[brooksby]

Can someone please explain how the energy price cap works.

Specifically: in what way is it a “cap”?

I read that the price cap is increased, then will be increased again, and so on and so forth.

I also read that the energy companies’ profits have been increasing massively.

So, in what way is the energy price cap what the chap on the Clapham Omnibus would understand to be a cap (ie. a limit)?

Topic

[chrisonabike]

I can only speak for myself.
I can only speak for myself.

[mdavidford]

Are you referring to the

Are you referring to the commenters or the staff?

[chrisonabike]

The thing with peace talks is
The thing with peace talks is both sides need to want them or care about the consequences of continued fighting. Not much motivation for that in either side.
The Russians don’t care about what everyone else thinks
(short of nuclear war), nor how many Russians or Ukrainians are expended. Even allowing for wasteful tactics materiel advantage means they can overrun the place (although after that, who knows – but it wouldn’t be a place to visit). I think Putin has made it “impossible to lose” despite a literal stranglehold on the populace.
The Ukrainians as individuals seem overwhelmingly in favour of “live free or die”. And it’s pretty clear it’s “fight now or die later at Russia’s leisure”. Which is why there’s sympathy in the US populace I suspect.
Fewer nazis than you’d find in a US militia…

[chrisonabike]

Luckily road.cc doesn’t need
Luckily road.cc doesn’t need to be licenced – although maybe a breath test before posting might be useful?

[David9694]

A good description of the

A good description of the risks here and how they may well play out. People are going to die if there is prolonged cold.  Scotland will likely do something – whether they’re allowed to/the UK govt likes it or not. Significant numbers of people cut off from the grid will trigger the unrest you describe. 

I wouldn’t want to be flashing wealth with a 71 Evoque at a time like that, any more than showing an emerald green lawn in these conditions now (my local football club grrr).  My solar battery shuts down in a power cut, but if I overcome that I still would be wary after dark of showing a bright light or TV when everyone around me is off. 

Government (attitude: “you’re free: free to starve”) off-line until September to bring about some mitigation of all that you describe.

 

[Mungecrundle]

My predictions:
My predictions:

Increase in pressure on social services and the NHS this coming winter as frail people who would normally cope require treatment following hypothermia and malnutrition over periods of colder weather. I think there will be bed blocking as patients will be unable to be discharged back into those same circumstances and dumping of relatives who require extra care; heating, washing of bedding, support from plugged in equipment etc.

Personal insolvencies rocketing, debt spiralling, credit harder to come by for those now at higher risk of defaulting.

Increased suicides and mental health illnesses.

Knock on effects in cost of food and other essential items that cannot be offset by shopping around or living off pasta.

Reduction of council tax revenue as heating and eating take priority in household budgets that cannot possibly cover all essential costs. Leading to even more stress on social services funding.

Return to a cash economy and unregulated employment arrangements with implications for criminality, exploitation and tax evasion.

Increasing sense of injustice. I think we will see organised protests and even civil disobedience if enough people end up with nothing to lose.

I’m thinking of buying a bunker, a crate of baked beans and some sort of system that can turn urine back into fresh water.

[David9694]

Pubs could be ‘lost forever’

Pubs could be ‘lost forever’ as energy bills threaten mass closures

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/pubs-could-lost-forever-energy-24763260

just when we may need them them most. 

[Roulereo]

I see the past few years as a

I see the past few years as a massive blanking of anything that doesn’t meet with the deemed narrative on Covid, Ukraine, etc. You can’t rely on any old media for truth, it’s narrative and sneering opinion. Then Big Tech actively wipes anyone and anything which “it” deems as misinformation. The corporate media is now fully on board with this, slurring anything like Hunter Biden’s laptop as Disinformation, while promoting the Clinton’s “Steele dossier” of Trump’s supposed Russian election collusion (hint, it was a hoax perpetuated by the media with no repercussions). Governments, Johnson, Trudeau, they all carry on like tyrants and dictators with the knowledge there was not a massive expansion in possible inputs, as the media and Big tech are complicit in repeating their lies, or removing any dissent or non-narratives. There simply isn’t journalism anymore, it’s opinion and re-tweets. An old crooked Premier in Australia used to call news conferences where he would provide talking points to subservient journalists as “feeding the chooks”, how prescient he was. 

I’m not sure it needs historical understanding to somehow condone Zelensky’s support of his Azov battalian, neither to explain why he has released from prison a convicted child rapist Ruslan Onishev, a former head of the infamous Tornado division, to fight for him, along with ISIS members, rapists, etc.  Putin is a total POS no one’s arguing that, but honestly funding a proxy war for this scam artist with our taxes is not the way. Peace talks is. 

Good convo though, thank you for putting it well and not resorting to sad piffle like a couple of others here when they read something that hurts their feelings. 

 

 

[AlsoSomniloquism]

Unfortunately we are an end

Unfortunately we are an end terrace house with a gabled roof with the main roof area pointing north so no real chance to have decent Solar outputs otherwise would have gone for it years ago.

[Rich_cb]

I’ve gone for some custom
I’ve gone for some custom shaped panels to fit more on but, unsurprisingly, that’s meant a longer wait.

Hopefully be on by end of the year.

I would like an island circuit, didn’t realise it was tricky to do (clearly I’m not an electrician!), will start asking around for quotes now. Cheers for the heads up.

[David9694]

So I can afford a £400 fuel

So I can afford a £400 fuel bill for what sounds like for December and then for January if that is what it it is coming to – it’s not what I’d prefer to spend my hard-earned on. I would quite like to stop soon as well. 

And everything we buy and use is affected – farmers, schools, hospitals. Everything goes up.

My Nan spent many an afternoon on a bench in her new local Arndale – free warmth and often company – are we going to go back to things like that?

It sounds like we’ve to this for a while, when/how does it end,  or is srchar right?

 I’m getting a sense of “that dog will have to go”, not yet getting a sense of “that Audi will have to go”. They’re a quiet bunch and hard to read, but there must be fixed income households who won’t be able to pay this sort of rate.

 

[David9694]

We were 6 months from

We were 6 months from ordering to switch-on. Get a battery. Consider if you want an island circuit – sold separately, I think. I haven’t yet found an electrician able to do this. 

[mattw]

That’s the default Smart

That’s the default Smart Export Guarantee, and your choice.

You can choose a tariff which pays the market wholesale rate for exports.

The downside is that you may get burnt in winter when you buy from the grid and demand exceeds supply, when you will pay a higher price.

Alternatively you can self-consume (even timeshifted with a house battery).

In a (even currently struggling due to the supply constraints we all know about) free market with a diversity of suppliers you have a choice.

On your separate point on feed-in tariffs, the case is that solar had developed sufficiently for high subsidies to be unnecessary – that rent-a-roof entrepreneurs built fortunes of 10s of millions on the back of high FITs suggests that that was probably a good decision.

[brooksby]

hawkinspeter wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

It was the Iraq war narratives that made me realise how unreliable our apparently independent media really is. We’re in a post truth world now, for better or worse.

I’m still waiting for Tony Blair to be held accountable for war crimes

I think you’ll be waiting a long time for that… (“Blair accused of war crimes; in other news – hell has frozen!“).

[brooksby]

Do you reckon Trump took home

Do you reckon Trump took home the nuclear blueprints (“Oh – those?  So sorry, I must have picked them up by mistake”) so he could see if he could expand the Trump Organisation into weapons?

[Author]

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