Another Smart Meter thread.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Emgee

I have seen the OFFGEM Website but the price they currently quote which is 28p per KWh, which is some 6 p lower than the rate that I pay, and is quantified by a statement in small print underneath which states that the price may vary by region and method of paying. I pay by the most cost effective method which is by monthly direct debit, quoted as the cheapest method by suppliers, my complaint about the price cap and the way it is administered is that it is far from transparent if there are regional variations, surely if the price is capped then it should be a standard price per KWh throughout the country. The energy under the shambolic system that we have is purchased in accordance with prices on the international markets so easy to set a standard price for all UK consumers. Regional variations in pricing have always been catered for by the daily standing charge which is set by the energy companies depending on how costly the infrastructure is to bring the energy to the customer, the standing charge is always listed as a separate charge unconnected to the price per KWh. I feel that in the circumstances that prevail of now, with energy costs on an upward spiral then the Regulator and the energy companies need to quote a standard cap for unit prices, if they are unwilling to do this then they need to be totally transparent with prices, at the moment I feel that we the customers are being taken for a very expensive ride by not only the energy companies but also the regulator who just makes woolly statements such as an average family can expect to pay X pounds per annum, these are dire times, we need clear information from those that are supposedly managing this debacle. I will throw into the mix again a comment I made previously in this thread, Energy consumers in France have had the next rise in costs pegged at 4%, why are we being ripped off. Okay rant over. Dave W

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Dave W

I agree with every word of your post but you haven't mentioned that below the the av price cap chart Ofgem state they always monitor what companys are charging to ensure the price is within the capped fugure, seems they give Shell Energy a wide berth when making any checks.

Emgee

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Emgee

Many thanks for your response, it makes you wonder if the Regulator is carrying out his duties with due diligence if there are anomalies with pricing such as with my provider and that of Robin. Without total transparency we will never know the extent of the variations that obviously exist within the UK for a supposedly capped price for KWh of electricity. Dave W

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

I will throw into the mix again a comment I made previously in this thread, Energy consumers in France have had the next rise in costs pegged at 4%

And EDF are suing the French govenrment for billions to cover their extra costs incurred by having to sell at a price below the production cost. More here and doubtless elsewhere.

Nigel B.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Nigel

EDF supply about 70 % of Frances electricity from Nuclear power stations, the question I can’t understand is the cost of electricity on the world markets has increased dramatically because of the huge rise in gas prices, gas is now a major element of fossil fuel energy, EDF produces electricity from Nuclear how is the price of a unit of electricity produced from Nuclear affected by the world price of electricity produced using gas. The price of production from Nuclear should remain at a constant or near enough because it is unaffected by the rise in gas prices, EDF are whingeing that they are losing billions because the government has pegged the industry prices that can be charged, perhaps this and other circumstances surrounding EDFs operations is indicative of how poorly run the company is, and they are the company that will be providing the bulk of power from Nuclear in the UK, makes you think doesn’t it. Dave W

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Samsaranda on 01/09/2022 15:29:20:

Emgee

Many thanks for your response, it makes you wonder if the Regulator is carrying out his duties with due diligence if there are anomalies with pricing such as with my provider and that of Robin. Without total transparency we will never know the extent of the variations that obviously exist within the UK for a supposedly capped price for KWh of electricity. Dave W

Have you read Ofgen's explanation of the Price Cap Dave? I'm afraid they're not set up as many seem to expect! For example, my bold:

The caps deliver fair energy prices by ensuring these tariffs reflect the underlying costs to supply energy, and

no more.

Who’s protected?

Not everybody. Around 11 million customers are covered by the Default Tariff Price Cap, and 4 million customers by the Prepayment Meter Price Cap. The caps don’t apply to people on fixed-term deals, as these are more likely to be good value.

Ofgen were created to stop RETAILERS from making excessive profits from consumers. Unfortunately Ofgen have no control over WHOLESALE prices. Their remit is based on the assumption that wholesale energy supply and demand would remain balanced for the foreseeable future and it appears that the politicians put no thought into what would happen if demand exceeded supply for any length of time. This is exactly what's happened: WHOLESALE prices, which are international, have skyrocketed.

The first effect of Ofgen's faulty remit was to bankrupt over thirty UK energy retail suppliers because it cost more to buy energy wholesale than retailers were allowed sell it. Consumers were happy with artificially low bills until their retailer failed and they were transferred to a new supplier who required them to pay the current market rate. Ouch.

Now the price cap mechanism isn't protecting consumers and that hurts even more!

During the interregnum it's not surprising the government haven't said or done anything useful yet. No doubt the civil servants and think-tanks have been busy, but I fear the options are limited and/or will cost the taxpayer dearly. Be interesting to see what announcements are made next week when the new PM takes charge. Cancelling Green Subsidies is a possibility that would delight fossil-fuel fan-boys, but it's too simple. The money barely makes a dent in what people are being asked to pay, the relief is temporary, and it discourages production of energy at home. The problem is more difficult than that: I'm expecting energy prices to stay high at least until next summer.

Dave

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

SOD, Like you I cannot see that we can do anything about the WHOLESALE price of gas, hopefully it's a massive wake up call to all the twats in government, both present & future! There is no real answer, subsidies will just allow prices to stay high?

Tony

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Dave

My gripe is about paying 34p per unit when the published cap is 28p per unit, also Robin is paying over the odds, I am on a default tariff as my supplier only has default tariff and paying by monthly direct debit, the cheapest form of payment, they are not gambling with fixed price contracts until the market returns to some normality. Why is Shell Energy my supplier charging me 6p per unit more than the supposed published capped price as stated in Offgem documents.The vague statement in small print that regional differences exist should have no effect on the capped unit prices, regional variations have always been addressed by the daily standing charge which differs with suppliers all over the country. Their appears to be an inequality in the way that the price cap is applied if different energy companies can exceed the stated capped price. Dave W

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

I have an energy monitor of the type that has a clip on current measuring unit with a RF connection to a remote display – I have two actually monitoring the whole house usage but every so often, may be once a week both units lose their RF connection – both lose it and regain it together usually abt 30mins but can be longer later.

The meter is in the cellar workshop but I’m not there + no machines are running – any suggestions as to the cause ? – there is nothing different running near the monitors both within sight of my laptop computer.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Thanks for further comments.

Gray – your experiences add more weight to the case for not going with a smart meter, at least at the moment.

Dave W – in my case, I have discovered that my supplier (Good Energy) along with two others (Ecotricity and Green Energy UK) were granted permanent exemptions from the price cap in 2020. This was because they persuaded Ofgem that "By consumers being on the tariff, support is given to generation and production of renewable energy to an extent that is materially greater than that which is brought about as result of subsidies, obligations or other mandatory mechanisms". In your case it might be that Economy 7 isn't deemed a 'Standard Variable Tariff', or that the cap is being applied to a weighted average of peak and off-peak rates – (7*18 + 17*34) ÷ 24 = ~29.

Regional variations in unit rates are tabulated here (Money Saving Expert) but don't amount to much: for electricity they vary from 27.13p (Yorkshire) to 29.39p (London) /kWh.

Robin.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Samsaranda on 01/09/2022 17:26:05:

Dave

My gripe is about paying 34p per unit when the published cap is 28p per unit, also Robin is paying over the odds, I am on a default tariff as my supplier only has default tariff and paying by monthly direct debit, the cheapest form of payment, they are not gambling with fixed price contracts until the market returns to some normality. Why is Shell Energy my supplier charging me 6p per unit more than the supposed published capped price as stated in Offgem documents.The vague statement in small print that regional differences exist should have no effect on the capped unit prices, regional variations have always been addressed by the daily standing charge which differs with suppliers all over the country. Their appears to be an inequality in the way that the price cap is applied if different energy companies can exceed the stated capped price. Dave W

Shell are my supplier. Unit costs are 32.3p during the day and around 17p for E7. Gas is currently7.28p/ kWh. Standing charges are currently 44.84p (electric) and 27.22p (gas). These were hiked by about 80-90% at the last increases.

What has pee’d me off is that they are suddenly saying I need to provide monthly readings (as the smart meter is no longer providing them with data) which will clearly not reflect their up-coming price rises. They did this for a month, or more, at the last price hike. I suspect they are simply choosing not to pay the intermediate for that service.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Robin

Your comment about Economy7 may explain the price anomaly, I had wondered in the back of my mind whether it was something like that. It may also be that Shell Energy have been granted an exemption from the price cap because they state that all their energy is from sustainable sources, hard to believe that all the energy they sell to domestic customers is from sustainable sources, similar comments are made by other major suppliers, when you analyse where the energy is sourced there isn’t enough sustainable energy created to fulfill the amount of customers supposedly receiving it, another dubious marketing ploy! Dave W

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

How much energy does EDF supply here? and why wasn't ours capped at 4%?

Regards Ian.

[modeng2000Participant @modeng2000]

Because it is French owned and they don't like us.

John

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Since ofgem and a few other organisations must collect all the data for all suppliers and their regional variations is there anywhere that produces an interactive map like a weather radar plot to show the data?

After the gas engineer fitted a smart meter (outside) he then asked to see the electricity meter (in garage) to fit an interface not mentioned before. Then he decided for some reason he wasn't able to fit his electrical gizmo and had to undo his changes to the gas. He hasn't been back since about 3 years ago. So make sure your fitter explains what he is doing and checks it all out first.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Posted by Circlip on 02/09/2022 10:44:46:

How much energy does EDF supply here? and why wasn't ours capped at 4%?

Regards Ian.

Ian, in reply to your first question about 20% of UK energy (source We Own It ). In reply to your second, I have no idea. Well I do have some ideas actually, but they would take this thread into the realm of politics, which wouldn't be appropriate for this forum.

Dave W, your question about Shell's claim that all the energy they is from sustainable sources is interesting. I had been looking at this myself to try and understand where the premium I pay to Good Energy actually goes.

It seems that when energy providers generate 'carbon neutral' energy they also generate Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), one per MWh. RECs are traded (effectively globally) – they have their own market. It is thus possible for a company to represent themselves as 100% carbon neutral by buying the requisite RECs. This muddies the waters – not least because (according to one source) "the market in RECs is not entirely transparent".

A criticism of the REC system is that it doesn't drive 'additonality' because a great many RECs are generated by legacy generators – for example nuclear stations built decades ago generate RECs. The claim made by the three cap-exempt companies is that they use the premium to drive additionality directly. So they might contract to buy directly from a start-up windfarm for example, thus making the project viable when it might otherwise not have been.

Probably more than you wanted to know, I'm getting interested in all this now though!

Robin.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

If we take last Saturdays figures, wind produced hardly any electricity (according to gridwatch) and when it was dark, solar won't have produced a right lot. I assume people who only buy green electricity sat in the dark.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by duncan webster on 02/09/2022 20:07:53:

If we take last Saturdays figures, wind produced hardly any electricity (according to gridwatch) and when it was dark, solar won't have produced a right lot. I assume people who only buy green electricity sat in the dark.

Now here's a thought. Sat here with my laptop consuming power, is it possible to say meaningfully where the energy is coming from?

Locally there are 3 turbines and a largish solar farm, but I think the nearest big generator is Nuclear. We're all connected to the grid with a multitude of other generators and consumers.

I think of DC power transfer as being like a belt and pulley drive where electrons form the belt, leaving the generator in a stream to the load and back on the other wire. AC the same except the electrons waggle backwards and forwards. The analogy is OK as far as it goes but can't be right! In that model it can't be said electrons travel across a meshed grid from one particular generator to one particular consumer. A better analogy might be energy is poured like water into the top of a pot and tapped, source unknown, by users underneath.

Consumers don't buy from a particular source. Rather there's a financial system allowing consumers to buy energy and suppliers to sell it – but not to individuals. It's a pool. When energy is bought from a Green supplier he puts that value of renewable energy into the into the system, not necessarily at the same time his customers are consuming it.

I suspect my pulley and pool analogies are both more-or-less misleading. Does anyone have a better explanation? How exactly does electricty transfer energy?

Dave

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

SOD,

I think your water analogy is probably a good simplification of the grid system. Think of it maybe as a water grid on the same connectivity nationally as the electric grid. For your pot and for simplification imagine a reservoir into which all the suppliers pour their contribution to demand and consumers taking what they need from the pipes.

You cannot guarantee that any consumer will necessarily receive the contribution of a particular supplier, that is why the market is set as it is, suppliers get paid for the contribution they make to your pool of energy by the wholesale utility buyer / seller and consumers pay the retail local utility provider for the energy they use who in turn have contracts with the wholesaler for the energy they sell. There are profit margins applied at each transaction.

As alluded by other posts there are times when there simply is not enough “renewable” energy being generated to meet the supply agreements of all those claiming to supply only 100% renewable energy. So the claims being made by these suppliers are simply not true on an instantaneous basis so we can apply a bit of smoke and mirror magic here to keep the lights on that over an average of time suppliers are only selling renewable energy they purchase, the fact they may purchase more renewable energy than they are selling when the wind blows and the sun shines allows the somewhat false claim to be substantiated. The excess is not stored it’s shared by load balancing. That’s my take on it anyway. Certainly where I live right close to a wind farm there is no guarantee that green wigglies from the windmills are going into my lathe 24/7 with no brown ones being excluded!

Paul.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 02/09/2022 21:46:19:

Posted by duncan webster on 02/09/2022 20:07:53:

If we take last Saturdays figures, wind produced hardly any electricity (according to gridwatch) and when it was dark, solar won't have produced a right lot. I assume people who only buy green electricity sat in the dark.

Now here's a thought. Sat here with my laptop consuming power, is it possible to say meaningfully where the energy is coming from?

Locally there are 3 turbines and a largish solar farm, but I think the nearest big generator is Nuclear. We're all connected to the grid with a multitude of other generators and consumers.

I think of DC power transfer as being like a belt and pulley drive where electrons form the belt, leaving the generator in a stream to the load and back on the other wire. AC the same except the electrons waggle backwards and forwards. The analogy is OK as far as it goes but can't be right! In that model it can't be said electrons travel across a meshed grid from one particular generator to one particular consumer. A better analogy might be energy is poured like water into the top of a pot and tapped, source unknown, by users underneath.

Consumers don't buy from a particular source. Rather there's a financial system allowing consumers to buy energy and suppliers to sell it – but not to individuals. It's a pool. When energy is bought from a Green supplier he puts that value of renewable energy into the into the system, not necessarily at the same time his customers are consuming it.

I suspect my pulley and pool analogies are both more-or-less misleading. Does anyone have a better explanation? How exactly does electricty transfer energy?

Dave

I'm not quite sure what you're asking Dave, but your understanding seems broadly correct to me. Certainly there is no direct path from a generator to a consumer, the electrons get mixed up in the grid. I don't think there is much storage capacity in the UK so the 'pot' in your analogy is fairly small. If I'm right (and I'm happy to be corrected – I'm only just starting on my quest to understand all this) the 'pot' is filled by supply taps fed from various sources – nuclear taps provides a steady stream, wind taps sometimes gush then sometimes drip and dry up, solar taps gush and drip in more predictable ways, and the demand taps at the bottom of the pot open and close in a fairly predictable ways. To balance supply and demand the flow from the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine supply tap is turned up or down as needed. That's my (no doubt over-simplified) understanding anyway.

More generally:

When companies generate carbon-neutral energy (ie everything except that from burning fossil fuels) they also generate Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) in proportion to the amount of energy generated. These aren't attached to the electrons unfortunately! They are abstract representations of 'value' in the same way as money is an abstraction, and are traded speculatively just as money is.

For the most part, when you buy 'green energy', or indeed 'green' anything you are buying from a company who has bought enough RECs to cover their carbon footprint. The idea behind this system is that if consumers demand more 'green' products, REC prices will rise, so supply will follow and there will be an incentive to invest in renewable energy technologies because the price of the RECs will increase. This is what is called a 'market based solution' to the problems we face. Other solutions are available I expect.

Robin.

Edited By Robin Graham on 03/09/2022 00:40:24

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Robin Graham on 03/09/2022 00:36:36:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 02/09/2022 21:46:19:

Now here's a thought. Sat here with my laptop consuming power, is it possible to say meaningfully where the energy is coming from?

[…]

I suspect my pulley and pool analogies are both more-or-less misleading. Does anyone have a better explanation? How exactly does electricty transfer energy?

Dave

I'm not quite sure what you're asking Dave, but your understanding seems broadly correct to me. Certainly there is no direct path from a generator to a consumer, the electrons get mixed up in the grid. […]

.

It’s rather early in the morning for such things, but I think you will find the word Entropy useful:

Statistical Thermodynamics and Shannon’s Theory both use the same underlying concept … neatly encapsulated by this snippet :

The concept of information entropy was introduced by Claude Shannon in his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication",^[2][3] and is also referred to as Shannon entropy. Shannon's theory defines a data communication system composed of three elements: a source of data, a communication channel, and a receiver. The "fundamental problem of communication" – as expressed by Shannon – is for the receiver to be able to identify what data was generated by the source, based on the signal it receives through the channel.^[2][3]

Ref. **LINK**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/09/2022 05:54:15

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

About the only thing that makes most electricity that wasn’t green into ‘green’ is when the distributors pay for the privilege, by buying carbon tokens to make them feel better (actually unlikely) but legally covered.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Robin Graham on 03/09/2022 00:36:36:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 02/09/2022 21:46:19:

Posted by duncan webster on 02/09/2022 20:07:53:

…

Now here's a thought. Sat here with my laptop consuming power, is it possible to say meaningfully where the energy is coming from?

…

I suspect my pulley and pool analogies are both more-or-less misleading. Does anyone have a better explanation? How exactly does electricty transfer energy?

Dave

I'm not quite sure what you're asking Dave, but your understanding seems broadly correct to me. Certainly there is no direct path from a generator to a consumer, the electrons get mixed up in the grid.

…

It's clarification of the 'electrons mixed up in the grid bit'.

In a DC system, does an electron actually travel all the way around the circuit? Wikipedia suggests not: The drift velocity in a 2 mm diameter copper wire in 1 ampere current is approximately 8 cm per hour. AC voltages cause no net movement; the electrons oscillate back and forth in response to the alternating electric field (over a distance of a few micrometers)

Given electrons don't move very far, how do they transfer energy?

Is energy transferred in the same way in both DC and AC systems? (AC has waves, DC doesn't).

And how do they do they transfer energy in a way that allows multiple sources and sinks to be connected to the same media without interference?

I promise to try and understand Entropy as recommended by Michael, but all previous attempts ended badly!

Dave

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Think of DC like a VERY large reservoir with water gushing in from a river and trickling out through many streams. A single water molecule could be in the lake for months but the reservoir level remains the same.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 03/09/2022 11:02:13:

[…]

It's clarification of the 'electrons mixed up in the grid bit'.

In a DC system, does an electron actually travel all the way around the circuit? Wikipedia suggests not: The drift velocity in a 2 mm diameter copper wire in 1 ampere current is approximately 8 cm per hour. AC voltages cause no net movement; the electrons oscillate back and forth in response to the alternating electric field (over a distance of a few micrometers)

Given electrons don't move very far, how do they transfer energy?

Is energy transferred in the same way in both DC and AC systems? (AC has waves, DC doesn't).

And how do they do they transfer energy in a way that allows multiple sources and sinks to be connected to the same media without interference?

I promise to try and understand Entropy as recommended by Michael, but all previous attempts ended badly!

Dave

 

Hi Dave. This is inevitably a bit hand-waving, but I hope it will answer some of your questions to some extent.

Let's start with "given electrons don't travel very far…". They don't need to.

DC case: You shove electrons in (slowly) at one end of the wire, they push the electrons which were 'sitting' there along (slowly), they push the next ones along and so one until the electrons at the other end get shoved and can be made to do work. Although the electrons are individually moving slowly, the 'shove effect' moves much faster – at something approaching the speed of light. An electron injected at the generator end may or may not make its way round the circuit back to the generator, but it doesn't need to in order to transfer energy to the 'work'. A physical example of this sort of thing is given by a Newton's cradle – energy is transmitted at the speed of sound from one end of the cradle to the other by a compression wave without the particles in the intermediate balls moving very far from their equilibrium positions at all.

AC case: It's not much different at this level. The electrons are just pushed and pulled in and out of wire at the generator end, and the effect propagates as a wave down the wire to the work end. Because the drift velocity is zero averaged over an AC cycle no electron makes its way around the circuit except by diffusion. The electrons at the other end are forced to jiggle back and forth and can be made to do work.

Does that help? Apologies if I've misunderstood your questions.

I don't know anything about the practicalities of energy distribution so can't comment on that.

This has now strayed a long way from my opening post, but it's all been interesting to me at least. I am now decided firmly against a smart meter and given that it looks like I'm going to be paying about 65p per kWh for electricity after 1st Oct I'll probably switch to a supplier bound by the price cap.

Robin.

 

 

Edited By Robin Graham on 03/09/2022 23:18:26

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