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

[lonelyapple]

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).

I can't see why people working from home would be affected any more or less than those working in an office or any environment that uses electricity. It would affect all workplaces unless it was somewhere like a hospital which would either have its own generators or be excepted from the cuts. I seem to remember in the 70's people living near hospitals were okay as their circuits were not switched off like everyone else's. The working day had to be juggled around the cuts.

There's been no talk of blackouts in my part of Europe at least

@RIPWalter Thanks for the explanation. It's a shitshow whichever way we look at it. Lucky for me I like a lot of sleep - I can see lots of early nights happening for me through the winter at this rate! 😂

How can they cut off electricity to flats that have a communal fire alarm system?

It will be a massive problem now that people work from home and do non standard hours. I work evenings after DC bedtime, I can charge the laptop up but I need the internet on. And my heating runs via wifi thermostat so if there’s no electric I can’t control the boiler.

If people are wfh that will be the employers problem to sort out, not the National Grid.

DM are saying COULD be between 7am and 10am and 4pm and 9pm on weekdays.

I remember them fondly too - making candles and my dad giving us a glass of his home made wine. Playing cards by candlelight.

We played monopoly, all evening, I think afterwards I couldn't face playing it ever again

I spent ten years in the energy industry very close to this issue. It has always been a problem, we only have storage for 6 days of gas. In the summer we sell it because we can’t store it, in winter we almost ‘buy it back’ at a premium’.

problem is politicians have dodged taking a hard decision for 20 or more years. The Trilemma. You can’t have security of supply (expensive), green energy (expensive) and cheap energy. But we have always known about the Russia/Ukraine risk, all Russian pipelines run through Ukraine into Europe.

we order liquified natural gas from Nigeria, and if we are lucky 1 in 4 boats show up rather than being diverted by Japan/China willing to pay more.

do I think there will be blackouts, possible but unlikely. We have decent green electricity, and a decent deal with Norway. But it will not be cheap.

I've had an idea for a while, about different tariffs for electricity depending how much you use. What I mean is ,
the first Xmany units used in a month at price A
the next Xmany units used in a month at price B (greater than A)
the next Xmany units used in a month at price C (greater than B)
and so on. with top band being unlimited amount of units. Maybe 5 price bands.

Which would mean that a basic amount of electricity was at a very cheap rate. People who want to pay a fortune could crack on.

Don't say this is beyond the wit of the computer systems to figure out. Amount could vary with size of property, business different from homes.

I know it's not perfectly fair, no system is. But everyone could have a certain amount of electricity for fairly cheap. Would certainly encourage energy use reduction, too.

@lljkk that’s one of the best solutions I’ve read. I would vote for someone with that idea!

It doesn't make sense to solve this problem with power cuts. The way to do it is to raise prices until demand drops.

It doesn’t really matter, we can’t afford to have it on anyway!

@Getoff but then that prices those on benefits or low wages out of the market. I don’t see the govt putting benefits and minimum wage up decent amount to ensure people can live. Heat or eat decisions already exist and really shouldn’t in this day and age.

@lljkk I wonder if you could do it like the old day/night charges, it might have to be xx amount cheap then rest at higher rate, and they'd need to fit smart meters faster so everyone could see when they'd used up the cheaper allocation. It could just be same for everyone - if you have a bigger house then yes you'd use it up quicker but you're also more likely to be wealthier .

Simple alternative is tax rises for the well off of course - starting at 35/40k and rising steeply. (I'm a bit sick of seeing all the ranger rovers around here and think a lot f people just have too much money !)

re Range Rovers.

This is not really a cost of living crisis. It is a cost of greed crisis.

If the government is going to do anything, it can either give more money to low income people through the tax and benefits system, or it can (try to) set the prices of everything important to levels it thinks they should be at, in the process destroying the whole economy, because price-setting destroys the implicit computer that is optimising resource allocation. (I know we are only talking about energy, but why would we have a different mechanism for allocating only one good? So I think it's reasonable to extrapolate.)

I think this would be a really good system.

The only group I can see that would be unfairly penalised here are people using high amounts for medical reasons but I don’t see how any other system wouldn’t have its losers and winners too. And maybe you could have some kind of code applied if you have medical reasons for high usage eg dialysis and it would extend your Tariff A to cover more. It would have to be a high bar though.

Thinking further, I’d design it quite simply with the bands you propose and:

a) if the NHS give you a code (dialysis patients etc) you stick on Tariff A for a much higher number of units
b) I wouldn’t adjust by house size* but I would put in several bands running north across the U.K. I live in London and I concede I need the heating on a lot less than someone who lives on the West coast of Scotland. My Tariff A should run out earlier.

• House size is obviously a (fairly poor but aren’t they all) proxy for wealth anyway .. AND there is no reason for 4 people in a 5 bed house to be using that much more electricity than 4 people in a 2 bed. Same amount to wash, same amount to cook etc. If you want to heat surplus rooms you can buy more energy but it’s not necessary.

You could always use the care element of DLA/PIP as a decider for capping points

Is it worth stocking up on torches, batteries, candles, etc?
We already have lots of blankets, oodies, thermal clothing for warmth if the gas /electricity goes off. Powerbanks for phones and devices.

Any other ideas?

I tutor online in the evenings and weekends as my sole source of income. This better not happen.

It will depend upon your energy mix. The UK is particularly dependent upon gas, not just for heating but for electricity generation too. France on the other hand has a mostly nuclear grid so quite secure electricity supplies. Germany will be an interesting one to watch, will they just cave in and abandon sanctions?