National Grid Share Discussion Threads

[redartbmud] 05/12/2013 09:56

The fundamental problem here is government policy, or more precisely the lack of it.
Any sizeable energy producing plant requires a very significant capital investment. Once commissioned it should last for several decades.
Government and the opposition don't think further than the next election.
Unless they can arrive at some consensus on regulation and returns, who in their right minds is going to invest several billions of pounds in a scheme that could generate a negative return, in a worst case scenario?
There are plenty of opportunities in other areas that have greater clarity of return and free capital is not a plentiful commodity at present.

[harvester] 05/12/2013 09:30

m100: I think it is a bit of an extreme view to rule green energy out completely . Oil , gas , coal won't last forever . I also think it is morally hard to justify if we try to solve all our problems at the expense of future generations. If you have children or grandchildren whom you love you would not reject that argument out of hand .
I would support the government of any party in promoting home insulation. It clearly makes sense to address the demand side of the energy equation as well as the supply side .

[harvester] 05/12/2013 09:21

m100: I have no expert knowledge on nuclear but some types of nuclear waste have a very long decay life.
If the nuclear power station waste could really be spread safely on a city street then why do governments spend hard cash for storage in deep mines , concrete bunkers or expensive exports ?

[careful] 05/12/2013 08:51

you forget that the nuclear station in japan was an american design.

[m100] 05/12/2013 08:40

Chernobyl, a reactor design that would never be certified in the West, deliberately operated outside its permitted parameters, alarms ignored, protection measures bypassed.

The exclusion area around Fukushima remains less radioactive than the pavement outside M&S in Aberdeen.

TMI, a fully contained incident, no deaths

There have been more deaths in the UK with gas and coal fired power generation than have died at Fukushima and TMI combined. There have been no radiation related deaths at TMI and Fukushima, yes zero deaths.

Deaths from coal mining and hydro electricty dam failures in the past 50 years or so are many orders of magnitude greater than those from the nuclear industry. If iodine tablets had been handed out to the general population around Chernobyl then the total deaths due to nuclear in the past 50 years would be less than the deaths in Europe in the past five years due to wind turbine construction.

Like I said, there is no problem, only those invented by the greens to strangle progress and repeated by the mass media until people believe it to be true.

[darias] 05/12/2013 08:19

You forgotten Three Mile Island. Perhapd too young for that one.

[lord gnome] 05/12/2013 07:46

'There is no problem, only those invented by the greens to strangle progress. Most nuclear waste would be undetectable if you dumped it on a kerb in Aberdeen or on Dartmoor.'

WTF? Tell that to the people of Chernobyl or Fukushima.

[tonio] 04/12/2013 18:17

Well we did indeed have a fine nuclear power construction company in Westinghouse but it was sold off by Gordon Brown at Christmas in 2006. It is pointless though going over our historical blunders, the list is so long it's depressing.
Going forward, it seems to me that working with China is probably a lot better than working against them - not that we have much choice. Remember the golden rule -he who has the gold (not us, GB sold it) makes the rules.

[septimus quaid] 04/12/2013 16:59

The largely unelected "greens" have had a stranglehold on this country for about three decades. Supported, in no little way, by the left-wing biased BBC.

We should have started rebuilding our nuclear PS capability about 10 years ago, ready for the (inordinately predictable) replacement programme.

Once built, some of these highly trained engineers and technicians would have stayed on to run the stations the rest would have filtered out to the betterment of the wider economy.

A truly missed opportunity?

[pierre oreilly] 04/12/2013 11:47

When are all our Nukes going to be controlled by China?

The severe problems we will face in the medium term are due to the anti-Nuclear campaigns which have been very successful over the last 30 years. The general public have, until very recently, supported that anti-Nuclear stance (without appreciating or investigating the consequences) and supported the pro-green stance of very expensive and inefficient renewable energy, which is largely intermittent in nature (again, without appreciating or investigating the consequences). We are in a position which ideally we wouldn't be in, and to dig us out of it, we need the expertise of countries who have Nuclear engineering expertise, a field in which the Uk was once world leader yet now have almost no expertise whatsoever.

[harvester] 04/12/2013 09:46

Electricity clearly is partly essential and partly a luxury .
Some people seem to think that playing games and watching TV is essential .
Will Britain's electricity supplies be more secure when all Britains nuclear plants come under the control of China ?
Presumably by then the Dalai Lhama will be refused an entry visa .
A Saint without cash in his pocket is not welcome in Britain these days .

[blobby] 04/12/2013 09:15

ex dividend today (14p) so price holding up quite well.

[tonio] 03/12/2013 11:51

Poor old National Grid seem to have got it in the neck today as the press seize on the use of the word 'luxury' by a director. Perhaps he was just rattled by the governments casual announcement that power companies would be paying less in transmission costs to contribute to the £50 customer cashback. At the same time the chairman of the energy (and climate change) select committee is baying for NG's blood. Not happy days. It is though a tragedy that it is the government that has treated electricity as a luxury during the past 20 years or so by failing to set in place (and act on) any sensible plans for power generation now and in the future.
Anyway with ex-div day coming up NGs share price looks like it is in for a bit of a hammering.

[2hoggy] 02/12/2013 11:37

The writing has been on the wall for years.

But the politicians dont listen.

They carry on fiddling while rome burns as so to speak!

[pierre oreilly] 02/12/2013 11:15

Hi Newbank - well, I wasn't advocating cutting costs by relaxing regulation, just stating the fact that it's very easy to cut costs in that way. As you point out, powercuts are expensive things, not only in financial terms, but also in human terms (and ultimately in defence terms). We have the best supply network in the world, best to keep it that way imv. Unfortunately, we are heading in the opposite direction, even with no distribution cuts!

Interestingly, today on R4, it was reported that NGC have simply returned to the government their request for ideas on how to cut costs. Basically, it's a political decision, the politicians must say how much they want ngc to spend on our supply (indirectly via the operational parameters), and ngc will give them the most reliable supply possible with the amount they want spent. But obviously, the less they spend (on things like contracted reserve), the greater the risk of powercuts (and vv, there's a compromise somewhere which is basically a political decision). Even at constant transmission costs, the system risk is increasing anyhow, and the chance of powercts growing as the generation 'mix' changes.

To cut consumer bills, it seems clear to me that the government should cut green loadings and examine the Suppliers pricing and accounting methods, where the energy they sell is bought from generators owned by the same holding company, so high profits can be loaded onto the generator business by 'artificially' high input prices to the supplier business. This is hidden since suppliers are perversely allowed to report as a segregated business.

Off topic a bit, but I agree with Milliband that the energy market is 'broken'. This due, imv, to the central idea of privatisation being abandoned - then ideas was to introduce competition by splitting the industry up into separate market participants. Some years back, generators were allowed to buy suppliers, and hence any advantage of competition was then lost in the (once again) integrated businesses. Add in 'green' imperatives, and we end up with what we currently have - very expensive electricity and a less reliable supply. It won't be long before we have planned powercuts at peak demand times.

[zastas] 28/11/2013 13:33

Thanks P O, one of the most knowledgeable clear-headed posts I have seen for some time. If only the average voter would be the same!

[pierre oreilly] 28/11/2013 12:07

It's easy to cut the cost of transmission - just relax the regulation on various operational parameters NGC has to work to. Problem with doing that is that you have less system security, therefore higher chances of power cuts here and there. In fact, transmission costs have to rise (for the same system security) due to both the addition of intermittent generation (like windmills and solar), and the closure of reliable generation (like the closures coming over the next couple of years of coal and Nuke stations). In fact, there comes a point when the penetration of intermittent relative to reliable means that the system security cannot be maintained at traditional levels whatever measures are taken.

To cut transmission costs (or even to maintain them at current levels) means not adding any more intermittent generation. Unless other costs rise to compensate for that intermittency, then we have a less secure system (meaning more power cuts). So if a diktat comes from ministers to cut transmission costs (as well it might) then make sure you have plenty of petrol for your little Honda camping generators.

[septimus quaid] 28/11/2013 08:54

If the energy companies are compelled to formulate long term investment strategies based on the vagaries of the latest media frenzy then, as far as is this country is concerned, it is game over.

[billy_buffin] 28/11/2013 08:33

'Ministers mull ways to cut energy bills' bbc

amongst other ways is:
'Regulations could also be changed so the the cost of transmitting energy, which makes up about 20% of an average bill, could be cut.'

A threat?

[onlyonestorm] 27/11/2013 09:06

Hang on in there!!

Stormy :-)

[micos] 27/11/2013 08:26

Thanks, tormy. 1 week out.

[onlyonestorm] 27/11/2013 08:24

Nope, 4/12!!

Stormy