this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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Where I live in Scotland about 73% of electricity generated come from renewables (mostly wind and hydro). I'm hugely in favour of this, but the bills keep rising.
I firmly believe the utility companies should be nationalised. I'm not against capitalism per se, but the current setup is a racket.
You know why right?
The grid is constraint and because of this it makes prices really high where the congestion is. Now the logical thing is to allow a different price where there is free energy like in Scotland verse where it is constraint.
But! The issue is where it is constraint and that's south east England. And as everyone in the country knows no one gets anything in the UK unless south east England has more of it for less.
So higher prices in SE England is not going to happen. If it was the other way around I'm certain the government would say fuck the Scots they should have more wind power if they wanted cheap electricity.
If the state of the Scottish energy grid is comparable to mainland Europe, then the prices go up due to increasing cost of infrastructure.
Renewables are a lot cheaper per kWh, but require a substantialy higher up front cost in infrastructure due to their decentralized nature.
Before renewables, the electricity only ever flowed in one direction, from the power plant down to the consumers. A few centralised main powerlines could deliver most of that.
With the increase in renewables that suddenly isn't true anymore. Smal villages often are net positive, we've reached a point where even the medium voltage grid of entire regions is net positiv and the energy has to be transported somewhere else, sometimes even outside the country.
All this requires substantially more powerlines (or at least thicker ones, so still new cables). But more importantly, devices to measure the current load of the grid at all times and modernized equipment that can remotely be operated to respond to variing load.
Not to say that we should stop building renewables. All this infrastructure will be needed eventually eather way, but at least in the short term, investments will be needed regardless.
Also the 'price cap' in the UK mainly just guarantees a minimum percentage profit added on top of what is otherwise a bunch of assumptions largely provided by the energy companies.
Then some how their costs almost always come in under the assumed numbers increasing their profit further, they don't need to innovate cos their money is guaranteed.
Also the profit percentage added went up recently, because...
Water is essential to living.
Electricity is mostly essential.
Why these two utilities are privately owned is beyond me.
To pay dividends to shareholders whilst you let the utility degrade to the point where the government steps in to bail you out anyway. Perfect investment.
I really should have started a monopoly, that is 0 risk 100% reward. I mean just take the money from the government, give myself a huge bonus, and then when there is no infrastructure upgrades done, say whoops, its too expensive, get more money from the government, rinse and repeat!
Public necessaries like energy, water, public transport etc should never have been handed over to companies to begin with in my opinion.
Yeah honestly even if we were at 100% renewables, the price has been set and people are used to it now. No company is going to voluntarily start discounting unless more competition enters the market to start a price war. So far most of the energy "competition" has gone bust.