Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[bobins]

Whilst I'm not qualified to comment on the toaster, there was a blurb on the BBC website the other week that it costs around tenpence to run a fan overnight, but that was a couple of weeks ago so it might be elevenpence now. Or twelvepence.

As for the French energy sector, I have a feeling the French Govt. have been a bit more radical in their approach to dealing with the energy crisis.

[bobins]

A new article on the BBC website about the oil 'n' gas companies and the windfall tax. Worth a quick read as it sheds a little light on the high-finance world of the big oil companies.

Energy prices: How will the £5bn windfall tax work?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60295177

Some edited highlights....

"BP has reported record quarterly profits as it reaps the benefits of higher oil and gas prices, along with rival Shell, months after the UK government introduced a windfall tax on energy firms.
However, the new tax only applies from 26 May - so the majority of BP's profits won't be hit by it."

"The important feature of this extra tax is that any money the companies may have lost in previous years, or money they are spending on things like decommissioning North Sea oil platforms cannot be used to reduce the amount of tax they pay.
In recent years, such methods have meant that BP and Shell, for example, have paid almost no tax in the UK."

"Taxes on their profits are higher - they pay 30% corporation tax on their profits and a supplementary 10% rate on top of that. Other firms pay corporation tax at 19%.
BP and Shell both received more money back from the UK government than they paid every year from 2015 to 2020 (except 2017, when Shell paid more than it received)."

".....both have written off a lot of money as a result of exiting from investments in Russian oil firms following the invasion of Ukraine.
BP and Shell have both spent billions recently on what are called share buybacks, which is what companies do when they have money they can afford to spend on boosting their share price."

"Critics of a windfall tax argue that it might affect the money paid out to pensioners by some pension funds - as these funds benefit from energy firms' profits.
But it is important not to overstate the impact of this. Pension funds invest across countries and industries, so such a tax is unlikely to make a noticeable difference."

[Gibbo2286]

The quarterly figures for BP show that they made a huge loss in the first quarter does the government intend to compensate them for that?
The BP accounts are very interesting if you read them through, they have net debt of near £30 billion, they're still paying off the damages for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster and the dividend although it seems a lot is spread over a lot of investors, I think last year they paid a dividend of 6 US cents against a share price of around 30 Dollars.

[bobins]

The quarterly figures for BP show that they made a huge loss in the first quarter does the government intend to compensate them for that?

The annual profits for BP show that.... plucking an individual quarterly figure does little to shed light on the subject

Nice try.

BP profits - Macrotrends.net

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/char ... oss-profit

BP profits 2 - companiesmarketcap.com

https://companiesmarketcap.com/bp/earnings/

[Gibbo2286]

Touted on the Fully charged site as an alternative to gas or oil is a ZEB from a company called Tepeo so I enquired for details, got this today:

[NewcastleFalcon]

Touted on the Fully charged site as an alternative to gas or oil is a ZEB from a company called Tepeo so I enquired for details, got this today:

I saw that too Gibbo, and a couple of pages ago posted the fully charged video up, which had a few follow up comments

Starts Here
viewtopic.php?p=724142#p724142

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

The whole idea is little more than a night storage heater but in one unit connected to the radiators instead of night storage units in each room, computer wizardry is the only other difference I can see.
I had electric night storage in the house I rebuilt, it was horrendously expensive to run, the new owners chucked it out and went for a wood burner then chucked that and went for oil, no gas in that village.
I think sticking to the gas combi boiler is still the best option for me until I'm forced to do something different by government.

[bobins]

Purely for comparison, and not to imply that any one boiler or energy source is better than any other , earlier in the year we had a Viessmann Vitodens 19kw regular boiler supplied and fitted to existing pipework by a one-man-band Gasforce registered boiler bod for around £1600, including system flush & inhibitor (by me - incl chemicals), new flue, new electronic wall thermostat, consumables, and minimal labouring by me. Viessmann are a respectable brand i.e. not a cheap and cheerful.
It's a damned site more economical than the old Baxi it replaced, and the new thermostat has helped as well

[bobins]

OFGEM is already softening up for a big rise in the cap - like 60% - in October, taking 'average' bills (however they work that out) to something like £3,200 pa. We're already at that, so I am bracing for >£5k pa There must be a significant proportion of the country for whom that is unattainable - I really don't know what is going to happen, mass not paying of the energy bills? If 2/3 of a company's customers refuse to pay, it can't take all of them to court, so someone is going to get hung out to dry...

An article on the BBC website today about the consequences of mass non-payment.

"People are being warned of the consequences of not paying their energy bills, as a campaign to refuse payment gathers supporters.
The Don't Pay group, which is demanding a reduction of bills to an affordable level, says more than 80,000 people have pledged to cancel their direct debit payments from 1 October.
This is the date the price cap - the maximum amount suppliers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales for each unit of energy - increases.
Analysts are forecasting the typical customer is likely to pay £3,358 a year from October, up from £1,971 a year in April.
Don't Pay says millions of people won't be able to afford their energy bills this winter - and that its campaign is the only way to force the government and energy companies to take action.
The group also says it won't take any action unless one million people sign up and it is "consulting extensively" with legal and personal debt experts.
But charities have warned not paying energy bills has very serious consequences for consumers.

If you don't agree a payment plan with your supplier, they might try to force you to have a pre-payment meter installed.
In very rare cases, if you haven't paid a bill after 28 days, you might be threatened with disconnection of your supply but you'll normally be offered a meter instead."
More on the BBC : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62435432

And more at the CAB, including <ahem> a bit about remote disconnection

"If you have a ‘smart meter’

If you have a smart energy meter in your home, your supplier could potentially disconnect your supply remotely without needing access to your meter. However, before they do this, they must have:
-contacted you to discuss options for repaying your debt, eg through a repayment plan
-visited your home to assess your personal situation and whether this would affect you being disconnected, eg if you’re disabled or elderly"
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consu ... connected/

[mickthemaverick]

Thinking about the possibility of mass refusal to pay lead me on to thinking about other possible consequences and I came up with this scenario:

The cap goes up to a silly level and the UK consumers collectively refuse to pay. The energy companies respond with, 'If you are not going to pay we will cease trading and there will be no energy for you to pay for!!' Everyone panics at the prospect of 'we cannot live without energy!!' until one bright young school girl says, 'Indeed you can't but you don't have to buy it, you just have to survive without it like we did before the industrial revolution, or collect your own from the sun and wind around your house!!' A new age of invention and innovation is born whereby everyone finds a way to live and get around to meet there NEEDS. We sacrifice leisure travel and activities for the benefit of the planet and its population in the end!!

[Gibbo2286]

I'm doing my best Mick, solar panels an electric car, double glazing and insulation all round, garden full of trees (well five actually) and if I can get batteries to store the solar at a reasonable price that will be next.

[bobins]

Thinking about the possibility of mass refusal to pay lead me on to thinking about other possible consequences and I came up with this scenario:

The cap goes up to a silly level and the UK consumers collectively refuse to pay. The energy companies respond with, 'If you are not going to pay we will cease trading and there will be no energy for you to pay for!!' Everyone panics at the prospect of 'we cannot live without energy!!' until one bright young school girl says, 'Indeed you can't but you don't have to buy it, you just have to survive without it like we did before the industrial revolution, or collect your own from the sun and wind around your house!!' A new age of invention and innovation is born whereby everyone finds a way to live and get around to meet there NEEDS. We sacrifice leisure travel and activities for the benefit of the planet and its population in the end!!

In the scenario of the energy companies threatening to go bust, the Govt. will step in and we'll end up paying for it one way or another

[Rp0thejester]

I have no problems with the electrical companies stopping supply, isn't there such a thing as a Dyno? Not sure on spelling, they were used on push bikes to power the lights. If no easy electricity and had to peddle for it then surely it would help the NHS with the so called obesity crisis? We have it far to easy, people survived without electricity for a long time and now we're worried it's gunna go.

[bobins]

I had a go at pedaling a dynamo-bike that was used as a life support systems back-up in a smallish German bunker once. It was used to power the relatively small air filtration and circulation system and some emergency lighting. You had to keep the needle in the green section whilst pedaling. You had a tough choice - die of a heart attack from pedaling the damned thing, or die of asphyxiation from no fesh air.

[Rp0thejester]

So you survived...did you cheat?