Energy price rises and price cap discussion.

[najaB]

It DOES need it less than regular milk. Because the UHT process - boiling it, basically - kills most of the "resident bacteria", it takes far longer for it to build back up to dangerous levels than normal milk.

Until something happens to introduce a bunch of microbes - for example opening it and exposing it to the air!

And, back in Pedant's Corner, the UHT process specifically does not boil the milk - doing so would completely denature the proteins. The trick to UHT, and how it differs from pasteurisation, is that it uses much higher temperatures (c. 120°C from memory) but for only a very short time which is enough to kill most microbes but not boil the milk and is then rapidly cooled back down to near freezing. Pasteurisation uses lower temperatures but for a longer period of time. As you might tell, I did the dairy tour several times - an "advantage" of having a parent work there.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Heil and Torygraph... sorry, Mail and Telegraph are a barometer of right-wing sentiment in the UK. The Daily Mirror is left-leaning, so their musings are of somewhat less import while we have a Conservative government.

I am sure that Sir Keir Starmer would be better pleased to see left-of-centre based postings given more space on websites, considering the political leanings of contributors. Are there no worthwhile journalists around whose views can reflect the true feelings of the Labour Party and its voters rather than the current trend to ignore these and keep making references to right-wing newspapers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Until something happens to introduce a bunch of microbes - for example opening it and exposing it to the air!

Yes, but it will still take much longer for those to develop to dangerous levels than regular milk which contains some from fresh.

 

[najaB]

I am sure that Sir Keir Starmer would be better pleased to see left-of-centre based postings given more space on websites, considering the political leanings of contributors. Are there no worthwhile journalists around whose views can reflect the true feelings of the Labour Party and its voters rather than the current trend to ignore these and keep making references to right-wing newspapers.

To be fair, most of the posts which make reference to the Mail/Telegraph are to point out how ridiculous they are!

 

[Howardh]

Just been watching BBC news now and they have a junior minister on (where's the PM? Where's the next PM??) and he's asked about how businesses, particularly hospitality, will cope with increased power bills of 300 - 400% and all the can do is stare into space. Hoping the new PM has a magic wand? Ideas, some good, some hopeless, are being thrashed around all over the place, such as from charging for entry but take your own food/drink in to privatisation and taking the dividends off shareholders, and so on. Where are the government's plans...in a fridge?

Regardless of my personal politics, any voter and bill payer must be staring at their screens in disbelief at how completely vacuous the current government is on this issue. We are just over a mont off the next rise, and that's also pretty much when winter starts, up here anyway.

 

[najaB]

Yes, but it will still take much longer for those to develop to dangerous levels than regular milk which contains some from fresh.

To hopefully bring this side-discussion to a close... Nobody is denying that, all things being equal, UHT milk will last longer out of the fridge than fresh. But that is not the same as saying, without qualification, that it does not need to be refrigerated.

We are just over a mont off the next rise, and that's also pretty much when winter starts, up here anyway.

Indeed. While I wouldn't describe the weather here as particularly chilly, there is no denying that - ala Game of Thrones - winter is coming.

 

[DelayRepay]

When I was redoing my kitchen (in winter) I just put it in the unheated back porch.

When I was a kid, milk came from the milkman. He had a few days off over Christmas, so he'd deliver extra on Christmas Eve. As the fridge was full, my mum used to store it in the garage. I don't remember it ever going off or making anyone ill. She used to keep other fresh stuff out there too - bearing in mind shops weren't open then like they are now.

And I remember my dad keeping food fresh by burying it in the snow, during one particularly cold winter!

Regardless of my personal politics, any voter and bill payer must be staring at their screens in disbelief at how completely vacuous the current government is on this issue. We are just over a mont off the next rise, and that's also pretty much when winter starts, up here anyway.

This is the thing. Surely even the most true blue die hard Tory can't think they're dealing with this well.

Given the scale of the emergency, one would expect the current Prime Minister and his two potential successors to get together and announce something. I know the price rises don't take effect until October, but a lot of people are very, very worried.

 

[Dai Corner]

Just been watching BBC news now and they have a junior minister on (where's the PM? Where's the next PM??) and he's asked about how businesses, particularly hospitality, will cope with increased power bills of 300 - 400% and all the can do is stare into space. Hoping the new PM has a magic wand? Ideas, some good, some hopeless, are being thrashed around all over the place, such as from charging for entry but take your own food/drink in to privatisation and taking the dividends off shareholders, and so on. Where are the government's plans...in a fridge?

Regardless of my personal politics, any voter and bill payer must be staring at their screens in disbelief at how completely vacuous the current government is on this issue. We are just over a mont off the next rise, and that's also pretty much when winter starts, up here anyway.

Did they interview any business owners who'd fixed their prices and weren't worried at all?

 

[DelayRepay]

Indeed. While I wouldn't describe the weather here as particularly chilly, there is no denying that - ala Game of Thrones - winter is coming.

Even down here in the South of England, the mornings and evenings have become noticeably more chilly over the last week. In different times, some people would probably be setting the timer on their heating as we go into September.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Aug 2022 ==

Did they interview any business owners who'd fixed their prices and weren't worried at all?

Like residential customers, business owners who've fixed will still be worried about what happens when the fix ends. Remember they are not protected by the price cap, and I imagine that whilst Tesco will be ok, Bob's corner shop won't have that much negotiating power.

 

[Dai Corner]

Even down here in the South of England, the mornings and evenings have become noticeably more chilly over the last week. In different times, some people would probably be setting the timer on their heating as we go into September.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Aug 2022 ==


Like residential customers, business owners who've fixed will still be worried about what happens when the fix ends. Remember they are not protected by the price cap, and I imagine that whilst Tesco will be ok, Bob's corner shop won't have that much negotiating power.

So they didn't interview one? So much for balanced reporting.

I've not been able to find out how many residential or business consumers have fixed and how many chanced it and gone with the cap. Anybody know?

 

[jon0844]

The Daily Heil and Torygraph... sorry, Mail and Telegraph are barometers of right-wing sentiment in the UK. The Daily Mirror is left-leaning, so their musings are of somewhat less import while we have a Conservative government.

Although we're told every day that our problems are down to Labour and left-wing remoaners, so it can't be the fault of the Tories. If everyone backed the Tories, we'd be fine right now.

 

[Cdd89]

Bob's corner shop won't have that much negotiating power.

I wonder whether Bob’s Corner Shop worked to make his building/appliances more efficient when energy was cheap, or if he just decided that energy costs < upgrade costs.

Unless a business already did all they could to minimise their usage, I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m afraid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder whether Bob’s Corner Shop worked to make his building/appliances more efficient when energy was cheap, or if he just decided that energy costs < upgrade costs.

Unless a business already did all they could to minimise their usage, I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m afraid.

Almost every shop, including my local equivalent of Bob's, has a heated store with open fridges in it. Only the Co-op has doors on all their fridges.

That's a pretty urgent one to fix. Even adding something temporary like those thick clear plastic flexible flaps over the open fridges will help cheaply, though no supermarket should now be purchasing any open fridges/freezers at all new, triple glazed doors should be specified on all of them. Yes, there's that thing Sainsburys did in relation to improving airflow to make them less wasteful as noted above, but a non-doored fridge/freezer will always be less efficient than a doored one if everything else is equal.

I actually think for environmental reasons the sale and installation of new open fridges/freezers should be legally prohibited. It's just utterly profligate.

Moving away from shops, perhaps this will be the impetus Travelodge need to sort out the leaky windows on so many of their properties and replace the (very expensive to run) individual panel heaters in rooms with a heat pump? Mind you it is TL, I'm just waiting for them to make heating an optional extra.

 

[Trainbike46]

Although we're told every day that our problems are down to Labour and left-wing remoaners, so it can't be the fault of the Tories. If everyone backed the Tories, we'd be fine right now.

I don't get how anyone could believe that after 12 years of Tory government; clearly they have been in charge for over a decade now, so they are undeniably responsible for the mess we're in

 

[jon0844]

Just been watching BBC news now and they have a junior minister on (where's the PM? Where's the next PM??) and he's asked about how businesses, particularly hospitality, will cope with increased power bills of 300 - 400% and all the can do is stare into space. Hoping the new PM has a magic wand? Ideas, some good, some hopeless, are being thrashed around all over the place, such as from charging for entry but take your own food/drink in to privatisation and taking the dividends off shareholders, and so on. Where are the government's plans...in a fridge?

Regardless of my personal politics, any voter and bill payer must be staring at their screens in disbelief at how completely vacuous the current government is on this issue. We are just over a mont off the next rise, and that's also pretty much when winter starts, up here anyway.

I expect the Government will step in to help the hedge funds that now own many major chains of pub/restaurants - so they'll survive. Your small independent restaurant, bar or salon etc? Not so much.

But the whole 'nation of shopkeepers' thing that the Tories were once for is pretty much over. Even during the pandemic, it was mostly the big firms in hospitality that got the help - like the large restaurant chains that got the dine out deal, which most independents couldn't easily sign up to.

 

[najaB]

Unless a business already did all they could to minimise their usage, I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m afraid.

I do. They may well have made that cost/benefit determination when prices were expected to follow their long-term trajectory - no point in taking a double loss replacing this two-year old piece of equipment before it's depreciated, makes more sense to do it in another two years when the energy prices should be about X, based on an average rise of about 10% per year over the last decade.

Then energy prices quadruple in less than a year.

 

[jon0844]

I don't get how anyone could believe that after 12 years of Tory government; clearly they have been in charge for over a decade now, so they are undeniably responsible for the mess we're in

And yet that's what is said all the time, and I am friends with people who share such posts/memes because they really do think that the Tories are only suffering because everyone is against them. It's the exact tactic as in the USA when Trump blamed everything on the 'Dems' when he was in charge.

 

[Trainbike46]

And yet that's what is said all the time, and I am friends with people who share such posts/memes because they really do think that the Tories are only suffering because everyone is against them. It's the exact tactic as in the USA when Trump blamed everything on the 'Dems' when he was in charge.

Part of the weird believe by some on the right that the left has apparently infinite power; This mostly leads to the question, why has the left not "won" and introduced all these things they are afraid the left will introduce, yet? Like, if the left was rigging the system (an oddly weird assertion), the why aren't they in government?

 

[Dai Corner]

Part of the weird believe by some on the right that the left has apparently infinite power; This mostly leads to the question, why has the left not "won" and introduced all these things they are afraid the left will introduce, yet? Like, if the left was rigging the system (an oddly weird assertion), the why aren't they in government?

They have been since 1997 over here in Wales, and look destined to remain so for the foreseeable future.

 

[najaB]

They have been since 1997 over here in Wales, and look destined to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Arguably in Scotland as well (SNP are more centre-left than left). But not on the UK-wide stage.

 

[Domh245]

I've not been able to find out how many residential or business consumers have fixed and how many chanced it and gone with the cap. Anybody know?

There isn't a cap for business customers, however I do know that one of the clients we work with (medium sized office ~500,000 kWh/yr) has had to agree a deal at 77p/kWh for their new electricity supply (even though we'd been telling them to try and fix at a lower price most of the year!)

I do. They may well have made that cost/benefit determination when prices were expected to follow their long-term trajectory - no point in taking a double loss replacing this two-year old piece of equipment before it's depreciated, makes more sense to do it in another two years when the energy prices should be about X, based on an average rise of about 10% per year over the last decade.

Then energy prices quadruple in less than a year.

Indeed - a lot of projects I'd previously looked at and parked for not being particularly economical have suddenly become no-brainers (5 year paybacks becoming 1.5 years for one example I looked at earlier today). Unfortunately, we've not got the resource available to go out and deliver these projects in anywhere near the timeframe clients want us to!

 

[Cdd89]

The other category excluded from price caps are people in flats served by a communal gas supply from which heat is drawn. I think this is a relatively small number but over-represented in London (I'm in that category!).

 

[DelayRepay]

I wonder whether Bob’s Corner Shop worked to make his building/appliances more efficient when energy was cheap, or if he just decided that energy costs < upgrade costs.

Unless a business already did all they could to minimise their usage, I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m afraid.

I have sympathy with anyone running a small business over the last three years. And given all the other challenges they've had to deal with, I doubt buying new fridges was top of any shopkeeper's agenda.

I have noticed my local corner shop has taken one of their fridges out of service. Not sure if it's broken or they're trying to reduce costs. They've consolidated the goods into the other fridges. The main consequence seems to be fewer bottles of soft drinks, wine and cases of beer being chilled at any one time.

 

[Dai Corner]

I have sympathy with anyone running a small business over the last three years. And given all the other challenges they've had to deal with, I doubt buying new fridges was top of any shopkeeper's agenda.

I have noticed my local corner shop has taken one of their fridges out of service. Not sure if it's broken or they're trying to reduce costs. They've consolidated the goods into the other fridges. The main consequence seems to be fewer bottles of soft drinks, wine and cases of beer being chilled at any one time.

I think it depends how well the businesses are run. The owner of my regular pub, which is busy most days and packed Thursday-Saturday evenings hasn't put her prices up for a couple of years, pays for live bands, replaced the chiller in the cellar, gave her staff generous bonuses and goes on foreign holidays several times a year seems to be doing ok.

 

[PeterC]

I have noticed my local corner shop has taken one of their fridges out of service. Not sure if it's broken or they're trying to reduce costs. They've consolidated the goods into the other fridges. The main consequence seems to be fewer bottles of soft drinks, wine and cases of beer being chilled at any one time.

One thing we could see is less unnecessary chilling of products that can be stored at ambient temperatures

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have noticed my local corner shop has taken one of their fridges out of service. Not sure if it's broken or they're trying to reduce costs. They've consolidated the goods into the other fridges. The main consequence seems to be fewer bottles of soft drinks, wine and cases of beer being chilled at any one time.

Makes a lot of sense. Soft drinks, beer etc don't need to be chilled to keep them safe, they can be sold "warm" and you chill them when you get home. Supermarkets for instance sell very little from chillers as far as alcohol goes, if anything at all. Yes, local shops are more about "to have now", but people do that from supermarkets too and they cope.

You only really need it for small bottles/cans of soft drinks for immediate consumption (and those can be turned down a bit and tend to have doors) and for perishables, of which local shops tend to sell a very limited selection.

 

[ChrisC]

Most people will just need to turn down the thermostat a bit from "T-shirt, shorts and barefoot" level to "fleece hoodie, joggers, shoes and socks" level. But for the fewer people who won't be able to afford to heat at all, community centres are probably a better idea as they're smaller so probably cheaper to heat.

I certainly agree with you about turning the thermostat down a bit and wearing some thicker clothes in winter. So many people have got used to just wearing shorts and t-shirt all year around the house with the thermostat set at around 22C throughout the winter. I have my thermostat set at no more than 20C but I am never cold in the house because in the winter I wear joggers or jeans, a woolly jumper and slippers.

Regarding people who can’t afford any heat at all using community centres, I think that’s more of a problem. If the community centre is council run then perhaps it can be done. Many community centres in less affluent areas are run by churches and other charitable organisations who may not be able to afford to heat the building even for their current use. I read about a church that was going to open the building for people to use during the day to meet and keep warm, but most churches in poorer areas, often with small elderly congregations, are currently wondering whether they will even be able to afford to heat their large building for one service on a Sunday.

The hospitality industry are now campaigning for government help with energy bills this coming winter. I think they are more likely to get help than will churches and charities who rely on the generous donations of people to heat their buildings. In the less affluent areas of inner cities and on large housing estates where there may be much deprivation, these churches and community centres are run by volunteers, and there are not wealthy people in their organisations or communities who can afford to donate money to fund them.

 

[Cdd89]

Supermarkets for instance sell very little from chillers as far as alcohol goes, if anything at all. Yes, local shops are more about "to have now", but people do that from supermarkets too and they cope.

I recall my Waitrose used to have a bottle chiller that got drinks from room temperature to cold in 5 minutes. It wasn’t used very frequently and seemed like the perfect compromise.

No idea about energy use though, and I haven’t seen them for years!

 

[AM9]

Those on prepayment tariffs learn how long £10 lasts in the same way as those who put shillings in. Smart meters give even more detail via the in-home display or suppliers' websites to both prepayment and credit consumers.

I wass going to mention both prepayment (as in shillings now pounds), and smart meters. On the former, - yes those consumers will be only too aware of how long their fixed inputs last. On the latter, I didn't mention that because there are so many (even some on here) that decide when they are given the smart meter display that they're 'not interested in it'. Maybe some will realise as the prices rise that knowledge of when they are actually incurring costs, and roughly how much of it is within their control and goes a long way towards determining how much of their outgoings are variable according to their behaviour.

 

[jon0844]

On the latter, I didn't mention that because there are so many (even some on here) that decide when they are given the smart meter display that they're 'not interested in it'. Maybe some will realise as the prices rise that knowledge of when they are actually incurring costs, and roughly how much of it is within their control and goes a long way towards determining how much of their outgoings are variable according to their behaviour.

The person who fitted my first (electric) smart meter handed me the display and suggested I could chuck it in a drawer, like 'most other people do' because seeing how much I was spending in real time would probably 'do my head in'. I have no idea how he knew what everyone did after he'd left, but there you go.

Suffice to say, I haven't binned the display and I also monitor via an app the data historically also. The only thing that does my head in is seeing how much you spend even when you've cut every unnecessary thing off, as well as the standing charge being a killer when you're away and consume no electricity or gas at all. That it's to help pay off the losses by energy providers who gambled people's money is all the more frustrating, but I digress.