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Energy prices - gone nuts.

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This is what octopus is offering me at the moment.
 

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Most of the decent fixed rates that have been about recently have tended to be for existing customers only I doubt anyone is going to get a better deal by switching to a new supplier mostly as the suppliers don't want new customers as they are would loose money by taking someone on and then them sitting on the price cap if they cancel their fixed deal.

Even the fixed deals don't seem to last long before they are pulled and replaced with a higher priced one, usually after a flurry of people sign up for them.

no exit fee. but there is no point fixing today as the prices are way over the price cap, think i’d rather take the gamble. I might be scrambling to get that deal come Friday 😂

I'm just going to have a wild guess now that any fixed deal thats available on Thursday night isnt still going to be there on Friday morning.
 
We’ll that was short and sweet! Hardly anyone is offering anything! It looks like most of us are in trouble/going to be paying a lot more, my own current forecast is about £4k more? (Coming off a fixed rate so double whammy!)
Hey ho, on the plus side, there might be some pins coming up for sale? but no one will be able to afford them?
 
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We’ll that was short and sweet! Hardly anyone is offering anything! It looks like most of us are in trouble/going to be paying a lot more, my own current forecast is about £4k more? (Coming off a fixed rate so double whammy!
Hey ho, on the plus side, there might be some pins coming up for sale? but no one will be able to afford them?
Next year is gonna be grim for sure, think i read somewhere like 25% of the country is now gonna struggle paying energy bills. Whilst all the big energy company report record breaking profits. 25% of the country is now suffering so a few ppl can get mega mega rich, don't understand how this is even legal tbh.
 
Apologies if this has already been answered, It looks like i will be moving house and the property has consent for a ground mounted solar system. If you have a grid tied system with batteries is it correct the batteries do not help in a power cut ? is there a system which is grid tied but also works in a power cut ? any help would be appreciated

Drew
 
Apologies if this has already been answered, It looks like i will be moving house and the property has consent for a ground mounted solar system. If you have a grid tied system with batteries is it correct the batteries do not help in a power cut ? is there a system which is grid tied but also works in a power cut ? any help would be appreciated

Drew
Depends if the system can be fully isolated from the grid, If it can then no reason it can't keep running off batteries in event of an power cut.
No idea what systems support this or how it's isolated! But is possible :)
 
Apologies if this has already been answered, It looks like i will be moving house and the property has consent for a ground mounted solar system. If you have a grid tied system with batteries is it correct the batteries do not help in a power cut ? is there a system which is grid tied but also works in a power cut ? any help would be appreciated

Drew
From what I've gleaned so far (and by no means an expert), apparently this is a safety feature - i.e. the DNO turns the power off to work on a fault - if your system is exporting electricity, then there is a risk you could electrocute someone, hence "most" inverters are designed to stop working if they detect a powercut, but I do believe you can get ones where you can throw an isolation switch and then run your system off batteries and totally isolated from the grid.
 
From what I've gleaned so far (and by no means an expert), apparently this is a safety feature - i.e. the DNO turns the power off to work on a fault - if your system is exporting electricity, then there is a risk you could electrocute someone, hence "most" inverters are designed to stop working if they detect a powercut, but I do believe you can get ones where you can throw an isolation switch and then run your system off batteries and totally isolated from the grid.
Yes that's what i read into it, i would have expected that you could buy a automatic transfer switch but i dont seem to be able to find a solid answer on the web. I set up a couple of generators for one of our server rooms which kick in when there is a power outage and they use an ATS which sounds like a similar thing
 
Interestingly the property does have a mast for a wind turbine which could be interesting however the turbines are pretty expensive
 
I think the using batteries during a power cut has already been discussed in this thread.

I believe the Tesla powerwalls can do this as they sit between the grid and your internal fusebox so in the event of a powercut the powerwall itself will isolate the incoming connection, which is refered to normally is islanding so it protects the workers on the grid system who might need to do repairs.

On my own inverter there is a separate EPS connection that can power devices from the batteries when the grid is down, Ive not set this up but in the manual it shows that it must be used with a relay on the circuit that you want to provide power to (i.e. downstairs sockets for fridges etc) so normally the circuit is connected to the grid and then during a powercut the realy switches that circuit to the EPS connection on the inverter.

My battery and Solar inverters are separate so if the grid goes off so does my solar, I would assume that on a combined solar and battery inverter if it has an EPS setup on it the solar would continue to work as well and then either feed into or pull out of the battery as required, but it would need the same sort of relay setup as mentioned above.

For those servers you mention they will likely be plugged into a UPS system with a battery in it that is plugged into the grid, and then there will be an autoswtich between the UPS and grid power that will switch over when the generators kick in to prevent back feeding to the grid.
 
@domlouis

I have lived with oil tanks for many years. Everyone on my village has oil tanks. All very standard and normal.

Historically oil has been dearer than town gas.

But right now I see an oil tank as an asset. You can have a personal stock of oil in your grounds that will last you months. It is very similar to kerosene used in aeroplanes and the green guys want to ban flying (except those in private jet class) so I don't think it will face the same shortages as gas

There are many individual oil suppliers so you have choice

Right now I think a mix of fuels is best. If you need an oil tank you probably have chimneys, I'd recommend you get multi fuel cast iron stoves in them. Solid fuel prices have not reacted like gas/ electricity. You can have a personal stash of solid fuels n case things go wrong.
 
I think anyone with a proper wood burning fire is gonna be quid's in this winter... use gas a little for hot water or use as and when if you got combi and sit in front of a nice warm fire rest of time. Wonder if chopped wood is gonna sky rocket?
 
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Logs and anthracite has gone up, last year a ton of anthracite was £400. This week £500 a ton and more from most places if you can get some.
Logs are great when they are free.
 
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I don't have exact figures, but I'd guess that we use 10x as much oil in the winter (hot water and rads) v the summer (hot water only).

A mate is a hard core cast iron stove man. He burns 2 24x7 in winter using phurnacite.

Phurnacite is a smokeless bead made out of anthracite dust and has been the market leader for decades.

You can buy a metric tonne in sealed 25kg bags delivered on a pallet for about 600 quid.

When we are looking ahead at power cuts, monster electricity bills etc. A used cast iron stove for 200 quid and a tonne of phurnacite is an absolute no brainer imho
 
But look, that is 25 per cent up. Compare to all other fuels. Coal is the future
You can’t beat it at the moment, my stove is 13kw and weighs about 250kg. Had free logs the last couple years from trees in the garden that got cut down, that felt so sweet even though it was hard work processing it. No free logs this year and need to order some for the not so cold days and kindling.
Cooked on it a few times too.
All those houses that have removed their chimneys might regret it one day.
 
I posted on here March 4th that Scottish Power were offering us a fixed rate of £620 a month.

Got the wife to check how much they offering now 😯

IMG-20220823-WA0003.jpg

That March price is starting to feel like a bargain the way things are going, we didn't take them up on that offer then and certainly won't be now.
 
I reckon there will be a stampede for coal and wood in the early winter. My coal man has never been so busy in the summer.

80 per cent of UK anthracite came from Russia. Its ally Belarus is a major wood exporter.

When these huge bills hit, then folk will remember they have got chimneys.......

Not hard to join the dots

It seems obscene that I have air source heat pumps and am buying coal - but in the real world, there may be prolonged periods of zero electricity and zero gas this winter

Older folk in my area (Sherwood Forest) think that tree theft will start up in the winter as folk cut down what they can to heat their homes for zero
 
I reckon there will be a stampede for coal and wood in the early winter. My coal man has never been so busy in the summer.

80 per cent of UK anthracite came from Russia. Its ally Belarus is a major wood exporter.

When these huge bills hit, then folk will remember they have got chimneys.......

Not hard to join the dots

It seems obscene that I have air source heat pumps and am buying coal - but in the real world, there may be prolonged periods of zero electricity and zero gas this winter

Older folk in my area (Sherwood Forest) think that tree theft will start up in the winter as folk cut down what they can to heat their homes for zero
Welsh anthracite and Welsh logs around here, logs guy is a few hundred metres from me.
I have 2 chainsaws, a log splitter and a van 🤔 😂
 
Already answered but my Tesla Gateway and Battery can be isolated by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and kick out AC power independent of the solar inverter. The estimated losses of solar to battery back to home circuit is 10% of the battery size, so 1.3kW.
But it will run the house in a power cut like a giant UPS.
 
Older folk in my area (Sherwood Forest) think that tree theft will start up in the winter as folk cut down what they can to heat their homes for zero
Freshly cut green wood will do wonders to their stoves.
But assuming it isn’t for them and they want to sell it, most people I know want split seasoned wood. The effort to slit it might come as a shock for the thieves.
 
Freshly cut green wood will do wonders to their stoves.
But assuming it isn’t for them and they want to sell it, most people I know want split seasoned wood. The effort to slit it might come as a shock for the thieves.
Even the ‘seasoned’ logs can be too high, I have been sold them with moisture content at 35%😡
They are doing kiln dried around here now so will be seeing how they are, very wet and humid around here so takes time to season.
Im guessing the kiln dried logs that I stack outside under cover will absorb moisture😂
 
I bought wood in my first winter in this house, the log burners were the first work we did when we found out what it cost to heat the wreck of a house. I bought a wood humidity meter and was annoyed at how wet the wood was.
I eventually established a process of seasoning and storing them in separate log stores before moving to the porch, then baskets in the hall and then a basket next to the log burners. By then, any green is washed out, any dampness is dried up.
I don’t see the wood as cheaper though. Cutting down the trees, logging, splitting, stacking, moving etc, all has a price. But in all cases, the tree needed removing so someone had to deal with the left overs, good they don’t get wasted.
 
^^^^^ A rare bit of sense in this mad world.

Chopping down trees is one of the great green myths. Chop down something the size of a cathedral, replace it with a twig ???

UK power stations importing wood from Canada on oil fuelled ships?

Householders burning kiln dried wood, dried using oil ????????

Applying green taxes to UK electricity and killing domestic aluminium and steel production....

While China and India build coal stations
 
Sorry you lost me a few times, are those questions for us or where we are meant to question the status quo?

China does a lot of things to try to get ahead of the west. That doesn’t mean it is the right global strategy.
 
I’ve not really been following the thread much until I realised my deal was up at the end of December and thought I’d look through the comments. Scottish Power quoting me £662 a month- currently pay £136. Should I be stockpiling wood 🪵 for my log burner?
 
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