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Failed to connect to MySQL: (1203) User howardkn already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connectionsPath: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: john larkin Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: energy in UK Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2025 16:17:45 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 96 Message-ID: References: <6cblvjtuqq506j5l5uvvrkvcvj549klff8@4ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2025 01:12:04 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="3240ae1006d51c5875da549cbb5669ce"; logging-data="817928"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+PvVAAi3Ui097jypW6Dgrn" User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 Cancel-Lock: sha1:M/QS99+YrIpsxVbZkYP7VeJbJ1o= 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.