The Price Of Virtue Signalling
By Paul Homewood
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Millions of customers, we are told, have opted for “green energy deals” in the mistaken belief that they are doing their bit to save the planet. But how many would actually buy green energy if they had to pay the true cost of it?
At the moment, of course, the subsidies paid out to wind farms and other renewable schemes are spread over everybody’s bills. A rough calculation shows the cost of these subsidies, including ROs, CfDs, FIT and the Capacity Market, along with the extra costs incurred by the National Grid in coping with intermittent wind and solar power, to be in the region of £16 billion a year. Last year renewable generation amounted to 129 TWh, so subsidies equated to £124/MWh.
Assuming average household electricity consumption of 5000 KWh, it would mean a surcharge of £620 per home, if all their power was green.
I suspect very few would actually opt for green energy if they had to pay this much!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Anything to get one up on the Jones’s.
Thank goodness for this site. At least posts and comments here give people informed opinion.
Thanks Paul.
It’s all Russia’s fault were told, nothing to do with cheap renewables. Gullible in the extreme comes to mind.
There are plenty more wheezes out there for the climate conscious. Have you seen the Flora tag line about their ‘Plant Butter’ having 75% less climate impact than dairy butter.
https://www.flora.com/en-gb/floraplant/sustainability/carbon-footprint
A better word is “gullible”. But what else would we expect given the brainwashing / indoctrination in the so-called education system since the scam started?
>> climate conscious
Just read the link. The claims seem pure nonsense
coconut oil, sunflower oil, ‘faba bean preparation’ – no, me neither. Flavourings – to make it taste like butter? As far as I know I don’t think we produce coconut oil or sunflower oil here? Faba beans…no idea but somehow doubt it. So lets import stuff to replace milk we can produce here – great idea. Seems the like the whole rewilding – grow trees everywhere plan at work.
Yes, if that 16 billion was put into the NHS, we might get a proper service, now that really would save lives.
I see the gas price is now predicted to triple in the second half of this year.
Obviously it has fallen recently whilst no one needed to desperately buy. As soon as buyers start stockpiling/buying for next winter…. up up and away.
The feckless gov. had pinned their hopes on the recent fall feeding through to electricity bills, seems the cheap period will be far too short/ volatile, even if it does briefly dip below the price guarantee, it will be shooting up again by the time we need our heating.
As long as gas is required to back up renewables and gas supply is constrained by refusal to frack and lack of storage to buy in the cheap season, electricity prices will stay high or higher.
Ultimately the claim that electricity prices are determined by the high cost of the last resort gas is a perverse portrayal of the fact that in reality the price of gas is being pushed to reflect the true cost of renewables.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gas-prices-energy-increase-b2335558.html
https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/605440/will-energy-prices-go-down
At the moment spot gas is 88p/therm, with June at 82p/therm and gas for delivery in January at 156p/therm. That is providing an incentive for storage from June, with exports to the Continent already cranked up by the higher prices there.
http://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/DailySummaryReport#dvDemandGraph
I think it is possible we will see electricity price spikes and demand curtailment that have nothing to do with gas supply, but rather simply reflect general capacity shortage in low winds. The spike in gas prices we had in November/December last year was just a bounce back from the steep falling trend since the peak in August when Gazprom shut Nordstream and supply uncertainty was at a peak. In fact we saw something similar, with power prices at a large premium to gas cost which would have justified up to about £240/MWh for electricity. We had to bid for imports.
The capacity problem is only getting worse as old stations close and dispatchable capacity procurement lags behind, and new wind farms are delayed by unprofitable contracts.
Much gas demand has been destroyed by closure of industry and commerce and consumer economies (turning down thermostats). Of course, a really cold winter could make a big difference to demand, and we could see a big gas price spike too. But it has already become the conventional wisdom. See Timera’s piece here:
https://timera-energy.com/eu-gas-power-prices-plunge-this-summer/
But note their warning: this not a market for forecasting outcomes. Take a look at their latest piece too:
https://timera-energy.com/pricing-in-a-sharp-recession/
When looking at what might happen to markets it was always my approach to ask why something couldn’t happen, and to look at what might be the circumstances in which it would.
In France, the low point of storage is April, so if they have emptied storage over the winter then they will already be filling again. But this happens every year, so volumes are built in.
Perhaps I should point out that retail prices are a separate matter. There will be a keenness to recover as much as possible of the subsidies doled out over the past winter. So even if wholesale prices fall you will be billed accordingly.
I’ve long thought that the use of the word ‘backup’ in this context is deceptive to the point of being dishonest given the low capacity factor of wind and solar; gas will be generating most of the electricity most of the time. I suggest using ‘host’ instead as in: “…gas is required to host renewables…” Any better suggestions?
Predicted by all the people who failed to predict it going up and failed to predict it coming down.
“…predicted to triple…”
By scaremongers.
The present wholesale price of gas on the Dutch market is $35 per Mwh. If we had more storage we could be filling our boots. However, on the brighter side (in a somewhat back-to-front way), we consumers are paying our providers on the basis of a price considerably higher than $35, because the companies bought ahead at a high price.* The futures market for the coming Winter is trading at $58 a Mwh, whch is probably not much different from the average price the companies paid for the present supply.
All in all – and remembering that the gas itself is only a part of the supply system’s costs – the consumers’ prospects are for somewhat higher prices but not a tripling. As usual, however, store wood if you can!
We should, of course, not expect much, if any gas, from Russia, directly or indirectly, for at least two more winters.
* Nothing sinister in this. They try to smooth their costs. Otherwise we would have been paying for gas in August 2022 with a basic price based on $350 per Mwh!
It’s not easy searching this site, but I predicted long ago on here, long before there was a hint of prices escalating, that electricity prices would rise 3 to 5, 4 to 6 times, whatever, and poor people would end up spending a large % of their take home pay on just that. It’s obvious, because that is nearer the true cost of renewable energy.
Then there’s this
Cost of Highlands renewables jobs could increase energy bills
NEWS that international heavyweights expect to develop major renewables support plants in Scotland may have rekindled fading hopes of a green jobs boom but there are big questions about what benefits will be generated from the investment concerned and who will be the biggest winners.
US private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners and Japanese engineering giant Sumitomo Electric have provided a badly-needed boost to the SNP Government by throwing their considerable weight behind projects that supporters reckon show how a just transition to a green energy economy can be achieved.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/23507333.cost-highlands-renewables-jobs-increase-energy-bills/
It’s a long article worth rading
Over 80% of world energy still comes from fuel power. Talk of transitions to green energy is nonsense. Renewables can’t even cover the increases in demand.
Do the people who choose to pay for their electricity from ‘green’ electricity companies actually believe that the electricity coming through the cables into their homes is only from ‘green’ sources? Can they really be that stupid?
The electricity that flows into your home at any given time is from whatever source the switching engineers decide is best suited for the demand at that time. If the house next door to me is being fed from a nuclear source then so is my house and every other house supplied from the same sub-station. Ditto for oil, gas, renewable or whatever.
Who you choose to pay for your electricity has no bearing whatsoever on what generating source actually powers your electric devices. It therefore follows that choosing a ‘green’ electricity supplier is nothing more than a pathetic case of virtual signalling which makes people like Dale Vince and his ilk filthy rich whilst laughing all the way to the bank at their customers gullibility.
Highly likely they do.
Remember they’re the same people who’ll say gas is nine times as expensive as wind & offshore wind only costs £35/MWh as that’s the strike price.
There is no oil gen now
It’s all Russia’s fault?
Flow Energy and GB Energy customers moved to Octopus Energy – August 2019
Russian SMO – February 2022
(Maidan Coup – February 2014)
“But how many would actually buy green energy if they had to pay the true cost of it?”
It’s as much the interupted supply as the high prices that they need to bear.
All the energy supplier bankruptcies occurred from around mid-2021 up to the last in January 2022. Before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Oil & gas prices were rising from November 2020 and they all got caught with your pants down. They were buying in the spot market for years on a gently falling price and undercutting competitors who were hedging. Not a successful strategy when the price starts to rise. Gamblers ruin.
Criminal irresponsibility by OFGEM to try to promote an unhedgeable price cap on the one hand and failure to spot the under-capitalisation and no hedge policies of the small fly-by-nighters who they praised for being competitive until prices started rising because they were avoiding those costs.
And, if I recall, there were a huge reduction in gas storage.
The price of England’s virtue signalling is not all smoke and mirrors but clouds and silicon it seems. I didn’t see any pictures of the battery storage.
‘The 200-acre solar farm in the fields to the north of Bristol is the first in the country to be connected up to the National Grid’s high voltage network, and with the addition of a big battery energy storage facility, it’s being heralded as a game-changer in creating a future where solar power is a consistent supplier of much of Britain’s electricity.’
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/gallery/uks-first-solar-farm-national-8409200
Douglas,
difficult to put a word to accurately describe all the half truths of that article, is ‘waffle’ strong enough?
Solar in the U.K. will never make a significant contribution to our power, it’s just too weak and only really works for about eight months of the year.
In the winter months, what will keep that battery charged? I very much suspect that it will be grid power and not solar, which means it will largely be gas but that power can command a high price in the wholesale market if sold to boost capacity?
Unfortunately, local planners and councils are misled into thinking this sort of project is good for the U.K. rather than just the investors of the project.
Iain
I slipped up so my first reply is further down the comments. Though my error gives me the opportunity to add this.
I totally agree with you. I may well of added something to the original news article.
But look – there is no comments section. Net zero peddlers do not want the truth getting out.
They blatantly con people. Where re is the official watch dog ?!
So if say 20% of households opted for Green only, they would pay all the £16 billion. That’s around 6m households so £2,700 each.
You rightly question whether many would pay extra for ‘green’ energy, which isn’t even green in the first place by the time manufacture and installation of wind turbines and solar farms are taken into account. That’s before even considering whether more CO2 is undesirable in the first place – it will help feed the world.
Iain
This article is by Tristan Cork, their Senior Reporter. Do the editors and owners ( Reach plc ) really not know the truth by now ? I believe they are paid handsomely to pedal a lie so regularly it often gets bigger and bigger in order to keep people’s attention.
This is disinformation. But how to stop it ? The gullible and those not bothered except this waffle as truth !
This set up is in South Gloucestershire. Until last week was Conservative lead. Now I don’t recall, will it make any difference to planning regulations ? I very much doubt it.
We are in a war against common sense. Everything is being turned upside down.
According to Mr. Miliband ‘New renewable power is now NINE TIMES cheaper than gas’
If he’d stop lying for a moment and did 10 minutes research online he’d see if the UK medium house had energy provided at the current wholesale price of gas it would be more than five times cheaper than people are currently having to pay.
As of today.
Energy use per/annum
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-bill.html
Medium House 14,900 kWh. cost £2,502.26
14900 kWh = 508.41 therms.
https://convertlive.com/u/convert/kilowatt-hours/to/therms#14900
Wholesale price of gas £0.8141/therm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxwdwz5d8gxt/natural-gas
508.41 x 0.8141 = £413.89
BBC 15 minute city propaganda.
Don’t hold out hope of the ‘ controversy’ being honestly considered.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5bjx
“…being honestly considered.”
Is ANYTHING in this country honestly considered? Most people are too stupid and complacent to see what is under their noses. They await ‘a permission to see’ from the BBC and one of its po-faced ‘scientists.’
For example, the Office for National Statistics announced today that for the week ending April 28 there were 1,469 excess deaths in England and Wales.
That is like 20 ‘Grenfell Towers’! Who cares? Until it is one of your relatives who dies unexpectedly, nobody cares!
It is interesting that France has been showing normal mortality for some time. But they are only now (since April 27) starting a new mRNA booster campaign. So we will see what we will see.
France will no doubt see a surge in ‘died suddenly’, cause ‘unknown’, doctors ‘baffled’, but they were so healthy and young.
Unfortunately if people do not question their leaders more it will get worse before it gets better. The media are already referring to climate change and pandemics as being connected. Therefore requiring similar controls, e.g. lockdowns and additional legislation.
“…question their leaders more…”
But the lies they will receive in return will be almost at a Kafkaesque level of impudence and absurdity.
You just have to look at Gridwatch Templar to see that over the past month solar has provided 4 GW or under on 13 days and wind 5 GW or under on 18 days. Look to additional future demand for heat pumps and EVs and we are well and truly in the mire.
The Danish Meteorological Institute has been mucking about with the metric that they call ‘Arctic Mean Temperature.’ However, the new pretty graphic
does not show any substantive differences:
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
As as been evident for a decade, the metric in the depth of winter runs 5 C
higher than in the 1960s and 1970s. This is the only noteworthy fact.
Because summer-time conditions at the North Pole are always characterised by ice-floating-in-water it is obvious, by the most elementary physics, that the air temperature in summer is capped – give or take a degree – at the freezing point of sea-water.
As for the long, dark Arctic winter, what the difference is – in environmental impact – between being -30 C and -25 C is a question which answers itself.
It is still seems to me that the ‘warming’ of the last 150 years has been an amelioration of winter rather than an intensification of summer.