this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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UK Politics

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‘Change is needed’: Ofgem chief calls on ministers to rethink energy price caps (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This paragraph caught my eye:

Britain’s power grids, which are regulated by Ofgem, have warned renewable energy developers to expect a 10-to-15-year wait to connect their projects to the network. The delays threaten the government’s clean energy targets and put much-needed investment in the UK at risk. Critics of the regulator blame its failure to keep pace with seismic changes to the industry.

The above paragraph includes a link to this:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/08/uk-green-energy-projects-in-limbo-as-grid-struggles-to-keep-pace

Pricing would come down once these projects are up and running and once we stop basing the cost of a unit of energy on oil regardless of how that unit was produced.

Incompetence begets incompetence.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It’s almost as though the government of the last decade were so busy giving their mates handouts, asset stripping the public sector and privatising whatever they could, that they forgot to invest in britain’s old and inflexible energy infrastructure and now that every successive winter brings the UK to almost-blackouts they blame the only entity they can think of besides themselves - the regulator they have deliberately hamstrung with budget cuts and a revolving door of nepotistic appointees at the top the whole time they’ve been in power.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I love a good Tory bashing. It's jolly good fun. But this is Daily Mail rant level of absurdity.

every successive winter brings the UK to almost-blackouts

Improving public debate should surely start with representing fact?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Good point. As we head into a risky 2023, here is my counter query: how many times in a row does it need to be a risk before we can say “every winter”?

Great Britain faces rising risk of winter blackouts, system operator warns - Guardian, 2021 - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/22/great-britain-faces-risk-of-winter-blackouts-system-operator-warns

What will happen if Britain has winter blackouts? - BBC, 2022 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63170747

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Again, language matters. You're talking about every winter there are risks. And you've posted articles to support that. Great.

The poster I replied to specifically said this:

every successive winter brings the UK to almost-blackouts

That's very different. That's saying every winter the UK is almost entirely at a loss for power so much so that all or most of it are blacked out.... every year! That's patently not the case but this inflammatory rhetoric sounds good because it lays the blame on the feet of the Tories and draws a direct line between a near total lack of electricity in the UK and them. It's not unfair to point out that this isn't accurate.

I don't think should associate your reasonable view that risks aren't being mitigated year on year with the unreasonable and hyperbolic one the poster was making. It does your point a disservice.

Here's how I would have put it:

every successive winter brings the risk that certain parts of the UK might suffer temporary blackouts for a short period of time

Again, still totally unacceptable that that might be the case. No part of the UK should be without power. But a lot less over the top than the original comment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Fair. No further argument from me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Ofgem is not independent when it is ran as a government dept. It is the government of the last 14 years who have made all the appointments. The same government that gave 100 licenses out for new sites recently. Sunak's wife makes millions from oil shares alone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In the past two years, wholesale market prices reached record highs, pushing up the number of households living in fuel poverty to almost 7.5m and causing the collapse of almost 30 energy suppliers.

His call for a “more rigorous framework” to support households comes amid growing concern in some quarters that the energy price cap, legislated by the government in 2019, may now be doing the market more harm than good.

Unlike the price cap, the tariff would be set below the cost of supplying energy, so that households in fuel poverty could better afford their bill.

Ofgem has since tweaked the price cap to allow suppliers to recoup the losses sustained last year and remain attractive to investors in the future.

Today, millions more households are in fuel poverty, vulnerable bill payers have been forced on to prepayment meters, small businesses have fallen prey to predatory energy brokers, and Britain’s creaking electricity grids face decade-long queues of renewable energy projects waiting to connect to the power system.

Britain’s power grids, which are regulated by Ofgem, have warned renewable energy developers to expect a 10-to-15-year wait to connect their projects to the network.

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