Future Pricing of Electricity

[AlanHo]

I was chatting to a guy last evening who is an accountant and works for one of the major energy suppliers. He reckons that 2 tariff metering (economy 7) will slowly disappear when everyone has a smart meter.  These meters enable the supplier to abandon fixed prices - instead they might introduce shaped prices, where there will be cheap blocks overnight and potentially during the middle of the day (when there is high solar generation) and expensive blocks during peak times.

It will possibly be a contentious issue because, whilst costs during off peak hours will be significantly lower than existing tariffs, during week-days in the winter prices for the evening peak time could reach 50p/kWh because of the way network costs and capacity market costs are incorporated into energy bills (where the supplier just acts as a staging post and has to pay money on to other parts of the industry). 

 

This will make domestic battery storage more viable because it allows people to store electricity during hours when the charges are low and use battery power during peak times - or even sell it to the national grid.

 

He also added that the motor industry is looking at ways for future electric car owners to use their car batteries to feed energy back into the home or perhaps sell it back into the national grid. The millions of electric cars in the future collectively have a massive storage capacity that could be tapped during peak times.

 

It's something for the youngsters to really look forward to is it not - us oldies we will be long gone when it happens.

 

 

 

[catgate]

I was chatting to a guy last evening who is an accountant and works for one of the major energy suppliers

 

Who's side is he on? The consumers or the outfit for which he corrects the books?

[Gandalph]

There is a lot of controversy over these so called Smart Meters. Do a search on Youtube and you may get a surprise. 

[andsome]

We have had one for several years, it was fitted by OVO Energy.