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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you think we will have electricity/gas rationing this winter?

178 replies

lonelyapple · 31/05/2022 19:04

Apparently the Government have assessed a "reasonable worst case scenario" which would involve rationing electricity to 6 million homes this winter if Russia cuts off further gas supplies to Europe.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/power-cuts-energy-bills-russia-b2090163.html

What a lovely dystopian present we are living in :(.

YANBU = Yes, there will be power cuts/utility rationing.
YABU = Nope, it won't happen, the Tories are excellent at planning for such contingencies (joke).

OP posts:
MidnightMeltdown · 31/05/2022 23:33

Can't see it happening, but never say never!

The world has changed a lot since the 70s. Imagine - no Wi-Fi! 😱

Also fridge freezers, medical equipment etc.

It would be a disaster

TimeFlysWhenYoureHavingRum · 31/05/2022 23:38

I fear we are all about to find out what a huge mistake Brexit was. Without the EU's block buying power we will struggle to get anything like as good a deal on gas imports than we would have before.
Oh well - at least we "took back control".

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 31/05/2022 23:41

@12yearsinazkaban can you get a camping gas stove? Team up with someone with a gas oven? There was no help from the energy suppliers or govt in the 70s unless you had a medical condition.
I highly doubt anything to be any different this time around.

otherwise you cook when you can and store stuff in insulated flasks to eat later. - soups, stews, porridge etc. I remember we ate a lot of salad and raw veg. Otherwise it’s sandwiches etc. School dinners were pushed a lot back then because kids could get at least one hot meal.

carefullycourageous · 31/05/2022 23:49

I was considering getting a calor gas heater just in case, I simply do not trust this government to prepare properly.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 31/05/2022 23:52

For anyone thing if getting a heater or gas stove. Be aware of carbon monoxide poisoning. Get a carbon monoxide alarm (or 2) and ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.

CrunchyCarrot · 31/05/2022 23:52

I think power rationing could definitely happen. It is worrying, especially if you rely on electricity for everything (which we do, even with GCH it need electricity!). We don't have a fireplace now either, bricked it up a long time ago. We experienced the cold last winter for a week when our boiler had a broken part and we had no heat apart from an electric powered oil heater. It was freezing and deeply unpleasant. However that was continuous lack of power, rationing would be for a few hours at a time, I suppose.

I will try to think ahead and plan what meals we could have that don't require heating. It's difficult in winter not to have hot meals! If you cook just prior to the time the power goes off, if you know when it'll be, you could still have warm food. Given what the Ukrainians are going through I do think it's a small sacrifice to make.

carefullycourageous · 31/05/2022 23:55

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 31/05/2022 23:52

For anyone thing if getting a heater or gas stove. Be aware of carbon monoxide poisoning. Get a carbon monoxide alarm (or 2) and ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.

The important thing is was it intended for indoor or outdoor use - it isn't safe to use a camping stove intended for outside in an enclosed space.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/05/2022 23:55

This is one 'handy' feature of smart meters that the government seem to have carelessly forgotten to mention when urging everybody to get them to supposedly pay less (constantly weighing a pig in an attempt to fatten it): the ability to turn off your domestic supply at source whenever they deem it necessary.

Give it another few years and sophisticated smart meter technology advances, along with the 'internet of things', will enable them to centrally target and switch off your individual appliances, should they wish.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 00:01

@carefullycourageous no it isn’t, that’s precisely why I wrote the warning. It isn’t realistic to think that people will sit outside in winter to cook a meal on a camping gas stove. Or sit outside to keep warm around a gas heater. - If that’s the only options they have to eat and keep warm.

carefullycourageous · 01/06/2022 00:04

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 00:01

@carefullycourageous no it isn’t, that’s precisely why I wrote the warning. It isn’t realistic to think that people will sit outside in winter to cook a meal on a camping gas stove. Or sit outside to keep warm around a gas heater. - If that’s the only options they have to eat and keep warm.

You can get indoor ones and outdoor heaters and stoves, anyone buying new should think this through.

Nat6999 · 01/06/2022 00:12

I hope not, I'm disabled & struggle in the cold. I can remember the power cuts & the 3 day week. Will stock up on powerbanks & keep them charged in case. The only good thing was that it brought down the Tory Government.

tenjishut · 01/06/2022 00:12

If it's turned off, it's turned off. Abiding doesn't come into it.

they will likely leave the country!

ItisallPooh · 01/06/2022 00:13

I hate folk saying we aren't as resilient as years gone by. Modern houses aren't generally equipped with a fireplace. When I was a child and we had powercuts we would gather round our coal fire. My parents could also cook things on that fire. Albeit very slowly.
I do not have that facility. When storm Arwen knocked our power for 6 days, we had to move out to extended family. No heat, no water, no light, no phone line, no electricity in the north of Scotland in winter. It was awful and it wasn't even as cold as it can get round here.
We are saving up for a log burner now but that is going to take some time.

ItisallPooh · 01/06/2022 00:16

At least my medicine needs to be kept chilled. It rarely gets warm around here but it would be a worry if there were powercuts in warmer weather.

RedHorsesAreDangerous · 01/06/2022 00:17

The Historian (other household member) and I have been preparing for this for a while (they grew up in Africa and are used to things like load sharing and I was a kid in the 70s with older parents who had been kids in WWII). Over the last few years this includes stores of candles, power banks, rechargeable solar lights, wind up/usb/solar radio, Kelly Kettle, wonderbag (works on the old haybox principle, you start a stew or whatever off on the stove, then put it in the box or wonderbag and the insulation does the rest), heavy window curtains, door curtains, enough fleeces, sleeping bags and wool blankets to sink a container ship, gloves, hats, socks, layering...we don't have central heating, just a small number of radiators and humidifiers we can move around as needed and an Energenie plug you can program with the price per kilowatt to get an idea of cost. We can't have solar panels due to the terms of our lease but we are now looking at portable solar panels and stand alone sockets and some of the newer batteries which look very promising if the governments of the world don't shut them down or otherwise suppress them. It also probably helps that I read and watch a lot of science fiction (and I do mean science fiction, not science fantasy).

Our ancestors didn't have all this here electricity and they survived....it's undoubtedly all going to come as something of a shock for many though, financial or social.

It does infuriate me that some of this could have been avoided if greedy governments and oligarchs had allowed more investment in alternative power sources earlier on. But as we don't have much trust for governments in this household and the current English government has shown time and time again how much they despise people not in their same social class we know our best bet is to be as prepared as we can be.

jcyclops · 01/06/2022 00:24

The government would be failing in their duties if they did not periodically review the contingency plans for disruption to power supplies. It will actually be the boffins at the generators and National Grid who do the planning with civil servants, and the government will review these plans. Note that they are contingency plans, it does NOT mean it is going to happen. There will be contingency plans for many possibilities such as 6 feet of snowfall this winter, or a nuclear failure at Sizewell.

If we do look like we will be short of electricity, the first steps will be to ban unnecessary usage - such as shops and businesses being told to turn lights off when they are closed, followed by streetlights etc.

Industry will be next to face consequences. Many energy intensive industries are on contracts where their electricity prices are not fixed and can be put up by 10 times or more at short notice to encourage them to cut consumption at peak times. I once worked somewhere like this and I remember we received a fax around 4:30pm saying the price was going up massively from 6pm to 8pm that evening. All non-critical electrical equipment had to be switched off. Multiple electrical furnaces that operated on thermostats set at 1000 centrigrade were turned up to 1100C at 5pm for an hour, then down to 800C for the next two hours so they wouldn't use any power during the period (they had cooled to about 870C by 8pm - they would have been inoperable for about 2 days if the temperature fell much below 800C)

SMART METERS actually already have this emergency pricing capability, and they could be used to restrict the maximum power to a home, to cut off individual consumers, or even to disable certain appliances during "emergency" periods. There was a good mumsnet discussion on this in September 2020
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4026220-Energy-suppliers-want-powers-to-switch-off-electricity-via-smart-meters

Zpoa · 01/06/2022 00:27

I've a disability that means I'm warm all the time - yay! Haven't had the heating on for the last 5 years (bar 4 days).

I've purchased a gas camping stove for future use if needed to cook and some solar panels for a shower. Can do without use of my legs, so I'll be fine without electricity.

LiveintheNow · 01/06/2022 00:27

12yearsinazkaban · 31/05/2022 22:55

how do you prepare for this? my whole life is run on electricity. my cooker is electric, how would we cook?

In the 70s when we had blackouts my mother cooked on a paraffin stove. There was a coal fire for heat in the living room and a paraffin heater at the bottom of the stairs to heat upstairs...

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 01:13

@carefullycourageous but people won’t think it through. You have met the average human haven’t you?

carefullycourageous · 01/06/2022 01:14

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 01:13

@carefullycourageous but people won’t think it through. You have met the average human haven’t you?

I'm an average human, and I have thought it through.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 01:20

@carefullycourageous fire brigades are also warning people about ensuring fireplaces/flies/burners are swept and in suitable condition due to a rise in people turning to burning wood and coal and an associated rise in residential fires.
People don’t think or check.

TruthHertz · 01/06/2022 01:34

How would this work for homes without a meter? Would the oven just turn off halfway through cooking supper?

XenoBitch · 01/06/2022 01:38

TruthHertz · 01/06/2022 01:34

How would this work for homes without a meter? Would the oven just turn off halfway through cooking supper?

How would this work for people who need electricity over night? People who use CPAP machines, for example. Or even people who keep exotic pets who need heat mats etc. Or people who work from home at night?

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 01/06/2022 01:50

@TruthHertz yes. A power cut planned or otherwise works exactly like that. Pp are suggesting ways in which electricity is
rationed - either by price (people use and purchase less due to increasing price) or supply. Supply can be rationed by area wide power cuts or potentially, via smart meters.
@XenoBitch i don’t know how today they would manage medical needs, but in the past it was one of three options ime - battery or generator to power the appliance, or a temporary move to somewhere with a power supply (maybe to a friends or relatives or a leisure center or hospital etc).
No idea about wfh as that wasn’t really a thing in the 70s!

EngTech · 01/06/2022 02:48

I am looking forward to the GE, Labour getting into power with a massive majority and sorting the problem out 😳😳😳😳

Hmm, would love to know what they would do and how it is going to paid for 😳😳

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