Prices of the electricity we use to charge

[Woosh]

MikelBikel often supports reform's anti netzero policy without engaging into any factual discussions.
Here is a compilation of current costs to build a 470MW power station using various technologies currently available to us.
The 470MW was chosen because uk government will have to decide on SMR by next year and the leading design is Rolls Royce 470MW SMR.


Technology Capacity Estimated CAPEX Cost per MW LCOE (£/MWh)

Gas-Fired CCGT 470 MW £250–£350 million £532k–£745k £114
**Rolls-Royce SMR (Nuclear)** 470 MW £1.8–£2.5 billion £3.8m–£5.3m £95–£109
Onshore Wind Farm ~500 MW £600 million ~£1.2m £38
Offshore Wind Farm ~500 MW £1.5 billion ~£3.0m £44
Large-Scale Solar Farm ~500 MW £300–£500 million £600k–£1.0m £41


Key Insights:

Gas-Fired CCGT: While gas plants have lower upfront costs and can be constructed relatively quickly, their LCOE is higher due to fuel and carbon costs.

Rolls-Royce SMR (Nuclear): SMRs have higher capital costs but offer consistent, low-carbon energy. The LCOE is competitive with other technologies, especially considering their long operational life.

These LCOE estimates are based on projects commissioning in 2025.

 

[Ghost1951]

MikelBikel often supports reform's anti netzero policy without engaging into any factual discussions.
Here is a compilation of current costs to build a 470MW power station using various technologies currently available to us.
The 470MW was chosen because uk government will have to decide on SMR by next year and the leading design is Rolls Royce 470MW SMR.


Technology Capacity Estimated CAPEX Cost per MW LCOE (£/MWh)

Gas-Fired CCGT 470 MW £250–£350 million £532k–£745k £114
**Rolls-Royce SMR (Nuclear)** 470 MW £1.8–£2.5 billion £3.8m–£5.3m £95–£109
Onshore Wind Farm ~500 MW £600 million ~£1.2m £38
Offshore Wind Farm ~500 MW £1.5 billion ~£3.0m £44
Large-Scale Solar Farm ~500 MW £300–£500 million £600k–£1.0m £41


Key Insights:

Gas-Fired CCGT: While gas plants have lower upfront costs and can be constructed relatively quickly, their LCOE is higher due to fuel and carbon costs.

Rolls-Royce SMR (Nuclear): SMRs have higher capital costs but offer consistent, low-carbon energy. The LCOE is competitive with other technologies, especially considering their long operational life.

These LCOE estimates are based on projects commissioning in 2025.

The cost of gas is considerable lower in markets not artificially interfered with by carbon tax. This graph from Wikipedia shows the levelised costs of different generation methods in the United States.



Another absolutely terrible factor in the cost of electricity here is that we run a rigged market in paying ALL generators according to the cost of the last and most expensive bidder in the supply auction, supplying the smallest contribution to the total generation at any time. So those suppliers who bid low - like wind generators, get paid not the price of their low bid, but the price needed to tempt the most expensive bidder to supply the last few megawatts needed to balance the grid. What kind of an auction is that?????? A rigged auction, I suggest.

Then when a nation breaks its own legs by imposing large taxes on a vital form of energy generation for ideological reasons, it can't then be claimed that a perfectly viable and low carbon energy source like methane gas is the most expensive. Gas IS LOW carbon. About half the carbon content of coal generation, which is still widely used by our competitor nations. Carbon taxes and consequent high energy prices are a self imposed kick in teh head for many industries. Worse still, we haven't saved any carbon release, because we just have to buy our steel and ceramics and other energy intense products from places like China where the carbon content of electric energy is at least twice as high as it is here. It is absolute madness and is leading to increasing de-industrialisation of the United Kingdom.

But the problem is worse than that. We have so much under-invested in our grid and generating systems that we are paying wind generators hundreds of millions of pounds a year to NOT supply energy when they could.



This country has been disastrously badly run for fifty years. Take a look at this analysis from DRAX and look at the costs of running a steel mill in the UK as compared with any of our competitors. Some of our pilicy makers would be in jail elsewhere so badly have they let us down!

Why are Britain’s power prices the highest in the world? | Q4 2024 Quarterly Report | Electric Insights

reports.electricinsights.co.uk

And in case anyone thinks that MILIBAND is the answer.... No he boody well isn't. He is an ideologue and an arse who will certainly make things worse. The man is TOTALLY unsuited by education and experience to manage ANYTHING of a technical nature. This makes him easy prey to lobbyists and snake oil salesmen. He outright lied about the reasons why our power is so expensive on the Today Programme. I heard him.

After completing his O-levels, he worked as an intern to family friend Tony Benn, the MP for Chesterfield. In 1989, Miliband gained four A Levels—in Mathematics (A), English (A), Further Mathematics (B) and Physics (B)—and then read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

 

[soundwave]

higher price pay more tax

 

[Woosh]

The cost of gas is considerable lower in markets not artificially interfered with by carbon tax. This graph from Wikipedia shows the levelised costs of different generation methods in the United States.

View attachment 63320

Another absolutely terrible factor in the cost of electricity here is that we run a rigged market in paying ALL generators according to the cost of the last and most expensive bidder in the supply auction, supplying the smallest contribution to the total generation at any time. So those suppliers who bid low - like wind generators, get paid not the price of their low bid, but the price needed to tempt the most expensive bidder to supply the last few megawatts needed to balance the grid. What kind of an auction is that?????? A rigged auction, I suggest.

Then when a nation breaks its own legs by imposing large taxes on a vital form of energy generation for ideological reasons, it can't then be claimed that a perfectly viable and low carbon energy source like methane gas is the most expensive. Gas IS LOW carbon. About half the carbon content of coal generation, which is still widely used by our competitor nations. Carbon taxes and consequent high energy prices are a self imposed kick in teh head for many industries. Worse still, we haven't saved any carbon release, because we just have to buy our steel and ceramics and other energy intense products from places like China where the carbon content of electric energy is at least twice as high as it is here. It is absolute madness and is leading to increasing de-industrialisation of the United Kingdom.

But the problem is worse than that. We have so much under-invested in our grid and generating systems that we are paying wind generators hundreds of millions of pounds a year to NOT supply energy when they could.



This country has been disastrously badly run for fifty years. Take a look at this analysis from DRAX and look at the costs of running a steel mill in the UK as compared with any of our competitors. Some of our pilicy makers would be in jail elsewhere so badly have they let us down!

Why are Britain’s power prices the highest in the world? | Q4 2024 Quarterly Report | Electric Insights

reports.electricinsights.co.uk

View attachment 63322

View attachment 63321


And in case anyone thinks that MILIBAND is the answer.... No he boody well isn't. He is an ideologue and an arse who will certainly make things worse. The man is TOTALLY unsuited by education and experience to manage ANYTHING of a technical nature. This makes him easy prey to lobbyists and snake oil salesmen. He outright lied about the reasons why our power is so expensive on the Today Programme. I heard him.

Gas, especially us shale gas, is hugely cheaper in the USA compared to the UK.
We have to buy LNG. The USA also gets cheap gas from Canada.

Current US gas price per MMBTU: $3.42 (it's not a misprint), UK gas price: £12.185 per MMBTU, 5x US price. Our production cost for 1khw of electricity is 11.4p from gas, 4.5p from wind, 4.1p from solar.

 

[Ghost1951]

Gas, especially us shale gas, is hugely cheaper in the USA compared to the UK.
We have to buy LNG. The USA also gets cheap gas from Canada.

Current US gas price per MMBTU: $3.42 (it's not a misprint), UK gas price: £12.185 per MMBTU, 5x US price. Our production cost for 1khw of electricity is 11.4p from gas, 4.5p from wind, 4.1p from solar.

Two things:

1. We turned our back on shale gas here although it was estimated that under our very feet we have decades of gas supply. Some estimates said there was sixty years of gas supply under Lancashire. We too COULD have had cheap, low carbon gas, but we let fanatics plaster lies about earthquakes all over the public mind. The tremors experienced were so small that only instruments could detect them, and the lies about fracking causing ground water pollution, were exactly that. Lies. The gas is far far below any ground water, so the fracking cracks made by the technique could never have cause problems of the sort described. Where gas and fluids had got into water supply in the States, the issue was badly made, unregulated work around the bore holes near the surface, and never from far down into the earth where the gas is. ANY industry badly run can cause pollution. We do not ban industry, we put in place strict regulations and we enforce them.

Fracking has been standard practice for decades in the maximising production in the gas industry. It isn't some dark new technology. The reserves in the North Sea would have been far less but for the use of fracking. I remember discussing this in a pub at the time of the controversy with some holidaying oil workers near where I live. They laughed out loud at the idea that it was a new dangerous way of doing things. Most of the later production in the North Sea was fracked. It is still being fracked. Had it not been, it would have run out long ago.

2. The price you quote for producing electricity is the cost to generators.

It is NOT what they are paid. We have what amounts to a corrupt system in which ALL producers are paid the same as the most expensive producer, regardless of the actual price they bid. Wind producers may very well offer to supply at £0.05 per kilowatt hour, but if the last bidder needed to maintain supply bids at £0.20 per kilowatt hour for 5% of the supply, ALL producers get paid that high price. This is mad. I don't understand how it was ever allowed to go ahead.

 

[Woosh]

As I mentioned this to you before, our gas and oil deposits are so close to other countries that the producers will sell their oil and gas to the highest bidders. That will not lower the price we pay for gas while we still have to deal with consequences of extraction. Shale oil and gas create many times more damage to the environment compared to north sea deposits.
If we nationalise our natural resources then yes, I can see some justification. As things are, green energy is our best option.

 

[Ghost1951]

As I mentioned this to you before, our gas and oil deposits are so close to other countries that the producers will sell their oil and gas to the highest bidders. That will not lower the price we pay for gas while we still have to deal with consequences of extraction. Shale oil and gas create many times more damage to the environment compared to north sea deposits.
If we nationalise our natural resources then yes, I can see some justification. As things are, green energy is our best option.

The key to the problem is contained in the last line of your post. We should indeed have nationalised the resource - like the Norwegians did. The Norwegian government (and people) own 67% of Equinor. In addition, the owners of the remaining 23% pay tax and fees on their profits from the resource.

Properly managed gas extraction has no ill effect on the environment. A steel and concrete reinforced impermeable tube is sunk into the ground for thousands of feet. It is completely sealed. This is how all well managed oil and gas wells are made. The North Sea too. Then water based fluids are pumped in and hydraulic forces crack the underground rocks allowing oil and gas to pass into the well. How do you conclude that fracking is worse than the North Sea wells? The North Sea has been extensively fracked. Had it not been we would not have had half of the gas and oil we got.

The key is proper regulation and inspection. Accidental pollution in the USA was caused by unregulated shabby practice. Any factory operating out of spec and not inspected can cause release of noxious waste. The key is in regulation. We could have done that and ought to have done, and we should have made sure that the resource was produced for the national good. It wasn't. The government took large fees and taxes and left the companies to do as they liked. The Norwegian People are now the wealthiest population on the planet simply because they did this differently.

 

[Woosh]

Properly managed gas extraction has no ill effect on the environment. A steel and concrete reinforced impermeable tube is sunk into the ground for thousands of feet. It is completely sealed. This is how all well managed oil and gas wells are made. The North Sea too. Then water based fluids are pumped in and hydraulic forces crack the underground rocks allowing oil and gas to pass into the well. How do you conclude that fracking is worse than the North Sea wells? The North Sea has been extensively fracked. Had it not been we would not have had half of the gas and oil we got.

the key difference is the word 'sea'. Small earth quakes, methane leaks, high water usage, habitat disruption. The government has not expressly banned shale gas but sets the bar pretty high. I repeat, any oil and gas produced here will be sold to the highest bidder. That won't reduce the price we pay.

 

[MikelBikel]

Would these nice little cars, sitting around idle for years, be a good buy battery wise? Mm, leccy :-/

 

[Woosh]

Would these nice little cars, sitting around idle for years, be a good buy battery wise? Mm, leccy

LFP batteries in EVs now last longer than the cars, don't worry about it.
The common problem with all the EVs until now is the technology is moving ahead at a very fast pace.
It's not so bad in other area of industrial products but EVs are durable and long term investment, nobody is happy if the car you buy today won't compare with cars coming out in 6 month time or next year. That will make your car depreciate so fast that it's hard to choose between second hand and new.
City electric cars are also in this situation. New city EVs coming out by the end of the year will have a new rear differential which is placed to the rear of the car thus increases the size of the battery compartment so you can have 50+kwH batteries. That will make all the city EVs until now practically obsolete.

 

[soundwave]

just buy a horse and when its dead turn it in to burgers cant eat cars

 

[flecc]

City electric cars are also in this situation. New city EVs coming out by the end of the year will have a new rear differential which is placed to the rear of the car thus increases the size of the battery compartment so you can have 50+kwH batteries. That will make all the city EVs until now practically obsolete.

Not really, because we don't make second hand cars, only new ones with that latest technology.

The second hand old tech ones become the affordable cheap ones to satisfy our huge market for short range local transport.

Once again I repeat that our annual average UK mileage is only 7300 and reducing, 20 miles per day, and within that up to a half of all owners virtually never drive long distances. Many cars are second or even third cars within a household. Many are wives cars used only for domestic duties. Many are owned by pensioners who never drive other than locally.

The 50 miles or so range that those old EVs still have for years is more than an enough to satisfy their needs between plugging in at home, and over half of all households are able to conveniently plug in at home.
.

 

[soundwave]

Monday
May,26,2025


23:28:22 Local time


Arrived at sort facility
LONDON, LONDON, GB
Clearance processing completed - Import
LONDON, LONDON, GB
In clearance processing - Import

International flight has arrived
GB
International flight has departed
CN

Sunday
May,25,2025

02:08:15 Local time
Arrived at the origin international airport
CN

Saturday
May,24,2025

13:08:15 Local time
Shipment is in transit to next facility
Mainland China, CN

Friday
May,23,2025

22:45:18 Local time
22:12:32 Local time

10:39:39 Local time

Departed from sort facility
Mainland China, CN
Arrived at origin facility

look at all those air miles i have ordering everything from half way round the world, and still faster than uk postage.

 

[soundwave]

i bet there is not a ulez for helicopters in London is there cant have that

carbon fibre is renewable as well like air planes every surface part has a service life.

 

[Woosh]

Not really, because we don't make second hand cars, only new ones with that latest technology.

The second hand old tech ones become the affordable cheap ones to satisfy our huge market for short range local transport.

Once again I repeat that our annual average UK mileage is only 7300 and reducing, 20 miles per day, and within that up to a half of all owners virtually never drive long distances. Many cars are second or even third cars within a household. Many are wives cars used only for domestic duties. Many are owned by pensioners who never drive other than locally.

The 50 miles or so range that those old EVs still have for years is more than an enough to satisfy their needs between plugging in at home, and over half of all households are able to conveniently plug in at home.
.

You will make me regret using the word 'obsolete' won't you?
In France, the new Electric Renault 5 is a big success as a City Car. It's gorgeous in the flesh and instantly makes the other city cars uh... obs...

 

[soundwave]

i dont want wheels

 

[soundwave]

 

[flecc]

You will make me regret using the word 'obsolete' won't you?
In France, the new Electric Renault 5 is a big success as a City Car. It's gorgeous in the flesh and instantly makes the other city cars uh... obs...

Yes of course it's nice for all these low mileage users to only have the effort of plugging in their new Renault 5 once a month or two, but that's a costly benefit compared to buying a few years old EV. Like my 8 year old that still allows me 150 miles between charges in Summer, 100 miles in Winter with liberal usage of its heat pump for 22 degrees comfort, so even I often only plug in once a month!
.

 

[saneagle]

LFP batteries in EVs now last longer than the cars, don't worry about it.
The common problem with all the EVs until now is the technology is moving ahead at a very fast pace.
It's not so bad in other area of industrial products but EVs are durable and long term investment, nobody is happy if the car you buy today won't compare with cars coming out in 6 month time or next year. That will make your car depreciate so fast that it's hard to choose between second hand and new.
City electric cars are also in this situation. New city EVs coming out by the end of the year will have a new rear differential which is placed to the rear of the car thus increases the size of the battery compartment so you can have 50+kwH batteries. That will make all the city EVs until now practically obsolete.

The rapidly changing technology just brings new unforseen problems. Safety and reliability comes when you make things the same for a long time, when you had a chance to see all the problems, study the causes and eliminate them. Third rule of quality: "First make them right, then make them all the same."

 

[Woosh]

The rapidly changing technology just brings new unforseen problems. Safety and reliability comes when you make things the same for a long time, when you had a chance to see all the problems, study the causes and eliminate them. Third rule of quality: "First make them right, then make them all the same."

The competition between Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and now Indians accelerates progress. Not so long ago, batteries could not work at below -20C, now, they do work even at -40C. You can spot EVs in Simon Reeves Scandinavia series, Finland -30C. Typical loss of capacity after 2 years, 30,000 miles is now 1% or less, fast charging in 10-15 minutes, more and more cars are fitted with safer LFP batteries and the price is now on par with ICE or even cheaper. We have standard 'platforms' being shared between brands so quality is improving too.