Well the UK's a market led society. Cheap energy (disregarding externalities) gives no incentive to improve our buildings - it's cheaper to chuck energy away than insulate.

"I agree that energy has been too cheap, but unfortunately for many pensioners in the UK it's not cheap enough."

The government will have to subsidise adequately. Again, rising energy costs make it cheaper for the government to insulate houses (through grants) than to keep giving more and more money to cover rising energy bills. I'm not arguing in favour of energy price rises, I'm just pointing out why they are almost inevitable.


"So where should we spend our cash? On schemes and projects that will benefit large industry, or on renewables installed on peoples homes to reduce their bills?"

Well as an engineer you'll know that a small scale energy schemes are rarely as cost effective as large scale schemes. For instance, Warwick University have done some small scale windturbine tests and found an average capacity factor of 0.85% (or 4.15%) compared to 10 - 30% for large scale windfarms.

Small scale wind is not usually the answer for urban locations. Windspeeds are simply too low. I'd advocate biomass for rural locations and solar options, as long as there's no tall buildings to the south, for urban locations. Ground and Air Source Heat Pumps are also options but before we even get to renewables we should have better building regulations.

And before we have better building regulations (which only regulate new builds and some building alterations) we should do something about existing buildings that are uninsulated.

Can someone explain to me why energy prices have to follow oil prices? I got power from ecotricity for a while as i generally supported their wind generation ideals (although i'm much more sceptical about the wind investment by the 'big' energy companies). Why can companies like ecotricity not undercut traditional fossil fuel generated electricity?

Also if my neighbour built a small wind generator or tiny hydro generator and had surplus would he be able to sell it to me and the rest of the community at a token price or would that be governed by world oil prices too?

[confused]

p.s. this issue vexes me a lot and i'm now studying the topic part-time because i don't know what to think (i generally support wind power in all but the most sensitive areas - sssis for e.g. or national parks - but i know i'm in the minority among TGO readers (or at least writers)).

Another thing - insulating older houses...
I live in a 130yr old tenement. I love tenements, i think they provide a great urban lifestyle in scotland almost non-existant south of the border. I also think it is great to keep living in homes that were built so long ago and it's got to be better to keep living in these stone homes than to knock them down and rebuild in brick or concrete. It's also best to keep people in inner cities rather than spreading onto greenfield sites.

BUT... what can we do to make them more economical? all the advice out there assumes you have a loft and cavity walls... nobody south of the border knows what a tenement is! there's only one company that makes conservation grade double glazed sash windows and they're extortionate.

Come on somebody help us out here!!!

"Can someone explain to me why energy prices have to follow oil prices?"

Because if oil prices drop it's cheaper to use oil than the alternatives, so the market adjusts all energy sources to suit - however a company generates electricity it has to sell it for whatever it can get.

But why is wind generated electricity caught up in this? Because the electricity market is an auction with distributors paying as little as they can to the generators for the electricity they produce. If oil prices go up to $150/barrel the auction system drives all electricity prices up, however generated. The system is much more complicated than that, and I don't even pretend to understand it, but that's the basic idea.

"Also if my neighbour built a small wind generator or tiny hydro generator and had surplus would he be able to sell it to me and the rest of the community at a token price or would that be governed by world oil prices too?"

If you were connected to his generator by your own private wires, as far as I know he could sell electricity to you at a price agreed between you. Because you live in a tenement building, so I gues it's an urban situation, and because your talking about a small generator the price of the electricity will probably be sky high. If you look at the price of a small windturbine installation and divide it by the amount of electricity it will produce over it's lifespan you get a horribly high number per unit of electricity.

If he connects to the grid he can sell the electricity to a distribution company. Good Energy are saying that they will pay 15p per unit after April. I believe this is for all the electricity you generate - even if you use some of it! You can then buy the electricity from Good Energy (or whoever) for the going rate (less than 15p as it turns out).

Got to go now, more later.

John

It is possible for a grid connected generator to come to a private agreement between the generator and the consumer - I think I read that Sainsburys came to an agreement with a windfarm a few months back - but that's the exeption rather than the rule.

................

As for your home - I live in an old house too and I know it can be an energy black hole if you let it.

Do you have loft space above your rooms? 25% of your heat can go through the roof.

Have you draught proofed the doors and windows?

How is the home heated? Electricity is an expensive and quite wasteful form of heating from an energy point of view (burn coal to drive a turbine to drive a generator to transmit electricity hundreds of miles, when you could have just burned the coal in your home). If you've got a local supply of firewood a woodburner is ideal I think. Very little CO2 generated (provided trees are replanted). Our woodburner heats the house (it's our only space heater), the water (have to fall back on electricity in summer) and we cook on and in it (it's got a hot plate top and oven), we have to fall back on propane and electricity for cooking in the summer.

A tenement building would be an ideal candidate for a shared heating system I would have thought.

Low energy appliances?

You might find there are local groups or organisations who can help. Try the local council for starters.

A very good article on wind turbines - their profits(for some), their costs (for all) and their benifits (dubious) - by Jonathan Leake in the Sunday Times:
"Over the past decade developers have grown rich on lavish - and, critics would say, misdirected subsidies. Wind farming is the new gold rush."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5992864.ece

Lyns, you might find out more about how to improve the energy efficviency of you rhome on a forum such as It's Not Easy Being Green.

I wonder how much these various windfarm subsidies are pushing up our electricity bills. If a power company offers a local community a couple of million quid to soften the blow of having a dozen turbines around them then I'm pretty sure such a payment isn't made for altruistic reasons and the cost of such apparent generosity must come from somewhere. If a windfarm operator built my community a new villahe hall then I'm sure that will be paid for by increased bills for everyone, including the old and vulnerable.