wfh - a cause of huge rise in cost of gas and electricity price

[lightand]

I cant remember which threads I posted on yesterday and the day before[I cant seem to work out the search facility on here well enough] saying that I thought that the huge rise in worldwide wholesale prices was in big part, caused by working from home.
So I have started this thread.

Will send two links.

www.cliffordtalbot.co.uk/energy-prices/

sigh

will not be replying to any more posts of that ilk.

Surely all of the much larger and heavier usage workplaces being closed over lockdown would have offset any increase from people WFH.

WFH didn't come into effect in the UK until March 2020, not January. It was also a heatwave when lockdown started and a very warm summer generally, so heating usage wouldn't have significantly increased until the autumn of 2020 (when lots of people went back to the office). And not every country in the world locked down. So how would you explain energy prices rising in those counties?

FWIW, the increase in the cost of heating my home is still a fraction of what I spent communicating and in wrap around childcare that I don't need since WFH.

Is that you Jacob?

I'm interested to know how you've come to the conclusion from the graph in the first link that the rising gas and electricity prices are due to people WFH.

As other have said, correlation is not causation.

There is correlation between the amount of chocolate consumed by a country and the number of Nobel Laureates they've produced - it doesn't mean that a daily Dairy Milk will make me cleverer.

I havent looked into each and every country.
I have looked at the totals.

I couldnt tell exactly whether Jan 2020 or March 2020 or June 2020.
Others can look in more detail if they want to.

But lots of people do. Those people are looking elsewhere and so supply and demand providers can charge more. OP are you being serious?

Well of course your energy bills will be higher if you’re at home all day, they’d be bearably higher if it wasn’t for the global fuel crisis though. Having said that, for DH and me the ever increasing cost of commuting is still much higher than the cost of a days energy at home.

Tell me something else that happened 2020 onwards to cause it?

The only slightest blip prior to that going back at least 10 years of a remarkably steady price in worldwide gas and elec prices[surprisingly seeming to have no basis in oil price wobbling all over the place], was 2008.

I am not going to argue the toss all day about this.
Better things to do.

There was a massive drop in demand, globally, at the start of Covid. Demand roared back far faster than predicted, particularly in Asia, and production couldn't/didn't ramp up again quickly enough to keep pace. Things looked like stabilising until the Ukraine war. Russia is using energy as an economic weapon, and you can directly track the impact of Russian action in the European gas markets in particular.

You also need to recall that while domestic gas consumption (including gas for electricity generation) is significant it is far from the only use, even in the UK which is quite uniquely reliant on gas for heat (and is also quite unique in the energy inefficiency of our housing.)

Statistics on gas use for the last few years don't bear out your theory - even in locked down winter of 2020-21, with kids out of school and many workplaces closed for the majority of winter, the increase in domestic gas consumption was quite modest. And certainly not at the same levels of increase as we've seen in wholesale natural gas prices.

And that's in the UK, which is heavily reliant on gas for heat in particular but also for electricity generation (though the latter is slowly improving.)

I’m sorry, but the argument was lost when you quoted an article from the daily fail. Their daily ‘wfh is evil - get back to the office, you plebs!’ articles are getting more hysterical by the day 😀

British people working from home caused the price of global energy to shoot through the roof. Ok.

what actually happened (i think? Someone will correct me if im wrong);
The price of oil plunged globally during early 2020, then skyrocketed as countries emerged from lockdowns and slowed economies, due to a sharp increase in demand. A lot of countries started using coal as a way to get round energy costs and the price of everything (coal and oil) went up, as availability of imports got scarcer and companies tried to claw back profits.

This pushes up energy prices in general because electricity is generated using oil or coal (If we had the foresight to have sustainable/self sufficient renewable energy sources to generate electricity we wouldn't be in such a mess but cutting ties with big oil would be deeply political)

Then the Russian-Ukraine situation has made the prices go through the roof.

Willing to be corrected!

Discussion from 2021 on price rises here: www.iea.org/commentaries/what-is-behind-soaring-energy-prices-and-what-happens-next

Tldr it's not wfh

The Daily Mail always runs articles bashing WFH. Presumably the billionaires who own it are losing out financially from their shares in Pret À Manger or something. Anyway, the basis for your argument is nonsense. I guess some people will want to go into the office now to save money however, equally, some businesses will encourage WFH to save money.
In my case, my DH has been encouraged to WFH permanently by his university as he can do his job perfectly well from home and they can save money by reducing the amount of offices needed. It didn’t change our heating bills as I’m at home anyway (I’m self employed and work from home) so your argument is meaningless to me.

Looking at the stats again, the 2020-21 gas and electricity domestic consumption figures were within the range you'd expect to see taking into account fluctuations based on how cold a winter is.

This is on a par with 'Pakistan floods are CAUSED by cloud-seeing by the Cabal'. And yes, I've seen literally that, this morning.
Human credulity and lack of rational thinking knows no bounds really.

Seeding ffs

The EU countries are working together to separate the price of electric from the price of oil. I wonder if this will get published in the right wing media that we have in post Brexit U.K.? www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/08/29/eu-preparing-emergency-intervention-in-electricity-market-amid-soaring-prices/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=EU+preparing++emergency+intervention++in+electricity+market+amid+soaring+prices&utm_campaign=evening_update_digest&fbclid=IwAR0VoIU0Wpus3cQz-Jl8_HfZDghVVMu6R9xMowasjhAZAkuhBfELIoVYr2Y

From what I can see there's a local minimum (so the lowest price) for gas of 0.93p/kWh on 26 March 2020. A local minimum for oil and electricity at roughly the same point.

The gradients for gas and electricity start to get steeper around a year later, March 2021. By which time people had been WFH for a year. I'm not even sure there's correlation.

Luckily flouncing is still free no matter how many times you do it

Oh Op. You’re so wise and knowledgable. Us plebs should dawn at your superior intellect and vast greatness. We shall only dream to wallow in your splendour…

there, is that what you wanted.

Flouncy little fuck.

Do any of those better things include actually researching the topic? In which case, probably time well spent (though better spent prior to confidently opining...)

Every country in the world?
Also when you say you won't be replying to comments of 'that ilk' any longer - do you mean ones pointing out any other conclusion than yours?

You are correct in saying the price of wholesale worldwide coal went up from 2020 and onwards, as well.

There are about 3 people who seem convinced that everything is to do with Russia for some reason,
1 poster at least who, well in dm so that is it
some who cant read graphs

1 poster at least who, well in dm so that is it some who cant read graphs

And 1 poster at least who can't write intelligible sentences.