Rising cost of living

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If it's to Northern Ireland that makes sense to me.


Because Norway has water problems doesn't mean the UK necessarily has water problems as well. I'm sure that more pumping and storage capacity can be built, it's just that the private sector has less incentive to develop more capacity when it can just by gas on the global market and pass on the costs to the consumer.

I read "IC Irl" as being from Ireland. It may still be, but the link is from NI to Scotland.

Moyle Interconnector - This is a link between South Ayrshire in Scotland and County Antrim in Northern Ireland. It consists of two monopolar ±250 kV DC cables with a transmission capacity of 250 MW each.

Pumped storage needs 2 reservoirs.

Pumped Storage Hydroelectric - Pumped storage incorporates two reservoirs. At times of low demand, generally at night, electricity is used to pump water from the lower to the upper basin. This water is then released to create power at a time when demand, and therefore price, is high. There are currently 4 pumped storage stations in the UK.

At the moment, Pumped Hydro: 0GW, Hydro 0.09GW. Not exactly even a small contribution.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by nomadking

I read "IC Irl" as being from Ireland. It may still be, but the link is from NI to Scotland.

There's one from the Republic of Ireland to Wales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E...Interconnector

Pumped storage needs 2 reservoirs.

At the moment, Pumped Hydro: 0GW, Hydro 0.09GW. Not exactly even a small contribution.[/QUOTE]
We need more investment here, then. Not something we've invested in, but as you know, we've not invested in energy infrastructure much in the last 20 years.

---------- Post added at 13:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 ----------

A small morsel of good news for those of you like me, car owners who live near Co-op petrol stations. Generally these are quite pricey for petrol.

However, the chain has now been sold to Asda so hopefully we'll be seeing lower prices under Asda's ownership by the end of the year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nvenience-push

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

We need to invest in electrical storage like Norway does eg pumping water up hill into lakes using wind and solar power and then releasing it when those sources are not generating so much power.

You mean more of these.

The Dinorwig Power Station, known locally as Electric Mountain, or Mynydd Gwefru, is a pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme, near Dinorwig, Llanberis in Snowdonia national park in Gwynedd, north Wales. The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728 MW (2,317,000 hp) and has a storage capacity of around 9.1 GWh (33 TJ).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by pip08456

You mean more of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

Yes, thanks for finding it.

This article also suggests some other options:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/br...070000486.html

Originally Posted by nomadking

Why is it a scandal? The French consumer may pay lower than a UK consumer, but the French taxpayer is paying the difference.
We don't have a surplus of production as such, but we do have the gas-generated capacity, while France has issues with its Nuclear plants.
We're even exporting to Norway.
You can see the figures here.
We even import from Ireland, which seems odd.

Part of the problem is it may be a National Grid, but still the power has to be roughly in the right area of the country. Eg Over a month ago, London was at risk of a blackout, so we had to import extremely expensive electricity from Belgium, even though overall the UK had the spare capacity, just not in the London area.

---------- Post added at 10:46 ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 ----------


Why are we exporting 1GW to Norway at the moment? They are having problems with lack of water for their Hydroelectric plants.

We generally don't have the geography to do that(it needs 2 reservoirs per plant), but we do have 4 pumped storage plants. They use electricity at night when demand is lower. Solar isn't going to be much use then.

Solar battery storage?

https://www.power-technology.com/mar...age-system-uk/

https://anesco.com/project/slepe-farm/

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

There's one from the Republic of Ireland to Wales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E...Interconnector

We need more investment here, then. Not something we've invested in, but as you know, we've not invested in energy infrastructure much in the last 20 years.

---------- Post added at 13:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 ----------

A small morsel of good news for those of you like me, car owners who live near Co-op petrol stations. Generally these are quite pricey for petrol.

However, the chain has now been sold to Asda so hopefully we'll be seeing lower prices under Asda's ownership by the end of the year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nvenience-push

We don't have the same geography as Norway. You still need the geography for a reservoir at the bottom. We have 200 hydro-electric plants, but all they can summon up at the moment is 0.08GW.
Pumped storage still needs night-time gas generated electricity, so where's the savings? If there are upper limits to generating capacity, then you are just bringing forward the time of the gas-generated electricity.

Originally Posted by nomadking

We don't have the same geography as Norway. You still need the geography for a reservoir at the bottom. We have 200 hydro-electric plants, but all they can summon up at the moment is 0.08GW.
Pumped storage still needs night-time gas generated electricity, so where's the savings? If there are upper limits to generating capacity, then you are just bringing forward the time of the gas-generated electricity.

Actually pumped storage hydro operates on whatever electricity is in the system at point of need. This is as likely to be wind as anything else as base load is fairly predictable overnight and gas powered plants can be wound down.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Chris

Actually pumped storage hydro operates on whatever electricity is in the system at point of need. This is as likely to be wind as anything else as base load is fairly predictable overnight and gas powered plants can be wound down.

If gas powered plants are still needed overnight, then there are no savings. All it can do is reduce the daytime requirements for gas powered plants, leaving the spare capacity available for surges in demand or generation problems elsewhere. Still doesn't explain why the pumped storage generation is zero.

Originally Posted by nomadking

If gas powered plants are still needed overnight, then there are no savings. All it can do is reduce the daytime requirements for gas powered plants, leaving the spare capacity available for surges in demand or generation problems elsewhere. Still doesn't explain why the pumped storage generation is zero.

Pumped storage hydro is exactly what it says it is - a store of energy. A great big battery, in effect. It uses excess base load generation overnight to run the pumps that push water uphill and releases the water back down through the generator during the day. Hydro can spin up very quickly so it is used to satisfy demand spikes especially at peak times.

The overnight electricity comes from sources that can’t easily be stopped, like nuclear, coal/biomass and, to a limited extent, gas, though a gas plant can actually be started and stopped quite quickly at the cost of reduced efficiency. As we can’t control when the wind blows I believe a fair amount of wind power may also end up being used to run the pumps, if the wind is blowing.

There are various reasons why pumped storage may presently be showing zero generation. It might be that in summer the load spikes aren’t there. It might also be that a balance must be maintained with the amount of water flowing naturally in the highlands where most of these systems are. There is reduced rainfall in Scotland this summer, albeit not as bad as in England.

[tweetiepooh]

Now I do realise that there are some desperately poor people in the UK but we had an email from the organisation that we sponsor children through about the increase in costs in the communities our children are in.


The price of bread (for example) has increased 300% and many of the families were already spending 60-70% of their income on food. Price rises of that order mean many can not afford food at all. I don't know many people in the west facing that same degree of increase. I'm sure there are some and you can't make direct comparisons but it does make you think (I hope).

[Jaymoss]

where has bread prices increased 300% ? the seeded batch loaf I buy from Tesco has gone from 90p 800g loaf to £1 even the expensive seeded loaf has only gone up from £1.50 to £1.85. Their cheapest loaf is 36p. You could feed a family of 4 egg and beans on toast for less than £2 or egg chips and beans for the same

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

where has bread prices increased 300%?

I think it's in Africa.

[ianch99]

Real concerns about the care sector. Saw this posted:

Sky News has been told that care homes are facing closure this winter with some being quoted between 200-400% more for their energy costs. We've spent today with @sheffcare who say they usually pay around £90,000 across their nine care homes, they've recently been quoted £1.16m

The private care home sector will just close the homes if they are unprofitable.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Real concerns about the care sector. Saw this posted:



The private care home sector will just close the homes if they are unprofitable.

Another post where the figures make no sense. 90k to over a mill is way over a 400% increase and if is 90K each then £1.16mill is way less than 200%

I seen the books in a care home and this was years ago they were charging 600 quid per week per patient (in was a care home for bad cases though)

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Another post where the figures make no sense. 90k to over a mill is way over a 400% increase and if is 90K each then £1.16mill is way less than 200%

I seen the books in a care home and this was years ago they were charging 600 quid per week per patient (in was a care home for bad cases though)

It's because the cap only applies to residential. Commercial suppliers can charge what they think they can get away with, they have to cover their costs and that's a bigger worry for government than residential because if the government aren't careful there'll be wholesale failure in the business world.