Peoples Energy: any experiences and/or knowledge of this supplier please?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill! I actually have enough non-thatched roof space to make a significant dent in it, so I live in hope that one day the local council will see sense!

Your house is an exceptional building though. I was replying to ian's point that this shouldn't be about individual properties and their owners. In terms of insulation, it has to be about buildings! Though not necessarily their owners.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill!

There's always this:  https://rippleenergy.com/

Loath I am to dispute things with teh Kim, statements like

Your electricity is supplied to your home

Implying that power from that windfarm is supplied  to your house, make me want to run away very very fast.

[TimC]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill!

There's always this:  https://rippleenergy.com/

That's really interesting - thanks Kim!

[ian]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill! I actually have enough non-thatched roof space to make a significant dent in it, so I live in hope that one day the local council will see sense!

Your house is an exceptional building though. I was replying to ian's point that this shouldn't be about individual properties and their owners. In terms of insulation, it has to be about buildings! Though not necessarily their owners.

Some properties simply aren't amenable for insulation, no one is going to let you put double-glazing in a 12th-century castle and slap some solar panels on the roof. Government should be ensuring we don't build another substandardly insulated property (they aren't, of course). If it's doable, it's doable, but solving national energy issues shouldn't be down to individual homeowners.

[Kim]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill!

There's always this:  https://rippleenergy.com/

Loath I am to dispute things with teh Kim, statements like

Your electricity is supplied to your home

Implying that power from that windfarm is supplied  to your house, make me want to run away very very fast.

Marketing, innit.  Obviously it's not the same electrons, and unlike sticking PV on your roof, you still have to pay for transmission and distribution.  But it means that your supplier buys electricity for you at the windfarm's costs, rather than the market rate, and you get to pocket the difference.

Why this isn't the case for all the usual 'green' electricity tariffs left as an exercise for the reader...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill! I actually have enough non-thatched roof space to make a significant dent in it, so I live in hope that one day the local council will see sense!

Your house is an exceptional building though. I was replying to ian's point that this shouldn't be about individual properties and their owners. In terms of insulation, it has to be about buildings! Though not necessarily their owners.

Some properties simply aren't amenable for insulation, no one is going to let you put double-glazing in a 12th-century castle and slap some solar panels on the roof. Government should be ensuring we don't build another substandardly insulated property (they aren't, of course). If it's doable, it's doable, but solving national energy issues shouldn't be down to individual homeowners.

Government can and should set standards for newbuilds but somehow the hundreds of thousands* of uninsulated buildings have to be dealt with. Which can't not come down to individual buildings, whether it's paid for by owners or governments.

*Maybe ten million. Apparently there are 24.7 million houses in the UK https://www.statista.com/statistics/232302/number-of-dwellings-in-england and there's no way the majority are adequately insulated. And that's before we get on non-domestic buildings.

[L CC]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill!

There's always this:  https://rippleenergy.com/

I hoped that was going to be a link to a water turbine. Colour me disappointed.

[Mr Larrington]

Some folks I know in USAnia used to live far, far away from the beaten track and got all their voles from a water turbine.  Obviously bank voles ba-dum TISH!  Then one of them invented this: https://paklitegear.com/home and sold gazillions of them to the military and mains anbarism soon followed.

[felstedrider]

Why this isn't the case for all the usual 'green' electricity tariffs left as an exercise for the reader...

This comes up a lot.   There is only one wholesale power market, all traded at a notional balancing point and provided from a range of sources.   The rate is derived by all of the underlying marginal costs of production.   At the moment the clearing price is set by the gas price which is the marginal plant.   It only decouples on really windy days in the short term.

[Polar Bear]

Surely insulation inevitably comes down to individual properties.

It does, but the only realistic way of properly insulating my 'substantial wood framed' property is to install external insulation, removing the original render. That's a non-starter for several reasons. Although I'd love to see much more of our electricity come from renewable resources, from a personal PoV I'd just like to be able to generate some to offset the bill! I actually have enough non-thatched roof space to make a significant dent in it, so I live in hope that one day the local council will see sense!

Your house is an exceptional building though. I was replying to ian's point that this shouldn't be about individual properties and their owners. In terms of insulation, it has to be about buildings! Though not necessarily their owners.

Some properties simply aren't amenable for insulation, no one is going to let you put double-glazing in a 12th-century castle and slap some solar panels on the roof. Government should be ensuring we don't build another substandardly insulated property (they aren't, of course). If it's doable, it's doable, but solving national energy issues shouldn't be down to individual homeowners.

Government can and should set standards for newbuilds but somehow the hundreds of thousands* of uninsulated buildings have to be dealt with. Which can't not come down to individual buildings, whether it's paid for by owners or governments.

*Maybe ten million. Apparently there are 24.7 million houses in the UK https://www.statista.com/statistics/232302/number-of-dwellings-in-england and there's no way the majority are adequately insulated. And that's before we get on non-domestic buildings.

There was Labour legislation due to become law in 2016 that all new builds should be low carbon / carbon neutral.  The tories pulled it on the basis that their very concerned friends from the building industry claimed that it would add £7,500 to the cost of each property on average.  The replacement legislation is not due for another couple of years at least. 

Add this to the scaling back of renewables investment and incentives by government since 2010 and it is not difficult to see that if things had continued at pre tory pace then we would need to burn less gas to generate electricity, would therefore be less dependent upon imported gas and that we would have greater energy security.

Hey ho!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Even if all new builds were up to passivehouse standard, there's still the problem of 24 million old houses.

[ian]

For some of those old houses, it may not be feasible to insulate them efficiently, there's no sense fretting at a small proportion of the housing stock; for others, there will be sensible and cost-effective insulation strategies where money might be better spent.

As an ordinary home-owner who doesn't appear to qualify for any grants, it seemed a bit impossiblolium to get anyone to give us a quote on solar panels/solar hot water on our roof (admittedly, it seemed more hassle than it was worth, so I let it slide, but that's the problem with relying on individuals).

[Kim]

Why this isn't the case for all the usual 'green' electricity tariffs left as an exercise for the reader...

This comes up a lot.   There is only one wholesale power market, all traded at a notional balancing point and provided from a range of sources.   The rate is derived by all of the underlying marginal costs of production.   At the moment the clearing price is set by the gas price which is the marginal plant.   It only decouples on really windy days in the short term.

Yep, I suspect that we're stuck with it working that way until such a time that either  a) There isn't a wholesale electricity market   or  b) We don't need expensive fossil fuels to stabilise the grid.

[Kim]

Even if all new builds were up to passivehouse standard, there's still the problem of 24 million old houses.

Climate change should take out a few of them...   

[mrcharly-YHT]

Even if all new builds were up to passivehouse standard, there's still the problem of 24 million old houses.

Climate change should take out a few of them...   

Probably not.

Old houses have survived so far and are more sturdy (the non-sturdy ones have deteriorated).

A distressingly high proportion of newbuilds are on land that hasn't been previously built on, because it is marshy or very low lying. They will go first.

[rogerzilla]

Do we have any coal plants still working?  I imagine they'll be fired up if, due to Vladolf's doings, gas becomes too scarce to be used for power generation.

[ian]

Even if all new builds were up to passivehouse standard, there's still the problem of 24 million old houses.

Climate change should take out a few of them...   

Probably not.

Old houses have survived so far and are more sturdy (the non-sturdy ones have deteriorated).

A distressingly high proportion of newbuilds are on land that hasn't been previously built on, because it is marshy or very low lying. They will go first.

From the newbuilds we saw on our last outing on the market, quickly sinking into marshy oblivion will be a mercy.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Do we have any coal plants still working?  I imagine they'll be fired up if, due to Vladolf's doings, gas becomes too scarce to be used for power generation.

The biggest one in europe, allegedly. Drax

Currently running mostly on (imported) biomass.

[Polar Bear]

New builds on floodplains and all housing stock in low lying villages, towns and cities close to or even next to rivers, especially as they get closer to the sea.  Age is irrelevant when it is partially or fully submerged.

If you look at areas that have suffered bad flooding in the past 30 years you can fairly accurately see and predict where the future problems due to climate change are likely to occur.

When you move to your next home forget that lovely seafront villa or waterside apartment and go and find a hill with a house on top of it!

[felstedrider]

Do we have any coal plants still working?  I imagine they'll be fired up if, due to Vladolf's doings, gas becomes too scarce to be used for power generation.

2 units at Drax still run on coal.   Eon still have Ratcliffe.

All running across the peak of the day with what looks like 1 Drax unit running overnight.

1.9GW of a total UK generation of 40GW across the Peak.

Rest are all decommissioned under emissions regs.

[hatler]

Do we have any coal plants still working?  I imagine they'll be fired up if, due to Vladolf's doings, gas becomes too scarce to be used for power generation.

This shows we're currently (see what I did there) running 2.5% of the power supply from coal - https://grid.iamkate.com/

[felstedrider]

Trying not to get into POBI.

Govt language moving to blaming cost of living increases (inc. energy) on Ukraine.   Wholesale prices are below where they were before Christmas.

[rogerzilla]

/Nadine Dorries mode on

Can't we just build coal power stations with really big chimneys to pipe the CO₂ into space?

[campagman]

I am a very low energy user. I am on a 12 month Ovo fix at £35 per month. This ends in May. I have been offered 3 plans to move to. A £45 / mth SVR which will go up in April and then again in Oct but may start coming down after that, I hear. A £92 / mth 2 yr fix or a £95 / mth 1 yr fix. I don't want to be tied into a 2 yr deal if the prices start coming down so am looking at the 1 yr deal. Does this make sense?

[FifeingEejit]

Run out of room for more plants then?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-60821657

Could do with some more pumped storage here though.