Energy in public ownership
- Thread starter Markburke
- Start date
ThatFragranceGuy
Well-known member
question needs clarity
Generation? Supply?
How it happens?
The money is in generation, but people direct everything at supply as that's who the bill we pay goes to.
Because the money is in generation it won't be cheap to put into public ownership.
We've defacfo nationalised bulb since they went under and I think it cost just under £2bn for about 6 months and they have about 1.6m customers, so consider what the costs must be with the price rises since and the extra time that has passed and scale it up the rest of the customer base and the costs are massive and that is chasing the ofgem target of 1.9% allowed profit
Moving onto supply, you don't just say "we are nationalising you" to an entire industry, will cost billions and won't be without legal challenge.
Would be easier to nationalise forwards by start building new state owned assets immediately and fix planning for wind farms etc, incentivise insulation and micro generation and adoption of green technology.
Generation? Supply?
How it happens?
The money is in generation, but people direct everything at supply as that's who the bill we pay goes to.
Because the money is in generation it won't be cheap to put into public ownership.
We've defacfo nationalised bulb since they went under and I think it cost just under £2bn for about 6 months and they have about 1.6m customers, so consider what the costs must be with the price rises since and the extra time that has passed and scale it up the rest of the customer base and the costs are massive and that is chasing the ofgem target of 1.9% allowed profit
Moving onto supply, you don't just say "we are nationalising you" to an entire industry, will cost billions and won't be without legal challenge.
Would be easier to nationalise forwards by start building new state owned assets immediately and fix planning for wind farms etc, incentivise insulation and micro generation and adoption of green technology.
Acklam_Lad
Well-known member
Yea from me… the whole objective of privatisation was investment, and price competition…. Instead we have a big 6 basically controlling the market as a monopoly though ofgem… the one organisation meant to project the consumer
Whole lot wants taking back under nationalisation to protect an essential service
Whole lot wants taking back under nationalisation to protect an essential service
Quicksilvera
Well-known member
I believe anything that you need to survive should never been in private hands.
Anton_Berg
Well-known member
No preference.. But either way should be wholly UK owned.
junos_boots
Well-known member
Privatisation of companies has not fulfilled the promises that were made in the 80s and 90s. We were told that energy and water companies needed to be sold off to bring in money for investment from the private sector. This has clearly not happened in any major way, hence why sewage is still being pushed into the sea and we had to shut our gas storage facilities near Humberside (amongst other problems).
It is similar to building societies demutualising that turned into banks and would allow them to grow and be more successful due to private investment their members were told.
Not one of the demutualised building societies exists as a company that has not had to be rescued any more. Where as Nationwide that refused this route, still going strong.
It is similar to building societies demutualising that turned into banks and would allow them to grow and be more successful due to private investment their members were told.
Not one of the demutualised building societies exists as a company that has not had to be rescued any more. Where as Nationwide that refused this route, still going strong.
HarryVegas
Well-known member
Yes
Andy_W
Well-known member
Generation - yes (new only in UK territory, not buying existing on UK territory, and we can't do anything about those on foreign shores)
- Don't nationalise old existing supplies, as this is making massive profits currently, which likely won't last (more than a year or two), so we would end up paying more than its realistically worth (a little like the car market now, where cars a year old are selling more than cars you can order new, as demand for new cars can't meet supply). No body expects car prices to stay high, and used ones will end up crashing, the same will happen to energy prices/ company share prices/ values etc.
- It's often not cost-effective to be buying things which could become obsolete or nearing the end of life.
- Create loads of onshore and offshore wind power and solar, to eclipse what we use in fossil fuels (40%), this largely solves the cheap energy problem for the 90% of time they work well enough
- Create biomass, energy from waste, geothermal, pumped storage or other storage forms, tidal, hydro and nuclear plants to cover times of low output of Solar/ Wind, and sell off any excess to other nations through interconnections (or put into storage, assuming by the time this comes on line there will be some good energy storage options)
- If we built new, then we can force the prices down of the old we don't own, or make them obsolete.
- Can either be cheap to the end user, or largely profitable, whichever we choose, and we could alter that as we liked (this is extremely valuable)
- This has by far the greatest impact on bills (this is what is causing 90% of our problems)
Distribution - possibly not, maybe half and half
- Costly to buy out, and largely reliant on old infrastructure
- Any new infrastructure placed to be adopted (and maintained) by a publicly owned company, and leased to the distribution companies (temporarily).
- Currently, most new installations are paid for by the developers (i.e if you want to put up a building, you pay for all the new infrastructure to get to it) and this then gets given to the distributors for free, under adoption agreements. This happens with gas, water, electricity, telecom etc. They get given it for free, under the proviso they maintain it, but then they're billing us for the maintenance and use of it. This is throwing away free infrastructure, as there's nobody else to take ownership of it and maintain it (which is profitable)
- De-regulate this aspect, so people can create their own localised supplies, and not have to bend over for the local distribution companies (monopoly)
Supply - no, not now anyway
- Wouldn't be that costly to buy, but most years this makes a loss, and only now are they making a profit (which is a small margin), worst time to buy this out
Demand - yes
- Do what we can to reduce it, stop the sale of inefficient lights and other electrical equipment, promote insulation, ground/ air source heating, solar on new builds etc
- If we can cut down 10% at home, then that's basically enough energy to power 7m people's homes (probably saves needing another nuclear plant)
- Look to ban gas boilers/ hobs/ cookers, or incentivise away from their use
- Give people more money for putting energy back into the grid, getting 3p for what you put in, to pay 30p to get it back out is ludicrous
- Don't nationalise old existing supplies, as this is making massive profits currently, which likely won't last (more than a year or two), so we would end up paying more than its realistically worth (a little like the car market now, where cars a year old are selling more than cars you can order new, as demand for new cars can't meet supply). No body expects car prices to stay high, and used ones will end up crashing, the same will happen to energy prices/ company share prices/ values etc.
- It's often not cost-effective to be buying things which could become obsolete or nearing the end of life.
- Create loads of onshore and offshore wind power and solar, to eclipse what we use in fossil fuels (40%), this largely solves the cheap energy problem for the 90% of time they work well enough
- Create biomass, energy from waste, geothermal, pumped storage or other storage forms, tidal, hydro and nuclear plants to cover times of low output of Solar/ Wind, and sell off any excess to other nations through interconnections (or put into storage, assuming by the time this comes on line there will be some good energy storage options)
- If we built new, then we can force the prices down of the old we don't own, or make them obsolete.
- Can either be cheap to the end user, or largely profitable, whichever we choose, and we could alter that as we liked (this is extremely valuable)
- This has by far the greatest impact on bills (this is what is causing 90% of our problems)
Distribution - possibly not, maybe half and half
- Costly to buy out, and largely reliant on old infrastructure
- Any new infrastructure placed to be adopted (and maintained) by a publicly owned company, and leased to the distribution companies (temporarily).
- Currently, most new installations are paid for by the developers (i.e if you want to put up a building, you pay for all the new infrastructure to get to it) and this then gets given to the distributors for free, under adoption agreements. This happens with gas, water, electricity, telecom etc. They get given it for free, under the proviso they maintain it, but then they're billing us for the maintenance and use of it. This is throwing away free infrastructure, as there's nobody else to take ownership of it and maintain it (which is profitable)
- De-regulate this aspect, so people can create their own localised supplies, and not have to bend over for the local distribution companies (monopoly)
Supply - no, not now anyway
- Wouldn't be that costly to buy, but most years this makes a loss, and only now are they making a profit (which is a small margin), worst time to buy this out
Demand - yes
- Do what we can to reduce it, stop the sale of inefficient lights and other electrical equipment, promote insulation, ground/ air source heating, solar on new builds etc
- If we can cut down 10% at home, then that's basically enough energy to power 7m people's homes (probably saves needing another nuclear plant)
- Look to ban gas boilers/ hobs/ cookers, or incentivise away from their use
- Give people more money for putting energy back into the grid, getting 3p for what you put in, to pay 30p to get it back out is ludicrous
Glover_elbow
Well-known member
Yes.
We should focus on all new green energy projects being state owned or partly state owned with no foreign stakeholders
We should focus on all new green energy projects being state owned or partly state owned with no foreign stakeholders
BoroBosco
Well-known member
No they don't, our 25GW of installed wind capacity is currently producing 2.3 GW
NYboro
Well-known member
We get that you don't give a toss about future generations, but that is not a helpful comment.
Glover_elbow
Well-known member
The long term goal for this country and I would hope the Labour party would make a pledge to by say 2040
The UK is 100,% self reliant on UK energy .
That all energy sources are clean and not carbon emitting
That all energy providers are state owned
That all energy is sold to UK households and business's at cost not for profit price
Might be a pipe dream but something needs to change only around 7 percent of uk wind projects are currently uk owned developments
Renewable energy is the perfect opportunity for the country to reclaim energy from private sector foreign ownership
The UK is 100,% self reliant on UK energy .
That all energy sources are clean and not carbon emitting
That all energy providers are state owned
That all energy is sold to UK households and business's at cost not for profit price
Might be a pipe dream but something needs to change only around 7 percent of uk wind projects are currently uk owned developments
Renewable energy is the perfect opportunity for the country to reclaim energy from private sector foreign ownership
Andy_W
Well-known member
I'm well aware of the iamkate site, I have a look at it every week or so
Nobody expects all of the wind turbines, all over the UK (offshore and onshore), to work at maximum capacity, at the same time, at any time, they average around 6GW (and rarely average over 8GW for the wk), and Solar average 1.6GW for this year. Now wind is low, at 2.4, but Solar is on 2.5, so we're still getting 5/7 if the expected average.
The wind and solar farms are profitable, running nowhere near their maximum outputs, they know what these expected outputs are before they're built, it's very vell modelled I imagine.
More wind in winter, when we need more energy (about 50% more), more sun in summer, when there's less wind, and we need less energy.
The total renewables fluctuate between a combined 4GW to 13GW (weekly averages), over the course of the year.
It's just a case of finding a balance, but of course we would need an excess max capacity of solar and wind, than what we need, and nobody expects max of all, ever. When we hit very high outputs we can largely turn everything else off which is more expensive per kwH.
BoroBosco
Well-known member
What makes you think I don't give a toss about future generations just because I believe wind and solar are not the answer to our energy needs.
I'm all for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels but only with practical, reliable & economic alternatives
NYboro
Well-known member
They are practical, reliable and economic if designed and used properly. What do you propose?
BoroBosco
Well-known member
There is 13 GW of Solar capacity in UK so right now we have wind producing less than 10% of capacity & solar producing 19% of capacity.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I'm more bothered that it's misleading.
It's like saying because a car can go 150mph, it's not serving its purpose at 50mph, when it was expected to run at an average of 50mph for it's entire life, and is profitable/ useful, doing just that.