Going Out this Winter

Do your star jumps, cuddle your pets, drink more water, but remember that the warming feeling from wine or whisky is temporary as you’ll soon lose heat from your core and end up feeling even colder. Stick to non-alcoholic drinks’, doing household chores and ‘encouraging blood flow’ by eating ginger but avoiding chilli ‘as it makes you sweat’....and don't forget to eat your hearty bowls of porridge.


www.mirror.co.uk

Energy firm tells families to 'do star jumps' and 'drink water' to cut bills

The advice is part of a long-list of energy saving tips SSE has emailed to customers and published on its website amid a gas price crisis which is expected to send average household bills climbing 56% to £2,000 or more in April
www.mirror.co.uk www.mirror.co.uk
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
We need the next 50% of renewables to be publicly funded and owned. We can't leave ourselves open to the 'market' nonsense as we have done since Thatcher tore the country to bits. It needs rebuilding.
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Most of the renewables to date has been built under heavy subsidy and it has been lucrative for the companies involved.

I don’t want to post too much about it because I have spent the last 15 years in the renewables industry and as one of the few Boro fans in our north east office there is an outside chance someone might guess who I am but believe me there are people who are making colossal amounts of money out of it. The government know this and have been reducing the subsidies in the latest auction rounds but because they are private companies who have raised finance against the subsidised power price agreements it would be a very complex lock to unpick. You do have to have the planning, technical and commercial expertise to put these schemes together but personal fortunes are being made in this industry for very little risk on the back of public money.
 
Redwurzel said:
If its £8 to have the heating on and lights on in the winter's evening - might it be cheaper to walk to your local Witherspoon's pub for the evening and say drink 2 pints over 3 hours to save money?
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About 6 years ago I was sat in the Bridge Bar in Aberdeen and there was an old guy saying to his mate that exactly what he did as he couldnt afford to have heating on in the winter.
 
Interesting what HC says - there was a company wanting to build a set of giant wind turbines between Redcar and Guisborough quite close to housing about 10 years ago. I thought what benefit would the local community get - there were offering to fund some small local projects and pay some rent to the local landowner. But I thought you are going to make several million a year (now probably over £10 million a year) create no local long terms jobs and you offer to give say £25k to local projects. In return locals would have to look at the turbines close to their houses. It seemed a poor trade off and felt like wealthy outside investors using the local areas resources and giving virtually nothing back. The company had a Durham City address.

I was expecting them to offer local residents. half price electricity fo something like that.

If felt like sharp business people taking local working class people for a ride. R & C councillors seemed quite positive, but I could not see why when nothing much was coming back for residents who the councillors are representing, except possibly a bit of business rates.

I know this sounds like nimbyism but the turbines should not be close to properties and if they are in any way surely the residents should be compensated. Another alternative is to allow local councils to invest/own the wind turbines so the profits are used on local services. I believe at present new land based turbines of a very large size are prohibited by the UK Government.
 
Redwurzel said:
Interesting what HC says - there was a company wanting to build a set of giant wind turbines between Redcar and Guisborough quite close to housing about 10 years ago. I thought what benefit would the local community get - there were offering to fund some small local projects and pay some rent to the local landowner. But I thought you are going to make several million a year (now probably over £10 million a year) create no local long terms jobs and you offer to give say £25k to local projects. In return locals would have to look at the turbines close to their houses. It seemed a poor trade off and felt like wealthy outside investors using the local areas resources and giving virtually nothing back. The company had a Durham City address.

I was expecting them to offer local residents. half price electricity fo something like that.

If felt like sharp business people taking local working class people for a ride. R & C councillors seemed quite positive, but I could not see why when nothing much was coming back for residents who the councillors are representing, except possibly a bit of business rates.

I know this sounds like nimbyism but the turbines should not be close to properties and if they are in any way surely the residents should be compensated. Another alternative is to allow local councils to invest/own the wind turbines so the profits are used on local services. I believe at present new land based turbines of a very large size are prohibited by the UK Government.
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I won’t comment on the rest of your post other than saying that scenario has been repeated up and down the country to establish the UK’s wind generation capacity but with regard to turbine size I can advise that there is no restriction it is simply what you can get through the planning system. It is almost impossible these days to get planning in England for new wind farms but easier in Scotland due to the Scottish Government policy in favour of renewables. The U.K. government is heavily favouring off shore wind these days for subsidy because it is a more constant wind and you can put larger turbines up.

The old subsidy paid at fixed (high) rates for wind generation regardless of the spot market price for power, the newer subsidy is a contract which pays the generator the difference between the brown price of power and his contract price which reduces the profit but is still lucrative and removes the risk compared to just selling the power on the open market. The argument is that you can’t raise finance unless there is a guarantee of revenue.
 
Redwurzel said:
If its £8 to have the heating on and lights on in the winter's evening - might it be cheaper to walk to your local Witherspoon's pub for the evening and say drink 2 pints over 3 hours to save money?
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On the other hand drinking 2 pints of nearly expired ale every night for 4 months would quite possibly lead to other less financial complications.
 
The fire brigade are going to be busy as people start using cheap ikea candles all over their house instead of turning the lights on.
 
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