Electricity rebate

If so many consumers chose suppliers who only paid 'green producers' that they were, between them, paying for all the 'green' electricity available, then those suppliers would presumably have to stop accepting further customers, because there would be no more 'green' electricity to be paid for.
It's a pricing signal to the market to entice more green producers into supply. Further, "green-only" retailers could directly commission more green supply themselves were this hypothetical "green cliff-edge" to be approached [or even it weren't approached, for that matter].


countless people switched to small suppliers who offered very attractive prices by rely on foolish gambles about the future of wholesale prices, and therefore ';went bust' - so that the customers had to be bailed out by other (more expensive) suppliers.
It's not the suppliers who are bailing anybody out, it is all other electricity consumers.

I would not be as confident as you seem to be that we can assume that 'they' have got it right (in terms of the interests of consumers).

What do you mean by "the interests of consumers"?
 
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yes somthing like £ 56 off the standing charge loading on everybodys bills to pay for the companies that went bust
 
It's a pricing signal to the market to entice more green producers into supply.
Maybe.
Further, "green-only" retailers could directly commission more green supply themselves were this hypothetical "green cliff-edge" to be approached [or even it weren't approached, for that matter].
I have a feeling that many of the 'green only suppliers' are pretty small, and hence probably not in a position to able to do much meaningful "commissioning of more green supply".
It's not the suppliers who are bailing anybody out, it is all other electricity consumers.
I had assumed that went without saying. Flameport appeared to be being critical of those who hadn't switch to small, often 'high-risk', suppliers - and my point was that those who did that ended up costing everyone money!
What do you mean by "the interests of consumers"?
The most basic of 'interests' - minimisation of energy bills :)

Kind Regards, John
 
Correct, but in reality it's not a problem, as there are inexplicably millions of customers who are apparently entirely happy with being with providers such as British Gas.
They are all the same ones who have never switched to a different energy supplier and have been on the most expensive tariffs for the last 20 years.
No they are those who selected companies who went to the wall, and were auto transferred to British Gas. Why a gas company supplies electric never worked out, there is no mains gas here.

But those with "Green Suppliers" still one assumes will not see their prices raise, as cost of sun, wind, and wave power etc has not changed, only the supply of energy from non green sources has risen.

Who will believe electric comes from a green source if the price goes up? The government seems to want to stop us generating our own by saying you must pay same tax on fuel as a Diesel Engined Road Vehicle the red diesel can no longer be used in generators you must use DERV even when not a road vehicle, how does that work out? But don't need to pay if a rail road?

But sun is in the day time, so if we continue to have solar power, the peak times will change, it seems we can use tidal power, but then locked to moon phases, can you see the problem only using tumble drier at 10 am when a full moon but 6 pm with new moon?

I remember the Winter of discontent, seems we are likely another, had my dental appointment cancelled due to a postal strike, and can't get the moulds of my teeth to lab within required time, who would think a postal strike means a pensioner needs to eat mush, as no false teeth.

We are told the government is looking at the problems, likely caused by Brexit, but blamed on Colvid, but as it stands no one has a clue what is going to happen, is this country going to have same problems as inter war Germany? Getting paid daily as the money devalues so quickly.

Yes going off the subject of electricity rebate, but as it stands how can anyone work out what is going to happen, how farmers who need to plan at least 5 years in advance are going to fair no one knows.
 
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I have a feeling that many of the 'green only suppliers' are pretty small, and hence probably not in a position to able to do much meaningful "commissioning of more green supply".
If the 'green only suppliers' are pretty small then there's no risk of running out of green supply for them to buy as 27% of UK electricity supply is renewables.
As green supply can start at the scale of a single household [install solar panels, for example] then the lower bound on what green only suppliers can commission is basically irrelevant. For what it's worth, the supplier mentioned at the top of the thread has 3M customers, so plenty of scope for investment there. Indeed, their infrastructure fund is listed so you can buy in without being a customer:

The most basic of 'interests' - minimisation of energy bills :)

Too simplistic. A more basic need than electricity for consumers is breathable air, so if you only look at price then you would end up living in a polluted ****hole like China or India. Reliability of supply is expensive too, so you have to factor that in. I am sure there are other things I've forgotten as well.
 
Maybe, but that's obviously a very long-term matter. I would also presume that it means that those on such tariffs must be paying more than they would otherwise have to pay for the electricity alone, since they must be paying something 'extra' to be invested in future 'renewable' capacity - so it's presumably down to whether individuals want to pay for that.

As I've said, I find it hard to get my head around negative prices. As I said, I can understand the desire to incentive people to shift consumption from higher - to lower-demand times of day, but would think that could be achieved by low (or maybe even zero) prices, without the need to go 'negative' -which seems to make little sense.

Anything which results in a better matching of demand and supply is obviously beneficial - and it seems that hiking the wholesale prices at times of highest demand seems to be the primary approach they use to achieve that. However, in many (perhaps 'philosophical') senses it seems to be a rather odd (and maybe 'unfair') thing to do.

After all, it generally costs the producers no more to produce electricity when there is high demand than when there is low demand - so it seems that they are merely increasing their prices (hence markedly increasing their profits) at periods of high demand in an attempt to persuade consumers to reduce the demand at such times.

In the case of 'luxury goods' I can see that there can be a (at least, 'commercial') argument for using exorbitant prices (hence, incidentally, profits) as a means of limiting demand (at least, sales) - but it does not really seem appropriate to use such an approach for something as essengtial as energy.

Don't forget that very many, probably most, people have a fairly limited ability to shift the pattern of their electricity usage during the day. I'm probably fairly exceptional in having managed (without storage heaters or EV charging) to move more than half my usage to low-demand times of day (and relatively little at highest-demand times) - but I doubt that many could achieve that! Again, it seems a bit unfair that people should be financial penalised for being in a situation which precludes much shifting of their demand.

Kind Regards, John
So, let's see, investing in renewables isn't extra - it replaces paying shareholders profits or buying more expensive non-renewable energy.
Shutting down generation can cost money both in terms of extra work and contractual recompense, so it is cheaper to pay consumers to use it than to pay to shut down production (crazy but true)
Suppliers can pay a hell of a lot more for more electricity at times of higher demand - particularly when that demand is short notice - the producers have the suppliers over a barrel at those times and charge them crazy prices. Also the most expensive (and carbon intensive) forms of production are what get switched on at those times.
Yes, the whole set of arrangements is unfair, out of date, and favours the rich.
If you do want to get your head around it - there's an interesting and relevant thread here: https://www.speakev.com/threads/electricity-prices-where-to-now.169677/
 
You do realise that there is no way for "suppliers" or customers to separate the electricity from renewable sources and use only that and ignore the more expensive non-renewable energy.
indeed its a feed into the grid and a tap from the grid so every one gets the average input and the average output
we all get exactly the same as the million people near us or the perhaps 50 million elsewhere in the system, similarly that the average into a pot will equal the out with a perhaps 5% difference overall but no way to separate unless you separate the national grid ??
 
You do realise that there is no way for "suppliers" or customers to separate the electricity from renewable sources and use only that and ignore the more expensive non-renewable energy.
Of course yes.
Though (oddly) actually in this particular case sometimes no!
- It is possible for customers to separate out this particular electricity - by switching your use to times when these systems are not activated.
 
As usual, the climate change deniers on this forum are making themselves known. :(
 
If the 'green only suppliers' are pretty small then there's no risk of running out of green supply for them to buy as 27% of UK electricity supply is renewables.
"pretty small" x "many" = a quite substantial total :)
... For what it's worth, the supplier mentioned at the top of the thread has 3M customers, so plenty of scope for investment there. Indeed, their infrastructure fund is listed so you can buy in without being a customer: <link>
That's true but see what I'm about to write in response to Stephen
Too simplistic. A more basic need than electricity for consumers is breathable air, so if you only look at price then you would end up living in a polluted ****hole like China or India. Reliability of supply is expensive too, so you have to factor that in. I am sure there are other things I've forgotten as well.
All true, but what I wrote was probably too much of an over-simplification of what I meant. What I should have written was something like:
"... The most basic of 'interests' - minimisation of energy bills whilst maintaining reliability of supply and addressing long-term environmental considerations ...

Kind Regards, John
 
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So, let's see, investing in renewables isn't extra - it replaces paying shareholders profits ...
It could, but presumably only with the approval of the shareholders - and I would be surprised if shareholders approved diversion of much (or even all) of what would otherwise be their dividends to an 'investment in renewables'.

As for Why Not Indeed's specific suggestion, I know little about the corporate structure of the Octopus Energy Group, but I have to wonder whether it would be meaningful (or necessarily even 'allowed') for Octopus Energy to buy shares in Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust
Shutting down generation can cost money both in terms of extra work and contractual recompense, so it is cheaper to pay consumers to use it than to pay to shut down production (crazy but true)
So it seems, but that doesn't alter the fact that I find it hard to believe that it is true - but perhaps that's just me!

I don't understand much about how the suppliers pay producers, but I can but presume that they pay a time-of-day-varying price per kWh for the total energy consumed by their customers at that time. If that's the case, then, in the case of an allegedly 'all Green' supplier, exactly who do they pay for their customers' energy usage during, say, periods of little wind during the hours of darkness?

Kind Regards, John
 
Energy can be purchased as required with the price set every half hour.
However suppliers that want to remain in business buy vast amounts of it on futures, where the price is fixed for a certain amount over months or years. The exact time it's generated is mostly unrelated to when it's paid for and used.

Those suppliers that signed up customers to cheapo fixed price deals and then bought all of their energy on spot markets all went bust for obvious reasons.
The fact they were allowed to operate in such a way shows a total lack of regulation and oversight.
 
... which really just 'shifts the buck' from them to the generators - and I still somewhat struggle to understand why it is ever necessary (or necessarily sensible/appropriate) for suppliers to be paid by generators for 'taking' their electricity.

Makes perfect sense to me. Ramping generation up and down is an expensive process, some things just cannot be ramped down quickly or easily at all, like nukes and wind - so more economical to give the spare away, or even bribe consumers to use it.
 

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