OT power suppliers going bust

[newshound]

According to Kathryn Porter a lot of it is to do with the retail price cap

Just another example of this government's disconnection with reality.

[Andy Burns]

Blame Ed Miliband ...

[newshound]

They've had 11 years to do something....

[Theo]

That seems like a good summary.

More trying to balance two different things: the energy market is like the stock market, but many consumers can only handle a savings account. The regulator is trying to bridge the two worlds, to make things friendly to consumers to enable market economics to do its thing. The alternative would be to make things simple for consumers by just having a nationalised energy industry, which capitalists aren't so keen on.

As we saw in the banking crisis, high volatility markets and low volatilty consumer banking don't mix without a lot of expensive fudging in between.

I hadn't realised Centrica had closed Rough storage facility in 2017 - which means we have no stored gas to smooth out bumps in the market. That's somewhere a bit of central planning would have come in handy.

Theo

[Andrew]

There was an item on the BBC red button text yesterday about other EU countries like Spain and a few others offering to subsidise rapidly increasing electric bills because of 'soaring gas prices'.

I thought the EU didn't allow this ?. Curious.

Andrew

[Andrew]

I wonder how long Octopus can last ?. Their variable 1/2 slot pricing seems to be hitting the 35p maximum rather too frequently this year.

Mind you my DRAX shares and dividends are doing nicely :-)

[Andrew]

Isn't the problem that people can set up their own energy supply company from their bedroom with minimal capital outlay ?.

[Andy Burns]

And that would be the sort of outfit that would fail a resilience check.

[Andy Burns]

Just checked on MSE and the cheapest on offer is +£157 from what I'm on

Dunno about their variable (is that for EV owners only?) but their 24m fix would be +£377 for me

The drax insights website didn't show peak pricing anywhere near what the guardian claimed ...

[Andrew]

With the fire at the Ashford interconnector today, which means it will be out of action until March 2022, gas prices are already rocketing.

This could bring about the demise of a lot more minnow energy suppliers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Drax will have long term contracts. short term emergency spot pricing can be gleaned off BMreports website

peaks at 100x normal rates.

2021-09-15 40 3750.00000 3750.00000

Yuss folks, that spot price was £3.75 a unit....

Note that all of yesterday the spot price was well *above* the Hinkley point contract for difference.

So much for renewable energy being cheaper than nuclear.

Hilariously, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph journalist for hire) has now decided that the answer to the failures of renewable energy resulting in massive spot price hikes is of course - just as when socialism fails - more renewable energy!

[Spike]

We've just been through a period during which people have been exhorted, cajoled, and forced to do things to 'Save the NHS'. One might expect that as the Renewables programmes bite even further into sensible power supplies and so endanger grid stability, electric car smart chargers might be turned off to 'save the National Grid', once the batteries have been flattened in the same cause. Can you unplug a smart charger while it's taking juice?

[Andy Burns]

I'm sure they have contracts, but I was talking about their Electric Insights graphs, which have at least 1h resolution, maybe better.

For most of yesterday the price went high (£180ish/MWh) as soon as the majority of gas stations were at full chat, and stayed high all day, but looking now there was a BIG spike later, that dwarfed the price it had been all day.

Actually thinking back, the site had an error message yesterday saying it had a gap in its data, looks like someone's been in and fixed that, but revised the "all day" prices down to £100ish/MWh so maybe a bad days data to look at even without the interconnector fire ...

yep that agrees with the drax figure now.

[Chris Hogg]

They're already planning it:-

[alan_m]

Wasn't there also something recently about a change of legislation where utility companies wouldn't have to pay compensation in the event of a power cut caused by a lack of capacity on the National grid?

[Spike]

Looks like we're going to have a nation of drivers who rush out to the garage to unplug their smart chargers when their smart meter display tells them the grid is being powered from their battery...

Perhaps better to charge from a 13A socket or a petrol generator. Still involves trips to one's garage, but it does mean you don't have to shag out your battery to 'Save the National Grid'!

[Andy Burns]

And it seems EDF will be the replacement supplier, was hoping OFGEM would take months to find someone who wanted a whole raft of loss making customers, so I could stay on my el-cheapo tariff ...

Oh well, EDF claim they might able to re-instate my previously-smart meter

[Steve Walker]

Our gas supplier went bump recently (Hub, previously Gulf Gas and Power) and I am quite pleased. Our fixed tariff was due to run out in December and it was looking like prices might be very much higher, but we have been switched to EON, with a good price, guaranteed unchanged for 6 months - and hopefully, the peak of the problem will be over by then.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Why on earth would you want that?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dream on...

take ten years to dismantle all the wind farms and build cost effective nukes...