BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[briantrumpet]

As David Allen Green says, this seems unsatisfactory.

 

[BoldonLad]

Well they've been fixing it up till now, so what's the difference? Just a different formula. AFAIK they haven't been fixing the price of Weetabix.

I think we have tried that, along with wage controls, during Harold Wilson's tenure, didnt end well. 😊

 

[BoldonLad]

I'm sure that PP knows much more about it that I do, but equally I'm not convinced that my naïve bemusement is without reason. I think it's now a case of when and how the decoupling happens, not if.

Isn't the problem that, to encourage take-up/development, Government (current and previous) have given long term contracts (ie 10years plus) to renewables / nuclear producers, based on these (admittedly) archaic formulae ?

 

[briantrumpet]

I think we have tried that, along with wage controls, during Harold Wilson's tenure, didnt end well. 😊

Brian Walden's programme on Jim Callaghan is a brilliant reminder of that era and its missteps.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvc7H8hrAg8

 

[PurplePenguin]

And no, I didn't ask a leading question, I just asked Gemini to "compare"

View attachment 14202

Seems like a perfectly fine summary.

So the UK needs more renewable energy to reduce the amount of time that gas is setting the price. The best way to achieve that is to penalise existing renewables because gas prices are currently high. Will there be compensation paid when gas prices are too low or is that not how populism works?

 

[PurplePenguin]

I have to be honest at being confused by PPs insistence that electricity in the UK isn't hitched to the wholesale price of gas, can't be changed without communism, isn't any difference to anywhere else in Europe and is too complex to explain.

Seems out of kilter in some ways to pretty much anyone else.

Good summary.

 

[briantrumpet]

Seems like a perfectly fine summary.

So the UK needs more renewable energy to reduce the amount of time that gas is setting the price. The best way to achieve that is to penalise existing renewables because gas prices are currently high. Will there be compensation paid when gas prices are too low or is that not how populism works?

Well, perhaps the decoupling needs to be phased in from now, so future renewable providers can sensibly plan for that, rather than rely on a formula that will inevitably become more and more ridiculous as gas becomes increasingly marginal. If the only way we can increase renewables is by setting the electricity price with reference to a fossil fuel that is only a minor part of the energy mix, then something's very wrong with how the market works.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Well, perhaps the decoupling needs to be phased in from now, so future renewable providers can sensibly plan for that, rather than rely on a formula that will inevitably become more and more ridiculous as gas becomes increasingly marginal. If the only way we can increase renewables is by setting the electricity price with reference to a fossil fuel that is only a minor part of the energy mix, then something's very wrong with how the market works.

What does "increasingly marginal" mean?

You are raging against free markets,

I'm going to become Rick and start posting supply and demand curves.

 

[briantrumpet]

What does "increasingly marginal" mean?

You are raging against free markets,

I'm going to become Rick and start posting supply and demand curves.

But it's not a free market. It's predicated on a pricing formula dictated by government that is becoming deeply anachronistic. Changing that pricing formula isn't communism, any more than its retention 'as is' is.

 

[PurplePenguin]

But it's not a free market. It's predicated on a pricing formula dictated by government that is becoming deeply anachronistic. Changing that pricing formula isn't communism, any more than its retention 'as is' is.

It's supply and demand like everything else. No special government formula. As I said, if you object to pay as clear, then read about it and you will find that pay as bid changes very little.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Copilot

The UK day‑ahead electricity market is based on supply and demand — that’s not an opinion, it’s the literal design of the system.

The day‑ahead price is set through a uniform clearing auction run by the UK power exchanges (EPEX SPOT and Nord Pool). Here’s how it works:

• Generators submit offers (how much electricity they’re willing to supply and at what price).
• Suppliers submit bids (how much electricity they want to buy and at what price).
• The exchange builds supply and demand curves from those bids and offers.
• The clearing price is the point where supply meets demand for each half‑hour of the next day.
• Everyone trades at that single clearing price.

That is supply and demand. It’s the textbook definition.

If you don’t believe me, check the organisations that actually run and regulate the market:

• EPEX SPOT describes the UK day‑ahead auction as matching “buy and sell orders to determine a market‑clearing price.”
• Nord Pool (N2EX) explains that prices are set “where aggregated supply meets aggregated demand.”
• The National Energy System Operator publishes day‑ahead demand forecasts specifically because demand affects the market outcome.
• Ofgem tracks day‑ahead prices as part of the wholesale market, which moves with supply and demand conditions.

You don’t have to like the system, but you can’t rewrite how it works. The UK day‑ahead market is a supply‑and‑demand auction by design, by operation, and by every official description of it.

 

[First Aspect]

It's supply and demand like everything else. No special government formula. As I said, if you object to pay as clear, then read about it and you will find that pay as bid changes very little.

There's a price cap. Electricity is an essential requirement, in the same way as water or petrol. So it's not truly a free market. If it was, the price would have doubled or tripled like heating oil.

So this isn't a bunch of naive idealists raging against the free market, it's a discussion right up to government level about how an already highly regulated market should actually work.

 

[BoldonLad]

Brian Walden's programme on Jim Callaghan is a brilliant reminder of that era and its missteps.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvc7H8hrAg8

I lived through it, don't want to be reminded, thank you 😂

 

[BoldonLad]

There's a price cap. Electricity is an essential requirement, in the same way as water or petrol. So it's not truly a free market. If it was, the price would have doubled or tripled like heating oil.

So this isn't a bunch of naive idealists raging against the free market, it's a discussion right up to government level about how an already highly regulated market should actually work.

on this forum too! 😂

 

[PurplePenguin]

There's a price cap. Electricity is an essential requirement, in the same way as water or petrol. So it's not truly a free market. If it was, the price would have doubled or tripled like heating oil.

So this isn't a bunch of naive idealists raging against the free market, it's a discussion right up to government level about how an already highly regulated market should actually work.

There is a price cap for the consumer not for wholesale prices. Brian is arguing about the wholesale markets.