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From: john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
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Subject: Re: energy in UK
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2025 16:17:45 -0700
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On Tue, 15 Apr 2025 21:04:37 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

>On 15/04/2025 01:43, Don Y wrote:
>> On 4/14/2025 3:58 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
>>> On 13/04/2025 06:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>> On 13/04/2025 4:16 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/10/uk_ai_energy_council_meets/
>>>
>>> They are on another planet. UK energy prices are sky high to the 
>>> extent that making steel profitable here is completely impossible.
>> 
>> What's "sky high"?  And, are residential and commercial/industrial
>> rates significantly different?
>
>Yes and in complicated ways. Residential tariffs are capped, ordinary 
>businesses are not but a handful of ultimate heavy use load balancing 
>centres get preferential rates on condition that they can get no 
>electricity at all. Think aluminium and fertiliser plants and choralkali 
>electrolysis. (I think the last aluminium plant in England has now shut)
>
>Increasingly the winter peak load in the UK is balanced by paying big 
>heavy industrial users to shut down or go to a standby condition! There 
>are even schemes to reward home users not to use power at peak times.
>
>Typical electricity prices in the UK are tightly coupled to the spot 
>price of natural gas in a totally crazy pricing structure. Electricity 
>in the UK is 2x the price on mainland Europe and 4x that in the US.
>
>It was sort of OK until the war in Ukraine started and Russian gas was 
>plentiful in Europe. We were pretty much screwed from that point because 
>we had almost no long term gas storage capacity with Rough closed down 
>(it was deliberately taken offline to save on maintenance costs).
>
>https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledgecentre/business/business/gas_price_spike/
>
>The price paid for wholesale electricity in the UK is determined by the 
>cost of generating the most expensive component needed to match demand 
>(so that they can make a profit). This is typically a fast response gas 
>turbine and all suppliers get paid in proportion to that high price.
>
>https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/02/25/its-time-to-change-uk-energy-pricing/
>
>The whole thing is rigged by Ofgem (the energy regulator) for the 
>benefit of the electricity producers and against their customers.
>
>At night the spot price for electricity can spike negative so that UK 
>battery farms like to put insanely big substations onto their batteries 
>to game the system (and so get paid handsomely for accepting power). 
>This does nothing for network stability.
>
>>> The UK has an insane imbalance between production of power in the 
>>> North and consumption of power in London and the South East. The main 
>>> cables running N-S are routinely overloaded during daytime during winter.
>> 
>> Why is NEW generation not brought on-line closer to the demand?
>
>Engineers have been warning about the problem for about 3 decades.
>
>https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/generation-gap/
>
>> Is this a NiMBY issue?  Or, a consequence of real-estate valuations?
>
>Partly a factor is that land prices are much lower in the north but also 
>it is a lot more windy. A Nimby in the south is worth 10 in the north.
>
>One option is to install large BESS systems near to the windfarms and 
>also near the major city loads. That way power can be moved overnight to 
>where it will be needed in the daytime. Only snag is that it is way more 
>profitable to build them in the north where land is so much cheaper.
>
>UK infrastructure configuration is determined by speculators.
>
>> Or, just a resistance to solving a problem (which then means you can't
>> CLAIM to be the one who WILL solve it -- if elected to do so)?
>
>UK national infrastructure has been privatised and robbed blind by 
>vulture capitalists since the 1980's. It isn't just electricity that is 
>problematic London's water supply was in dire danger of going bust too.
>
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555
>
>It is ultimately all about very clever financial engineering to load the 
>balance sheet with debt and pay handsome dividends to foreign owners.
>
>Penny wise and pound foolish for the the UK.

There will never be enough batteries to power even a tiny country like
the UK,  to keep people alive through a few weeks of cold, dark, still
weather.

People can keep warm by snuggling around burning lithium batteries.