Bulb about to fuse

[alan_m]

Doesn't it depend on how much hand holding custmer service you require?

[Dave Plowman (News]

Never had to bother with them, as Flipper did it all for me. But they've closed down too.

[Andrew]

There is zero possibility of United Utilities water being piped (and pumped at high energy costs) all the way down to London or Southern water customers, or vice-versa. And that's just clean water, there is still the other 'stuff' to deal with.

[Andy Burns]

For the energyco's I've bothered to look at, thei small print does explain that the 100% renewable pledge is over the course of year, not for every instant of every day ...

[Pancho]

Hedging isn't that difficult, there are options as well as future/forward contracts.

The point is that bankruptcy is effectively an option in itself, if I lose more money than X I don't have to pay any more. Insuring against bankruptcy doesn't boost potential profits, and you can't lose more than you have, so it doesn't reduce loses. That is why regulation should require it.

It is. Just because you don't know how to achieve it doesn't mean other people are not skilled at risk management.

[Chris Green]

Ay? That makes even *less* sense!

So I sell red and blue cloth. I guarantee to supply 100% red cloth to Mr Smith for a year. What I actually supply is 70% red cloth and 30% blue cloth saying that "later on I'll replace the blue with red", really?!

If *any* proportion of the electricity they supply isn't green/renewable then they can't squirt it back and unburn the coal or oil that was used.

[Andy Burns]

I'm not really supporting what they do, just explaining that these days they are a bit more honest about the smoke and mirrors.

But it isn't actually *you* supplying cloth to Mr Smith, you're just a middle-man and it's all the cloth manufacturers in the land supplying a whole rainbow of cloth, but Mr smith is colour blind and can't actually tell what colour cloth he's getting, you as the Mr Smith's supplier pay redClothCo for sufficient cloth as supplied to him (and your other customers) over the course of a year.

So you've "provided" him with 100% red cloth.

[Chris Green]

Whether I'm a middleman or not if I guarantee to supply 100% red cloth then if I don't do so I haven't fulfilled my part of the contract.

If Mr Smith is colour blind it make make it less likely he'll notice but it *still* doesn't make the contract fulfilled.

No I haven't!

Maybe a slightly more realistic scenario would be a supply goods not manufactured in South Africa back in the days of apartheid. I can't supply goods that *were* made in South Africa if I have promised not to do so.

[Andy Burns]

You load a sufficient quantity of non-SA goods onto ships from "somewhere else" and aim them towards the port nearest your customer, maybe another supplier also loads some SA-produced goods onto another ship, maybe they don't, maybe that ship was aimed at a different port, nobody knows.

When the goods arrive, they're indistinguishable and have no label of origin on them, you can claim you sent enough non-SA stock to cover the amount consumed by your customers, you're not actually claiming all the individual goods they consumed were non-SA. Just that you put enough on a ship.

The elec companies are just saying they paid "somebody" for sufficient green electricity to cover their customers in the long-haul.

If a 50:50 fossil/nuke tariff was available, I'd be on it.

[Steve Walker]

At some times, renewables may not be available and at others there may be an excess. If, over the year, they buy enough renewable electricity to cover their total yearly demand, then they have met their obligations. Yes they will have bought non-renewable electricity for a while, but they will also have paid suppliers to supply renewables, when they don't have enough demand for it and so will have prevented someone else using non-renewables at that point. It all balances out.

[Theo]

Without a smart meter giving half hourly readings (which lots of folks here seem to be against) there is no way the energy company can know *when* their customers are consuming power. At best they get a meter reading once a month, or maybe every 3 months.

There's no way they could bill other than on a kWh-in / kWh-out model, because they have no data about the consumption profile of their customers apart from on a monthly basis.

(they could guess based on average profiles, but guesses are no way to run a billing system)

I hope those who want the companies to be paid for when they deliver power, as well as how much, will be installing smart meters asap. Because that's the only way to account for time of use.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. A lot of companies will split divisions into separate corporate entities that can fail or be sold off, at zero cost to the parent.

One wonders how long BT and Openreach will stay te same company.

I tend to agree - in the end the problem is that all this shit was legislated from Brussels allowing local politicians to be nothing more than bloviating virtue signallers.

Now they are required of necessity to show some competence in governance.

Why do you think they all opposed Brexit? They might have to do a job for a change and be held to account.

These cheap energy companies were in the end high alpha concerns. The same will happen with windmill operators. The wind hasn't blown a lot this year....

[The Natural Philosopher]

I thought I was, with EDF, until they diversified into wind turbines

[Andy Burns]

EDF say they're 100% green electricity, can't see any claims about their gas.

Bulb say they're 100% green for elec and 100% green gas (by offsetting)

[Andrew]

That is forecast to change (a lot) by Jan/Feb22

[alan_m]

Don't they shut down if there is too much wind?

[Andy Burns]

And £1.7b of govt cash loaned, isn't expected to be enough to keep them going past April, £200/customer/month subsidy?

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes.

But anyone who believes a two month out forecast needs their head examining.

Met Office: Warm winter BBC via DTN: Cold winter.

[John J]

Bulb notified me of a second price rise in the year back in August so I jumped ship to octopus. Fortunately the credit in my Bulb account landed back in my bank a couple of weeks ago. The cost per kWh was about the same but it's fixed for a couple of years and octopus apparently had the nous to buy their winter supplies in advance. Privatising energy was a terrible mistake for the consumers.

[John J]

I didn't give a toss about where they sourced the energy. My choice was purely fiscal.