Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[Paul-R]

A quick look suggests that Off peak Electric is around 3 times the price of gas, so this would cost 3 times as much to run as a gas boiler - even if the 40 kWh was enough for your daily needs, if you needed more during the day, then Peak is more like 4.5 times the price.

In the video Robert Llewellyn mentioned that he had an LPG boiler before. Now I don't know about the UK specifically but in France LPG is considerably more expensive to buy per kWh compared with natural gas. It'll be the same in the UK and maybe it's three times more expensive? Especially as it won't be artificially lowered by a price cap.

So perhaps it's at least on a par pricewise for RL?

[bobins]

London narrowly avoided post-heatwave blackout

"Britain paid the highest price on record for electricity in London last week as the capital narrowly avoided a power blackout, it has emerged.
Increased demand for energy across Europe, combined with a bottleneck in the grid, forced National Grid's Electricity System Operator (ESO) to buy electricity from Belgium at the highest price Britain has ever paid to keep power flowing."
More on the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62296443

......now if only there was a way the energy companies could have rolling very short term power cuts to the individual customers so that next time this happens and there isn't any spare 'leccy to be bought the impact to the customer is minimised. But that would require individual customer's supply to be switched off remotely. Now how would they manage that ?

[RichardW]

Lack of engineering knowledge and reasoned thinking is what got us in this mess!

Re LPG, can't easily find a bulk price, but road fuel seems to be about 75p / litre. Taking the tax and VAT off gives a raw price of 33ppl. This is about 7kWh, so assuming similar price for bulk delivery with 5pc VAT gets to only 5p / kWh i.e. it's now cheaper than mains gas!! Wonder if my boiler will run on LPG....

[bobins]

LPG at the end of last March was £0.5518 NETT per liquid litre. Now you have to do the delightful maths to convert liquid litres to gaseous cubic metres at a temperature of your choice, then work out the calorific value

[RichardW]

As per above 7kWh per litre, so 55p/l + 5pc VAT is approx 57.5p / litre, which is 8p/kWh not far off the current price of mains gas.

[bobins]

Apropos to not really a great deal, but somewhat astonishing nonetheless - there was a German minister type person on the radio at lunchtime talking about the Russian gas problem. He stated that the (a - singular??) BASF chemical plant in Germany uses as much gas as the whole of Belgium.

[NewcastleFalcon]

An update on the Undersea Cable UK to Morocco project.

XLCC to Build UK’s First HVDC Cable Factory in North Ayrshire


On 29th June 2022, the North Ayrshire Council Planning Committee resolved to grant planning permission for XLCC’s HVDC subsea cable manufacturing operations in Hunterston, Scotland.

XLCC’s first order is for four 3,800km long cables to connect solar and wind renewable power generation in the Sahara to the UK for the Xlinks Morocco-UK power project.

Previously

The Sun always shines and the wind always blows, mostly in Africa but fear not a large extension cable is planned, consisting of four individual cables totalling 15,000 kM of cable to be manufactured. Estimated global production of such monster cables is currently estimated to be 4,000 kM per year, so looks like a new factory to make it is necessary. First in the queue Hunterston up in Scotland, adjacent to the soon to close (2023) nuclear power plant.

Energy matters Global and Domestic Thread has the story...

viewtopic.php?p=700587#p700587

POTD has a picture

REgards Neil

[bobins]

Last day of Hinkley B generating electricity

"The nuclear power station that has generated more electricity than any other will be switched off on Monday.
Hinkley Point B in Somerset has been making power since 1976 and currently contributes about 3% of the UK's total power needs.
Switching Hinkley off will mean more electricity made from gas, which is at a record high price at the moment.
Industry experts have predicted the cost of energy in the UK will have to rise as a result."

More at the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-62339183

The whole energy scenario doesn't look too rosy just now

[Paul-R]

It's beginning to look like the contracted for price per kWh when Hinckley C eventually comes on line wasn't such a bad decision after all.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Here's the perennial straw to clutch at. By far the best fusion reaction so far is the one at a safe-ish distance about 93 million miles away, which is doing a decent enough job of warming the planet and has done for a few years now.
A surprisingly relatively cheap method has been devised to harness that energy and turn it into electricity. "ladies and gentlemen we have the technology" to paraphrase the boffins from the Six Million Dollar Man.

So how are the Boffins getting on with fusion, none of that inconvenient nuclear waste to store....surely Helen knows the score. Spoiler alert...nothing new apart from the straw clutching of investors are putting money into the research.



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

It's beginning to look like the contracted for price per kWh when Hinckley C eventually comes on line wasn't such a bad decision after all.

The Contract for Difference Price of £92.5/MWh was at 2012 prices. It will be adjusted for inflation when the first MWh emerges from Hinkley which still hasnt happened. Not sure which Index will be used, probably find-outable but who knows what deals will be done to make sure that EDF can operate it at a profit when the time comes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... ey-point-c

Regards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

That video rather reminded me of stuff I read about back when I was a lad, I had a book of perpetual motion machines from the old amateur inventor days, this so far seems to be a very high tech attempt to do what the old boys never succeeded at, get more out than they put in.
Can't find my old book but there are some examples here.

[Paul-R]

It's beginning to look like the contracted for price per kWh when Hinckley C eventually comes on line wasn't such a bad decision after all.

The Contract for Difference Price of £92.5/MWh was at 2012 prices. It will be adjusted for inflation when the first MWh emerges from Hinkley which still hasnt happened. Not sure which Index will be used, probably find-outable but who knows what deals will be done to make sure that EDF can operate it at a profit when the time comes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... ey-point-c

Regards Neil

Bugger.

[bobins]

The CfD price would have been struck at a level that would enable EDF to make a profit. If it's ratcheted up too much then that'll be because they're getting greedy.

[NewcastleFalcon]

quite a decent picture of a nuclear fusion reactor
you could certainly feel the heat today 93 million miles away.

Regards Neil