Great British Energy - How will it work??

[Scotty2]

As someone who has worked in the energy sector for over 30 years, I have not seen any detail on exactly how GBE would work?
As announced by the SNP. they were going to have a "National" energy company that never happened, Nottingham's "Robin Hood" energy went under with losses of millions.
I just can't see how it is (not) going to work?
The energy market is pretty complex, even more so now so many smaller generators and renewables are in the picture. People don't seem to accept that we need quick response units for when there is no sun or wind and that these units would need to be on standby so need to be maintained for when needed.

How will it work?

[CraigyMc]

Scotty2 said:

How will it work?

As it did before the electricity industry was privatised.

[alangla]

Scotty2 said:

As someone who has worked in the energy sector for over 30 years, I have not seen any detail on exactly how GBE would work?
As announced by the SNP. they were going to have a “National" energy company that never happened, Nottingham's "Robin Hood" energy went under with losses of millions.
I just can't see how it is (not) going to work?
The energy market is pretty complex, even more so now so many smaller generators and renewables are in the picture. People don't seem to accept that we need quick response units for when there is no sun or wind and that these units would need to be on standby so need to be maintained for when needed.

How will it work?

There actually was a publicly owned & government backed energy supplier up here for a while, but it was a total stshow (I remember having to repeatedly chase them for bills & I got the feeling meter readings were being copy/pasted from the online form into Excel, especially when you got an acknowledgment from a different real person several days after submitting each one). It eventually went bust and was swallowed up by Utilita.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Power

If you’re wondering how I became a customer, a comparison site told me they were cheapest for my consumption profile.

Edited by alangla on Thursday 16th May 12:07

[Scotty2]

CraigyMc said:

As it did before the electricity industry was privatised.

Are they going to buy out SSE, Eon, British Gas e.t.c.? What about other Generators? Who will balance the grid? Buy out National Grid?
Sounds like market interference that won't go well...

[JuanCarlosFandango]

They'll piss loads of money up a wall on branding, advisers and so forth then declare themselves institutionally racist and close down, costing billions of pounds and achieving nothing to do with energy.

[Gecko1978]

I suspect as it would be state run with lots of union control it would be costly to run and assuming other competitors in the market would loose market share and fail unless we are saying no private energy in which case a monopoly an cost of energy would go up

[Mr Penguin]

It seems it's an 18 month old idea for a new production company owned by the state but competing with bigger companies and micro-producers.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/27/g...

[CraigyMc]

Scotty2 said:

Sounds like market interference that won't go well...

Energy price caps are market interference, without which how would things have gone during the price spikes of 2022?

The point of renationalising power (along with other monopolistic industries such as rail, or water) is that market forces aren't working for consumers or for the state.

What's been happening in all 3 examples is that privatisation has provided less reliable, lower quality service with undue costs being carried by the state and profits (in the years available, even if it means taking on debt) going to the investors.

In all 3, failures are carried by the state because they can't just stop service.

[BoRED S2upid]

Gecko1978 said:

I suspect as it would be state run with lots of union control it would be costly to run and assuming other competitors in the market would loose market share and fail unless we are saying no private energy in which case a monopoly an cost of energy would go up

Sounds about right.

[Mr Penguin]

CraigyMc said:

Energy price caps are market interference, without which how would things have gone during the price spikes of 2022?

The point of renationalising power (along with other monopolistic industries such as rail, or water) is that market forces aren't working for consumers or for the state.

What's been happening in all 3 examples is that privatisation has provided less reliable, lower quality service with undue costs being carried by the state and profits (in the years available, even if it means taking on debt) going to the investors.

In all 3, failures are carried by the state because they can't just stop service.

Transport is not a monopoly

[JagLover]

CraigyMc said:

The point of renationalising power (along with other monopolistic industries such as rail, or water) is that market forces aren't working for consumers or for the state.

What's been happening in all 3 examples is that privatisation has provided less reliable, lower quality service with undue costs being carried by the state and profits (in the years available, even if it means taking on debt) going to the investors.

In all 3, failures are carried by the state because they can't just stop service.

In this case I would say the market mechanism was working fine until we tried to superimpose another objective on it, that of net zero.

The unregulated market is very much unsuited to providing secure and cheap power because of the interaction of the policy goal of net zero with how the energy market works.

As to what the solution is, well we should have been starting back in 2008 when the climate change act was passed.

The recent energy price crisis merely gave us a preview of the world of net zero.

[Tom8]

Diane Abbott and Angela Rayner will work the numbers. It will be fine.

[James6112]

Tom8 said:

Diane Abbott and Angela Rayner will work the numbers. It will be fine.

Yawn

[Earthdweller]

CraigyMc said:

As it did before the electricity industry was privatised.

Oh brilliant, back to waiting 9 months to get connected then

[Ian Geary]

Mr Penguin said:

CraigyMc said:

Energy price caps are market interference, without which how would things have gone during the price spikes of 2022?

The point of renationalising power (along with other monopolistic industries such as rail, or water) is that market forces aren't working for consumers or for the state.

What's been happening in all 3 examples is that privatisation has provided less reliable, lower quality service with undue costs being carried by the state and profits (in the years available, even if it means taking on debt) going to the investors.

In all 3, failures are carried by the state because they can't just stop service.

Transport is not a monopoly

Craigy said rail, which although is a form of transport, is a fairly specific one if you want to use a train.

Ok, I know of one or two private railways, but the comment is clearly about the UK wide rail network that was part privitised 30 odd years ago.

I don't wear rose tinted specs about the good old days under public ownership (I work for a council after all) but a judgement on it needs an analysis of whether the profit extracted by private owners of public goods is greater or less than the value of improvements added over the duration.

Also not forgetting the public basically didn't want to stump up the investment needed, and left it to the private sector to do (indirectly via the ballot box of course)

[Mr Penguin]

Ian Geary said:

Craigy said rail, which although is a form of transport, is a fairly specific one if you want to use a train.

Ok, I know of one or two private railways, but the comment is clearly about the UK wide rail network that was part privitised 30 odd years ago.

I don't wear rose tinted specs about the good old days under public ownership (I work for a council after all) but a judgement on it needs an analysis of whether the profit extracted by private owners of public goods is greater or less than the value of improvements added over the duration.

Also not forgetting the public basically didn't want to stump up the investment needed, and left it to the private sector to do (indirectly via the ballot box of course)

There are very few routes that are only viable by rail. Most can be done via bus, plane, cycling, taxi, or car. I was once caught out in this argument by someone who lived in Peterborough but worked in London, in which case the only option was the train (or move house/job). The same goes for transporting coal and some other very heavy goods.

Even within the railways, there are ways to introduce competition like multiple lines between cities (which was more common before Beeching but still exists for London to Birmingham and Edinburgh) or having a company own the line and lease timetable slots to operators like airlines and airports.

Most people are not train spotters and just want to get from one place to another with the best mix of convenience, speed, and price.

[glazbagun]

The SNP can't build a couple of ferries for less than £250M. Or call a referendum wen it's what they exist for apparently. I wouldn't use them as a benchmark for anything.

The UK govt frequently bails out failed rail franchises. I'm confident that there's still enough left of the civil service after 14 years of war on them that they can copy/paste an energy company competently enough that it won't go bust and drive competition for those who remain.

[pghstochaj]

Surely the plan is simply to replicate GIB/GIG?

[Electro1980]

Gecko1978 said:

I suspect as it would be state run with lots of union control it would be costly to run and assuming other competitors in the market would loose market share and fail unless we are saying no private energy in which case a monopoly an cost of energy would go up

So it is going to be simultaneously more expensive than private companies and undercut them? That’s some impressive logic.

Mr Penguin said:

There are very few routes that are only viable by rail. Most can be done via bus, plane, cycling, taxi, or car.

Yet…

Mr Penguin said:

I was once caught out in this argument by someone who lived in Peterborough but worked in London, in which case the only option was the train (or move house/job). The same goes for transporting coal and some other very heavy goods.

You contradict yourself there. The vast majority of train use by the general public is commuting in to major cities. That, I believe, is dwarfed by the amount of heavy goods transport. The two use cases are exactly why there is no reasonable alternatives or competition.

Edited by Electro1980 on Saturday 18th May 07:27

[Cupid-stunt]

It’s going to be a st show.
How a govt can operate in an established market that changes and has up to 8760 prices in a year is a car crash waiting to happen.

With recent spot prices seeing the greatest volatility I’ve seen in 25+ yrs working in the energy sector, with more Renewables coming on that will increase this, and with consumers not fully flexing with demand, to think an inept govt with their bloatware can run a successful business is futile.