By Paul Homewood
David Turver looks at the myth of “free” electricity:
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The full post is here.
As David explains, there is no such thing as free electricity. The costs of generating and distributing electricity are largely fixed, so matter how you slice the pie, what the public pay in total remains unchanged.
Here are his conclusions:
Free electricity sounds too good to be true. Agile Octopus customers benefit from “price plunges” at times of low demand and high renewables generation. Then rest of us pick up the tab for the subsidies paid to the wind and solar generators. It certainly looks like Agile Octopus customers are freeloading off the rest of us – another example of something sounding too good to be true not being quite as advertised.
Moreover, even though there are some measures being taken in the terms of CfD contracts, there is ample scope for battery operators to game the system, making money for themselves and keeping the wind and solar operators happy because suddenly they do not have to contend with negative prices. Note that the planned £10bn spend on batteries will not generate any more electricity. Its just an extra cost to give the illusion that wind and solar power are reliable. That cost needs to be added to the cost of renewables too.
The losers in this arrangement are all the other energy customers who pay for this “free electricity” gimmick.
