could fracking reserves do to supply and pricing here?

Simply telling the Government to bring prices down is straight out of Ed Milliband’s speak. No plans, no costings, no facts.

Some of the BIG 6 energy company responses were quite reasonable. You cannot expect prices to come down whilst paying for expensive green energy and also guaranteeing supply.
Prices NEVER went down when the whole industry was nationalised.

hi folks
Not quite what you are talking about but still needs addressing STANDING CHARGES
What’s the point of spending all this money on insulation condensing boilers also teaching us to save energy be it gas or electric in our homes and so cut our bill
all to be cancelled out by outrageous standing charges That are quickly adjusted to counterbalanced any savings we make
So my message is quite simple first you at which should take this matter up and of course our Government leaders stop waffling about and actually do something now to ease this winters bills

” The government says that with increasing “self-consumption”, the income for conventional energy systems will decrease, but grid maintenance will cost the same.

“If I produce my own energy, but am connected to the grid, having the backup in case my production fails, I have to contribute to the cost of the entire system,” says Energy Secretary Alberto Nadal.

The government is hoping the energy reform will settle a debt of 26bn euros (£22bn; $35bn), which has built up over years as a result of regulating energy costs and prices. ”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24272061

So the Spanish government thinks people DO need to pay for grid access even if they use little or no power. So you are going to have to pay to be connected !! Gosh ! How wrong is that!

And apparently if as a Government you manipulate the market you end up with debts that at some stage need to be paid.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. It’s like buying insurance. If you don’t want to pay, have a stand alone system with batteries or a diesel CHP generator for dull windless days. If the heat from the generator feeds a heat pump, then the system is very cheap indeed to run.

Of course as long as grid connected companies have to pay for energy, the solution is to have excess capacity, so the exported electricity pays for the grid back up. This does put the process back in the economic system and in some legislatures subject to taxation, but in others consumers can have meters that read backwards, so days of export can balance out days of import.

PV seems to be subject to a Moore’s Law. This will mean a time will come when it is the cheapest option. In addition, recent research has suggested a battery technology with the power to weight ratio of petrol.
http://phys.org/news/2013-10-nanotechnology-boost-next-generation-batteries.html
Not sure what it will cost, but this could change things again. There could be a future where only heavy industry is connected to an electricity grid. Everyone else will get their own energy from the environment.

Its nice to see someone else reading Phys.org : )

I think in due course it may well be that technology allows for distributed micro-generation and it is just feasible it will occur before I die. There is an Italian company quoted on AIM – ACTA that even now is selling commercial solar to hydrogen power units to run devices such as transmitter towers and scooters.

Hydrogen generation is the basis for much research as electricity will never be the optimal solution for many requirements. And of course where industrial amounts of electricity are required a grid system will be needed so that data centres, smelting, and malls and offices can function.

Divorcing the public from the connection between supply and distribution costs, and generation costs of electricity does no one any favours in the transparency stakes. That there is a standing charge for connection common to all tariffs would provide the greatest transparency but there seems to be a feeling from some quarters that hiding it within a single unit price is preferable.

The problem with hydrogen is the safety overhead. To make it as safe as diesel oil one has to add cost and weight, although metal hydrides may offer a solution. Another possibility is capturing water vapour and carbon dioxide from the air and using solar energy to make a hydrocarbon fuel by a physical process other than by growing and harvesting something. But this requires reliable and strong sunshine.