Re: @ledswinger
Sorry to rein you in on your little UKIP rant but I think you have a few details wrong.
"German energy policy is in chaos due to the over-build of renewables (and the daft idea of abandoning nuclear). "
Abandoning the German nuclear coal boiler was a mistake but IIRC ElReg has run stories describing them ramping up coal fired plant construction so I think they have restored discipline to the German electorate.
" the government's Green Deal programme is a barely believable quagmire of unappealing bureacracy, "
I'll agree it's been generous but in amongst the stupidity of windmills generating generating 6% of the year there are also micro hydro schemes and anaerobic digestion which are rather less crackpot. I wish someone would have a serious go with geothermal, especially those abandoned North Sea oil wells, as well.
" spend £14bn in a panickly rolling out of smart meters to save trivial amounts of money on manual meter reading (because the EU told them they had to, and nobody at Westminster had the gumption to tell Brussels to take a hike), and they've got all "
This is where you start to go off into SEL territory as the covered what the real story with the EU is here
But the TL:DR version is
"As mentioned earlier, there is a final reason for smart metering: Europe. Energy UK says that the country is bound by a European directive to put smart meters in 80 per cent of homes by 2020 – although the government and industry is hoping to get much nearer to 100 per cent. But Henney says that the directive only requires the roll-out if it is economically viable – which he thinks it isn’t, with other countries sitting on their hands: “So far, the Germans have done bugger all.”" Something you don't hear Germans doing very often.
"We could and should stop the mass roll out of smart meters; "
It's doubtful that a fair costing would have justified it in the first place by EU rules. It was only included when some Tory Peer got a bung.
"But if you don't stop the subsidies, then intermittent and unpredicatable renewables continue to disrupt the power market, cost money for stuff all output, and make fossil plant uneconomic so requiring more intervention, more complex rules and yet more subsidies, whilst reducing the net thermal efficiency."
Because rules are set in stone and will last a 1000 years, right?
Wrong. The energy "market" is a very regulated environment and the UK government sets most of the rules. How about some obvious rule changes? Lets start by recognizing some of these jokers are just carbon credit farmers and not producing serious amounts of energy (gas or electricity).
So future systems carbon credits proportional to uptime and/or backup capacity needed, and no credits below say 20% minimum uptime ("You claim you're a generator. Shouldn't you be concerned about a system that does not generate more than 1/5 of the time?").
How about a weighting for systems that scales with population so the more (probable) demand the more output it's likely to produce. Yes I am thinking biogas. I think actual life expectancy should also count but that would probably penalize nuclear too much while hydro and wind systems can run for centuries
Note one of the Achilles heels of the UK grid is its lack of storage, so what about storage tariffs (or rather negative tariffs). I'd suggest something for the big boys (x MWHrs --> £Y) and something for the domestic market. Your house stays off the grid for a day is worth how ever much your house would consume from your suppliers dirtiest generator. This works 2 ways. If the dirtiest is also the most expensive the company is "nudged" into going for cheaper systems as its handing its customers money. If it's not that's a cost they can live with but they have to keep buying credits to use it.. Personally I want to see more flywheel storage systems. Under vacuum they have few failure modes and can last for decades, but anything that works works for me.
It seems as if the British play by the existing UK rules they lose.
But rules change.