Brexit WTF, WTF

[Jambalaya]

Again, if that's what you're getting from my posts, then either I'm not expressing myself very well, or you're struggling with comprehension.

To set the record straight.

I have detailed (some of) the direct costs of Brexit that I have experienced in the course of running my business.
They are not trivial, but they don't directly threaten the future of the company. They just make us a little bit less competitive, and a little bit less profitable, so we will grow slower than if we weren't paying them, and we pay less tax on profits because we are making less profit as a direct result of paying these costs. The direct amount of money I had to pay last year for agent fees, that we did not have to pay pre Brexit, was in the 10s of Thousands. And that's simply reduced cash to invest. And we're really quite a small company...
Multiply those extra costs, that lost growth, that lost tax revenue over the number of companies that trade with the EU and it adds up to a big number.

There are of course a lot of other increased costs and complications in the business world right now. Energy is absolutely ridiculous for example. But the point is that the costs that we experience due to energy have a multitude of causes, and it's not down to government policy alone, or even mainly due to government policy. That's a business risk, "shit happens" type of thing. And something we can mitigate and plan for. Construction on our solar farm started last week, and when finished should reduce our overall energy cost back to 2019 levels. So please do sod off with your "not adapting to changes stich". Because that's EXACTLY what well run businesses do, always have done, and always will do.

By contrast the brexit related additional costs in trading that we are experiencing are 100% down to government policy. They were also costs that were 100% foreseeable, and despite this the proponents of this course of action told us repeatedly before, and after, taking this course of action that this was going to be beneficial.
And then you and others like you act like we're being spoiled brats for daring to point out these costs and ask "so where's the upside that makes paying these costs worthwhile?" You said this course of action was going to be beneficial. Here are documented, undeniable, actual costs associated with your plan. Where are the upsides?

You can't "adapt" to something that you just have to pay. Except of course by moving production out of the UK. Didn't see that on the side of a bus, did we....

Flaming the 17.4m Leave voters made it crystal clear they wanted to leave the SM and CU (no freedom of movement, independent trade policy). It was not the government who made THAT decision. What the government did is negotiate an exit agreement (which got a landslide majority at the GE) and then a trade deal which MPs approved at very short notice with a gun to their heads.

Based on the referendum it was Canada style FTA or WTO. That's what we voted for

 

[dogwatch]

Very few Brits took advantage of freedom of movement. Just 3m

So one in twenty. That doesn't sound like "very few" to me.

As for the (Boo!) European super-state, it is now evident that the ability to follow an independent course was more theoretical than actual. Singapore on Thames actually quite appeals to me but it is bleeding obvious that is very much a minority opinion and untenable for a party that actually wants to govern.

 

[dogwatch]

Flaming the 17.4m Leave voters made it crystal clear they wanted to leave the SM and CU (no freedom of movement, independent trade policy).

Did they? I don't recall those particular questions being on the ballot paper.

 

[Flaming]

Not being part of a European Superstate is a HUGE advantage. We can forge our own path one best suited to our particular circumstances. We retain our democracy.

I don't know your business well enough to say what your opportunities or benefits are. The reduced paperwork you had before came at a heavy price both financial and in terms of legal independence for the country as a whole.

Very few Brits took advantage of freedom of movement. Just 3m and most of them retired. Far more Brits have gone to Australia to live and work than the EU. It's obvious given language barriers, I speak French but not to a professional standard. Europeans naturally speak better English as it's the gateway langauge to internal communication. My daughter was learning English from age 3 at her French State school.

The eurozone debt crises is highly relevant to Brexit and UK. The EU previously tried to coerce UK into contributing to bailouts and that was just the relatively "small" issue of Greece. A failure of the euro would be devastating the whole EU project so there is no doubt non-euro members would be called to financially support the project

My God you've swallowed the coolaid...

The notion that we, as a tiny country of 60 million are actually able of acting independently trade wise is laughable. It's a seriously competitive world out there, and unless you're one of the big guns you will end up on the wrong side of every trade deal. As we've already seen with that famous Japan deal.... Oh, and the way that America are just falling over themselves to do a deal with us...
I get why the notion of "small nimble UK doing bespoke better deals" is an attractive one. But now we're seeing the reality. And that is simply that we're getting bullied off the park as other countries recognise our weakness.

The notion that we hadn't retained our democracy is also fabulous "Daily Mail" nonsense. It just isn't true. At all. Even the government in their Brexit withdrawal bill recognised that the UK parliament had always been sovereign for gods sake.

On the subject of FoM you're missing the point. FoM with the EU isn't just about people migrating permanently, or semi permanently. Seasonal work in the EU was a very popular thing for young people. Pre Brexit figures are hard to come by, precisely because nobody had to count them, but an estimated 25k, mostly young people, per year went to work in holiday resorts etc. Numbers in 2021 were estimated to be down 75%, as visas were getting refused. A minor thing in the scheme of things maybe, but still an opportunity that you've ripped away from the young.
Now answer the question - what opportunity has Brexit opened up to replace that for young people?

Eurozone is not relevant. UK could never have been forced to bail out the Euro. Remember Cameron's famous concessions....

Mr Cameron won guarantees that countries outside the eurozone, such as Britain, will not be required to fund euro bailouts and will be reimbursed for central EU funds used to prop up the euro.

EU reform deal: What Cameron wanted and what he got

David Cameron claims his EU reform deal will give the UK "special status" in the 28 nation bloc - but did he get what he wanted?

www.bbc.co.uk

So can we put that to bed now? We weren't on the hook for EU bailouts, and were not going to be. Claims that we were are simply lies made up by ERG types looking to justify their position.

 

[Flaming]

Flaming the 17.4m Leave voters made it crystal clear they wanted to leave the SM and CU (no freedom of movement, independent trade policy). It was not the government who made THAT decision. What the government did is negotiate an exit agreement (which got a landslide majority at the GE) and then a trade deal which MPs approved at very short notice with a gun to their heads.

Based on the referendum it was Canada style FTA or WTO. That's what we voted for

Revisionist nonsense.

The leave campaign spent the entire time telling people that we were special and we held all the cards etc. The notion of Canada deal, WTO, No deal etc was only really discussed after the vote.

But even if you were right, we don't live in Switzerland. We don't do direct democracy here, we do representative democracy. For the government to hide behind the referendum result when imposing restrictions on trade against the best interests of the country is very, very weak.

 

[dogwatch]

For the government to hide behind the referendum result when imposing restrictions on trade against the best interests of the country is very, very weak.

What pisses me off is that the Johnson regime took a marginal win as a pretext for a maximalist settlement with associated damage and then did nothing of significance to take advantage of it.

 

[Flaming]

Really interesting, to be making that sort of size of power your system has to be mega huge, give us some figures to work with, say total number of panels x size, expected output and battery storage size. 20 years warranty thats new, I've seen guarenteed 10 year figures but rarely 20 years. I've seen figures predicted at 20 years ( the older units that have been out in the field at 20 years are way below reasonable figures and may as well be replaced ), they are OK but still work as most outlays have been recovered in the 8 - 10 year spans.

Yes it is a big array. 600kWp, with 500kWh storage. 80% output at 20 years is the guarantee.
Financials on solar have been flipped upside down recently. If your experience / costs etc are 3 years old they are enormously out of date.

We run an electroplating plant, we're massive power users. Doing nothing whilst our energy costs go through the roof wasn't an option. Which, I think, was my original point in mentioning this.....

 

[Waynemarlow]

That is a big array ( and good on you for putting it in ), but I think you are going to be a bit disappointed. Have a look at the table below, from experience this calculator is quite accurate (sadly reality means you won't get anything like this output due to shadowing and less than optimised slope and azimuth of the panels ). Noting the total output of 685791.17kWh's, thats only £ 123K per year of electricity at 0.18P per kWh. Really not sure of how you get to £ 6M return in 10 years over your inititial investment. So many salesmen sell the package on the best months tally and then multiply that x 12.

Something as an aside, you will need approx. 6000sqm of space for the panels alone and another 25% surface area for ancillaries, thats not a building roof of a small business, thats quite a field in Southampton, which incidentally has nearly London prices for the rental or purchase.

Got to say I wish you luck in your venture and I really hope I'm wrong, but.

 

[AnIdiot]

In addition to the above good points. I'm also curious to know what exactly is so bad about being part of the European Superstate? Is it worse than being a small country alongside it? For whom?
..and if the democracy we have retained is the one we're seeing now?
Then, frankly, it stinks.

 

[Flaming]

That is a big array ( and good on you for putting it in ), but I think you are going to be a bit disappointed. Have a look at the table below, from experience this calculator is quite accurate (sadly reality means you won't get anything like this output due to shadowing and less than optimised slope and azimuth of the panels ). Noting the total output of 685791.17kWh's, thats only £ 123K per year of electricity at 0.18P per kWh. Really not sure of how you get to £ 6M return in 10 years over your inititial investment. So many salesmen sell the package on the best months tally and then multiply that x 12.

Something as an aside, you will need approx. 6000sqm of space for the panels alone and another 25% surface area for ancillaries, thats not a building roof of a small business, thats quite a field in Southampton, which incidentally has nearly London prices for the rental or purchase.

Got to say I wish you luck in your venture and I really hope I'm wrong, but.

View attachment 556530

£0.18/unit (I assume you mean 18p, not 0.18p...) is about the export price right now. This power is principally being used to replace input,. Which is many times higher than that, and that graph doesn't take into account the benefit you get from using the battery storage.

Business Energy Rates & Prices per kWh | Uswitch for Business

Energy usage is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). This guide explains how to work out your gas and electricity prices per kWh. Find out more.

uswitchforbusiness.com

About 80p/unit is a good estimate right now. And we anticipate over the course of a year to reduce our demand by 75%. Incidentally if we were solar only we'd be expecting circa 35-40% reduction in input. Battery storage makes a huge difference.

Like I said, if your costs are based on anything other than current data you are a long way off the current financial situation.

And yes, it's going on land that we have adjacent to the factory, not a roof. Nowhere near Southampton sadly, would make getting there to sail a lot easier....

 

[Flaming]

In addition to the above good points. I'm also curious to know what exactly is so bad about being part of the European Superstate? Is it worse than being a small country alongside it? For whom?
..and if the democracy we have retained is the one we're seeing now?
Then, frankly, it stinks.

Well, nothing wrong with it in my eyes.

But.. We do have to recognise that there was a democratic vote not to be in such an organisation. The issue now is less that this decision was taken, but the manner in which it was enacted, and the fact that those responsible refuse to be held to account for the effects of that decision in the way that a democracy requires them to be.

 

[Waynemarlow]

£0.18/unit (I assume you mean 18p, not 0.18p...) is about the export price right now. This power is principally being used to replace input,. Which is many times higher than that, and that graph doesn't take into account the benefit you get from using the battery storage.

Business Energy Rates & Prices per kWh | Uswitch for Business

Energy usage is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). This guide explains how to work out your gas and electricity prices per kWh. Find out more.

uswitchforbusiness.com

About 80p/unit is a good estimate right now. And we anticipate over the course of a year to reduce our demand by 75%. Incidentally if we were solar only we'd be expecting circa 35-40% reduction in input. Battery storage makes a huge difference.

Like I said, if your costs are based on anything other than current data you are a long way off the current financial situation.

And yes, it's going on land that we have adjacent to the factory, not a roof. Nowhere near Southampton sadly, would make getting there to sail a lot easier....

Not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm but all a battery does is store energy, it has no benefit other than being able to use excess electricity as and when you want it, up to a point. Now if the government setup a battery factory in the UK and fitted every household with a 8kWh setup, we needn't bother with building one nucleur power station.

I'm gobsmacked by the 80p per unit, I'm presuming thats the predicted future say 5 years down the road ? Households without the cap are predicted circa around the 40p by the end of 2023, usually large business users are less if on a long term contract and many of those in the know are expecting electricity prices to fall pretty steadily from 2024. But hey you are the man on the spot paying the price of Putin.

Even so 80p x 685791.17 is still only £ 500K a year at best without the costs involved of installation and maintenance.

I've been a long follower of PV and looked at a 2 Hectare site back in 2019, it was a pure commercial sell everything we could, even at todays prices the return isn't great if you factor in all the costs.

As a tip for your heating of fluids requirement, have you investigated GSHP, you can get pretty large returns from your carpark outside your factory ?

Enough on this subject, back to watching the witherings of the Remainers, so much fun.

 

[pironiero]

why in the hell this topic is not in /political anarchy?

 

[dogwatch]

You could read the replies to the 100 times that's been asked before.

 

[Flaming]

Not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm but all a battery does is store energy, it has no benefit other than being able to use excess electricity as and when you want it, up to a point. Now if the government setup a battery factory in the UK and fitted every household with a 8kWh setup, we needn't bother with building one nucleur power station.

I'm gobsmacked by the 80p per unit, I'm presuming thats the predicted future say 5 years down the road ? Households without the cap are predicted circa around the 40p by the end of 2023, usually large business users are less if on a long term contract and many of those in the know are expecting electricity prices to fall pretty steadily from 2024. But hey you are the man on the spot paying the price of Putin.

Even so 80p x 685791.17 is still only £ 500K a year at best without the costs involved of installation and maintenance.

I've been a long follower of PV and looked at a 2 Hectare site back in 2019, it was a pure commercial sell everything we could, even at todays prices the return isn't great if you factor in all the costs.

As a tip for your heating of fluids requirement, have you investigated GSHP, you can get pretty large returns from your carpark outside your factory ?

Enough on this subject, back to watching the witherings of the Remainers, so much fun.

Imagine a day with scattered cloud. Not uncommon in the UK... And imagine you've sized your PV array to be big enough to match all your demand and some when in full sunshine. But it won't be enough when a cloud comes over. Without a battery you will draw power from the grid every time a cloud comes over. With a battery, the battery tops up the solar when the cloud is there, and then is charged back up again when it's 100% sun. So a day in which you would have drawn say 20% of your demand from the grid you draw nothing. That adds up.

Then think that every Monday morning, you've been generating power all weekend and you have 500kWh of power in the battery ready to go. Even if it's still dark the 1st say 2 hours of production you draw nothing. That also adds up...

And then a nice crisp clear winters day. You get to 3:30 - 4pm with a full battery and despite it getting dark you won't pull any power from the grid before clocking out at 5pm. No battery and you do the last hour at least from grid power. It all adds up, and is the reason why the battery makes so much difference to the overall saving.

Of course some days, like today, are just dull and grey, and you will pull the majority of your power from the grid.

No, 80p/unit is a perfectly valid current price. Remember that until very recently the "price cap" was domestic only. Business prices were rising very rapidly, partly because of the cap affecting their residential margins... Great bit of political law of unintended consequences that.... And even now there is no cap for business, just a bit of support that brings the wholesale part of the bill down to 21.1p. Except that the amount of support is limited to 34.5p. So if (when) the wholesale cost goes above 55.5p every additional penny would be passed on to customers.
On a typical business bill the wholesale part of the price is only part of the overall price. With standing charges and distribution costs added, the distribution costs are often linked to the size of the connection you have. And they are not capped. Guess how high they are going......?
80p is about right now. I've seen forecasts that the wholesale price could pass the 55p point this winter, and more like 65p by the end of next year.

Business Electricity & Gas Prices Per kWh

Learn everything you need to know about business gas and electricity prices per kWh, what it mean and how to reduce your business energy bills.

www.loveenergysavings.com

 

[Waynemarlow]

Have you looked at GSHP's there you get a genuine 10:1 gain if all parts are optimised by good design. For all your PV you could size the number of panels considerably smaller, particularly as you are heating liquids to quite low temps. Your tanks are the almost perfect scenario for a combo of PV, GSHP and batteries and GSHP works all year round.

Interestingly my sailing club has done exactly this, using the reservoir as the source, solar on the roof, we have saved ourselves a lot of winter heating oil and get paid for the priviledge of having hot water to waste and a fully warm building. I don't know who it was who promoted the scheme nearly 10 years ago, ummm.

Batteries are not quite what you are thinking, sure you may have 500kWh's but in the 5 months in the UK where I would suggest you possibly are not going to be able to fully max out from Solar ( if your panels are sized out for the summer months ), you are not going to be able to charge those batteries to any real extent + we don't really yet know how long the latest batteries are good for, 10000 cycles is not a lot in years.

I'm sure you will have had good advice from consultants, keep us informed as despite the true cost to the planet ( no you can't simply crush them and put them in landfill, the metals inside them make them quite toxic ), times are here for renewables. But when water is 100 times denser than air, why the ferk are we subsidising and pushing air driven props.

An old project thats being redeveloped is in Scotland, some 1M tonne of rock is being proposed to be removed to make the scheme much larger, should be the gold standard in the UK. As to why Wales hasn't become the No 1 power generation centre here in the UK I have no idea.

Cruachan Power Station - Drax Global

www.drax.com

The other real longterm future of power generation may actually lie all around us, so simple, so cheap and yet so unexploited.

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) | Energy Storage Association

Learn more about Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology with this article provided by the US Energy Storage Association.

energystorage.org

 

[Flaming]

Have you looked at GSHP's there you get a genuine 10:1 gain if all parts are optimised by good design. For all your PV you could size the number of panels considerably smaller, particularly as you are heating liquids to quite low temps. Your tanks are the almost perfect scenario for a combo of PV, GSHP and batteries and GSHP works all year round.

Interestingly my sailing club has done exactly this, using the reservoir as the source, solar on the roof, we have saved ourselves a lot of winter heating oil and get paid for the priviledge of having hot water to waste and a fully warm building. I don't know who it was who promoted the scheme nearly 10 years ago, ummm.

Batteries are not quite what you are thinking, sure you may have 500kWh's but in the 5 months in the UK where I would suggest you possibly are not going to be able to fully max out from Solar ( if your panels are sized out for the summer months ), you are not going to be able to charge those batteries to any real extent + we don't really yet know how long the latest batteries are good for, 10000 cycles is not a lot in years.

I'm sure you will have had good advice from consultants, keep us informed as despite the true cost to the planet ( no you can't simply crush them and put them in landfill, the metals inside them make them quite toxic ), times are here for renewables. But when water is 100 times denser than air, why the ferk are we subsidising and pushing air driven props.

An old project thats being redeveloped is in Scotland, some 1M tonne of rock is being proposed to be removed to make the scheme much larger, should be the gold standard in the UK. As to why Wales hasn't become the No 1 power generation centre here in the UK I have no idea.

Cruachan Power Station - Drax Global

www.drax.com

Heating is a fairly small part of our energy usage, and critically generally only happens when there is no other load, making it ideal for battery/solar. Plating current is the big one that runs all day. GSHP may be somewhere we go in the future, but not a priority.

Solar is NOT sized for summer. Remember we're not doing this for export, but to reduce input. When you start from that basis you make very different choices on sizing etc, and it makes sense to oversize. Even more so when the energy price goes skyrocketing....

 

[Jambalaya]

Did they? I don't recall those particular questions being on the ballot paper.

Those things were crystal clear requirements of voters and laid out very clearly by Vote Leave. Even David Cameron who effectively headed the Remain campaign said leaving the EU meant leaving the SM and CU

 

[Jambalaya]

In addition to the above good points. I'm also curious to know what exactly is so bad about being part of the European Superstate? Is it worse than being a small country alongside it? For whom?
..and if the democracy we have retained is the one we're seeing now?
Then, frankly, it stinks.

The UK is not a "small country" in a political, military or influencer perspective. In fact in those categories it's clear UK is a more significant entity than is the EU

How does Democracy stink now ? The Tories have made a dogs breakfast of running the country and are likely to be kicked out 18 months from now.

 

[Jambalaya]

What pisses me off is that the Johnson regime took a marginal win as a pretext for a maximalist settlement with associated damage and then did nothing of significance to take advantage of it.

No no no.

The Leave campaign and voters made it clear we wanted out of SM and CU. MPs and indeed Treason May tried to give us some wishy washy not really out shite and the Tories were crushed at the EuroParl elections as a result.

The "Johnson Regime" was one we the voters put there with an 80 seat majority including many Red Wall seats which went blue for the first time in decades and in some cases ever.

It is my firm belief that Leave voters wanted an even leas close relationship with the EU than we have now.