New Solar Collector So Efficient It Works At NightOf course, there's a catch... |
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| By Michael d'Estries in Energy, Solar | January 4, 2008 | |
While we’ve seen solar cell efficiency squeak past 40% in labs this year, we’re still stuck commercially with panels that at most convert about 20% of what hits them into energy. Then there’s the whole “darkness” thing that cuts into production for part of the day.
Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory have potentially solved both issues by turning to another hot field: nanotechnology. From the article,
With this new technology, millions of extremely small twists of metal are molded into banks of “microantennas”, which can be placed on almost any material, including plastic sheets. These spiral shaped “microantennas” are about 1/25 the width of a human hair. They are so small that they resonate from the interaction with the sun’s infrared rays. This resonation can be translated into energy. During the day, the Earth soaks up a lot of this infrared energy, which is then radiated out at night — enabling these microantennas to collect power even after the sun has set.
With this new tech, researchers believe they can hit an efficiency rating of about 80%! Better yet — they will be about as cheap as “inexpensive carpet”, since the process to create the collectors does not rely upon traditional high-grade silicon.
Of course, there is a catch. A big one. While the collectors are able to capture solar energy, they still cannot transmit it into usable energy. Apparently, the nanoantennas generate a current that has a frequency which oscillates ten thousand billion times a second — way too much for the average appliance to handle. The good news is, they’re working on it. I think it’s phenomenal it’s even possible in the first place.
via neoseeker
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timeywimey said,
Wow! I will defiantly be ordering this or the next best thing as soon as I can. I long for the day when the utility companies go away. I think we all need to be self sufficient.
shiftingheat » New Solar Collector So Efficient It Works At Night | Groovy Green……. said,
[...] could capitalize on, if only this country got serious about funding research in renewable energy.read more | digg [...]
Emile Loza said,
Awesome technology! Have you pursued distribution or licensing agreements?
treehugger said,
Nanotechnology, from what I’ve read, has some drawbacks like pandora’s box. What are the environmental implications of unleashing another substance like this into the world? Will it get into the water or the soil? Will we breathe it? How stable will the material be onto which it is affixed? What are the manufacturing concerns? What about disposal? These are questions that need to be addressed.
Rastilin said,
These questions ARE being addressed. The pandoras box concerns are also still going on about GM foods, despite being in use for decades and displaying no harmful effects.
Nanotechnology, at it’s best, has the potential to cure all wants.Unless it drinks souls, it’s worth looking into.
Re this thing, it’s awesome. It’s a step to getting the energy needed to fully utilize vann-neumen machines. Incidentally, energy concerns is why grey-goo will never destroy the world.
Jay Giraud said,
If you want to live self-sufficient from utility companies, you can do that now, with the products we have available today. It is nothing more than a choice. I am launching a company that will make electric vehicles the standard, and their energy come from renewable resources. This is something each person can choose to have in their home and live a zero emissions life today.
Anyone interested just email me. We are seeking capital to make this happen.
jaygiraud@shaw.ca
Lamont B Dumont said,
The zero-emission life form does not exist. All living creatures consume resources and expell waste products. If you’re looking for a zero-emission entity, I’d suggest starting with rocks. So, the quest for the zero-emission life is a fool’s errand at best.
The good news is that one life-form’s waste product is another life form’s resource. As long as the life forms remain in some sort of dynamic balance, all is taken care of. Problems arise when a particular life form rises to an excessively dominant postion, as humans are currently. The problem is not the waste we’re pumping out, but its quantity; the rest of the life forms can’t keep up with us.
This has happened at least once before, when anaerobic bacteria thrived in the primordial soup of methane, ammonia & water vapor that was a primitive atmosphere on Earth. They became increasingly successful until they ruled the planet in their own single-celled sort of fashion. They emitted a waste product called “oxygen”; you may have heard about it in science class. These creatures were so successful that they poisoned their environment with their own waste and altered it in a way that may the planet hospitable for very different life forms.
These facts have lead me to the conclusion that global climate change is not a problem, but a symptom. The problem is overpopulation, too many humans creating a system that has gone out of balance.
We have the intelligence & reasoning ability to find out way out of this one, but if we hold to form, we won’t. One problem is our generally amazingly poor level of reading comprehension. For example, a concern is expresed above about “unleashing another substance” into the environment. A careful reading of the article indicates that this potential breakthrough does not involve the synthesis of any new materials, it’s just about forming existing materials into new shapes. We’re talking geometry and the response gets into chemistry. That is just one example of the tangential responses to just about every important issue that muddy the waters and interfere with rational discourse.
Never confuse a creature with the ability to reason with a rational creatures. Humans fall into the former category.
To quote Ed Grimley: “We’re as doomed as doomed could be.” I see that as optimism.
Chevalier said,
This is a cool application. I don’t think it should be a problem to reduce the frequency of the current.
As a student taking courses in nanotechnology, I have to say that I’ve heard a lot of the drawbacks and most of them are ungrounded or older problems not new to nantechnology. Just because it’s new technology, it’s not that different from normal chemistry. The materials used aren’t that different, they just get new properties because of their small sizes. Any hazards are properties of the materials, not of the fact that it’s nano…
It’s your classical case of scientist overhyping their research to get budgets and that backfiring because everyone now believes it to be new and dangerous.
Craig said,
Nonotech or is it tapping the as yet unknown secrets of quantum mechanics? The problem is not so much generating power as making it cheap, portable and profitable, hence the abundance of oil based fuels. And I bet some big corporate business may come along and buy the patent then just sit on it , as has happened before, until the oil runs out.
gm recall | I news mag said,
[...] New Solar Collector So Efficient It Works At Night [...]
Kilgore Trout said,
These articles are so encouraging….been reading them for 20 years now. Even if they develop something worthwhile Big Brother will forbid its use. Look whats happening at Nanosolar. select installations of their product surrounded by barbed wire and only used by a select few.
Harnessing The Power Of The Sun With Molten Salt » GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow said,
[...] New Solar Collector So Efficient It Works At Night [...]
Robert Palgrave said,
Interesting juxtaposition with this story evidently exciting people into thinking about throwing away the old technology in favour of the nano version, and the recent story on GroovyGreen about freeganism which highlighted the dangers of disposability.
Michael d'Estries said,
When was it ever alluded to that we should “throw away” old solar technology? The great thing about renewables is that they can generally work in tandem with new and old to create energy. I’m not certain many people would take down perfectly working panels in favor of something “new”.
If that ever was the case, the old panels would quickly find a home elsewhere with open arms. So far, we’re seeing panels 30+ years still creating energy — I’d definitely not call that a disposable item.
sanmannor said,
I really like the potential of this product… cheap soler cells printed in plastics… its anew world developing
I too long for the Self sufficient life. to live in a community where the power, food and work are all produced on site. subsequently I started http://www.the-shire.org a Sustainability Expose that is trying to start a research community for experimenting with implementation of new self sufficient tech
UbuntuGimp said,
After seeing the President waving a 10th century sword instead of a B2b and kissing Opic’s collective ass publicly by begging for oil, this article and those like it are a breath-mint for the shitty taste in my mouth. We die in Iraq for these bastards and they freeze out US citizens by jacking oil prices?
hazelnutsource said,
Poor, poor us! Oil producers ought to give away their oil so we can drive our Stupid Ugly Vehicles (SUVs) and drive 30 miles each way from our ridiculously oversized houses. Give me a break. Cheap oil is going away and we have to buy it in an auction market that is getting tighter every year. You can refill a glass of beer, not so for an oil reservoir. The oil man in charge (Duped ya)
has been pretty successful in enriching his circle of leeches and leading most of us along the path of impoverishment. The worst in our history. Cheap natural gas is going away too. Everything is going up because the cost of energy inputs is going up. Our great pious leader and his accolytes now lie to us about inflation. A trip to the grocery store or the gas station reveals the lie, if you bother to thing about it and have a memory span of a whole year. Get ready for hard times that will never end folks.
Herman said,
Just covering major parts of sahara with these, we will never need any other electrical source. Well we can atleast dream
Diane at Carbon Tiptoes said,
It’s be nice to be able to solve the world’s energy crisis soon – the more research that is done the better. This is an interesting project and I hope they continue to work on it!
Grandma said,
There must be some element that the energy can be transferred to — at ten thousand billion times a second which in turn, could transfer that energy at a slower rate. Maybe that’s an over simplification — don’t know, I’m not a scientist. Just seems to me that there “must” be some way to harness this energy that we haven’t yet discovered.
I wonder how people will be living say, 100 years from now. I’d bet “this” nanotechnology will be surpassed by then.
Interesting article.
richard said,
Lampblack would provide higher absorption efficiency and suffer the same practical transferenc problem.
Vic said,
It was publisehd more than twenty years ago in the Popular Science Magazine, by the the then Automotive writer, he was quiting his writing for PopSci Mag job, that he had under contract with General Motors developed a slew of lean burn engines. These engines were very efficient. The article he wrote indicated a V2 engine for small cars that would get 85 mpg, a V6 engine for pick up trucks that would get 45-50 mpg. with all the power needed. Where arre the eigines and plans for them? In lock down at GM.
The car companies are bellyaching that they are going to find it hard to produce fleet avarages of 35 mpg by 2010. We are being lied to agian and again by the “controllers”. This could have been done 50 years ago with little trouble. We are being carefully guided into a one world government and into whatever else they wish to “give” us out of the bigness of their hearts.
Most of the technology used to produce more efficient cars today in the mechanical sense are the same things found in cars 60 years ago. The only difference is the switch to all electronic controls on the engines which the PopSci Mag Automotive writer said could have been done with simple mechanical devices. He indicated that the switch to electronic controls on cars was to end the “fix it yourself” ability in the USA and to put the cars into the dealers shops or the local mechanics shops that had taken the effort to upgrade their sksill to keep up with the electric control planned pocket book drain of the American Citizen.
Probably 20 years ago a tiny article appeared in PopSci Mag which indicated that a plastic battery had been developed and the electric car was really available then. The article also indicated we would probably see the batteries in cameras and such at first, probably without labeling their type, and hopefully at some time they would become available in other applications. Well, If these batteries are being used they are used in “Ghost Mode” and they have not hurt the auto starting battery industry of lead acid types which have been in use since the first self starting automobiles. Why, because someone whose hand is on the “contriol switch” wants to milk us dry.
Tere is a planned move to hydrogen in the world, especially in the USA. But it takes time to create the infastructure too disperse this new form of gold that the oil controllers intend to have control of also. In the mean time they are escalating the cost of oil. One of the purposes is to get the cost up that hydrogen will be the greatest scam of all. If not today, absolutely tomarrow, hydrogen will be producable so cheaply that it will be the greatest rip off of all time to sell it to the consuming and kept stupid on purspose, public. That is except for the few who keep digging for inventions or information to reveal.
Well, to those that reveal I say go ahead, the press is so damned controlled, fat chance. The interenet is the one and only free tool of those interested in getting us something that will work and save our money so that we can have a decent standard of living.
In the “think tanks” ot the “controllers” they sit down and plan how much money will be left in our pockets and how much they will take. They also plan such items and the destruction of the middle class in the USA which has almost been completed. Search for the methods they are using to accomplish this, they are visible and ingreat abundance.
Of course the “controllers” are looking closely at the Chinese and how they work to choke the internet users. There are plans to regulate the Internet for the “controllere” benefit. There are plans to tax the internet use. There are plans to route the Internet traffic through “hubs” of super computers which will watch for key word and capture web site data, email data, and other data and they intend to track you down if you violate future restriction which will be implemented as our freedoms are stripped from us.
Do all you can to support the ‘garage inventor”. We need more Bill Gates, not in the sense of more super rich who think they earned all their wealth all by themselves. In todays world such people are made rich by the ideas of their employees who are never really compensated in proper ratio to their input. We need grass roots developement that can be kept as far from the hands of the controllers as possible.
The Henry Ford’s idea of a car for the people cheap enough that alnost everyone can have one is dead and gone. Now, it is produce the things at a time and place we will let people have “it” to use or bebefit from, as long as we control the purse strings, we will eventually let themmhave some things..
It is time for a revolt! A revolt of the good minded men and women of the USA to unite and form a coalition to work on ideas and bring them forth to throw a monkey wrench in the gears of the “controllers” that work to grind us into fine dust and to remold us in whatever image they want.
We want to be free, unshackled from the chains of the “controllers”! A coalition web site is being created. If you wish to be a part be ready to advance your ideas and help to bring into existence what we see and not what the controllers see.
Work together. Be heard. Use the internet to get things done.
astrosona said,
It is amazing……………. i love to see how they work in future. why not try to use that high frequency instead of reducing the current?
Popular Fidelity » Uncategorized » Scientists Developing Solar Panel that Works at Night said,
[...] least not anymore. Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory have found a way to collect energy from the sun for both day and night. They twisted and molded millions of tiny pieces of metal into micro-antennas that can be fitted [...]
80% Efficient Solar Panel?! Works at Night?! « Green Zorba said,
[...] Source: Idaho National Labs via Groovy Green [...]
80% Efficient Solar Panel?! Works at Night?! | Lone Blog - Sharing is Caring said,
[...] without raising the price, or lowering the efficiency too much. Source: Idaho National Labs via Groovy Green SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “80% Efficient Solar Panel?! Works at Night?!”, url: [...]
weeble said,
I wonder if the sheets mentioned in the article have to be plastic, or could they be, say, organic hemp…? The production and disposal of plastic is a large part of the environmental issue facing humanity.
weeble said,
Just a reminder…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
U.S. Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
http://www.hempfiles.com/php/main.php
Ken said,
Thsi would be a brilliant idea to use, and not just for the USA. You people are going on and on about this that and the other in the USA but actually you have 5-6 times more oil left under your soil than us here in the UK.
But the point still stand, this technology is needed. They need to get funding from individual sources – not giga companies – they need to work for themselves and finish up this product. I heard elsewhere of a group who have managed to make ANY metal turn any colour they want by altering the nanostructures. If these two technologies are combined, you suddenly have a nano dish super black film which absorbs even more energy.
I am not too good at physics – in fact i haven’t even taken my A levels yet – but i believe that such an oscilating frequency can be reduced by magnets just like an AC frequency is established in hydro-electric dams. This would help align the particals and thus the energy into a much better streamed energy source which then can be channeled through super-conductors.
If it still oscilates too much, move onto a source of power differently. Instead of capturing the energy is a surface, use this nanotechnology to make the perfect reflector, perfect hemi-sphere to use as a “solar cooker”. The energy is reflected in so perfectly, and it looks like a satellite dish, that not only could you produce the best energy source during daytime (sadly it falls at night – but you could use nano reflectors to do IR EMwaves too) but also create a perfect communication dish for the average household, creating a better signal and therefore less interference across larger distances.
The ability to shape nano-particles is obviously going to be invaluable but as previously mentioned, it requires new hands – not a big company – to get it off the ground and alive. Once started up and the fear removed, nano-technology will be widely developed for a range of things and become the basis for a new era. The world over can leave the industrial era, snuff the digital era and go into the nano era immediately.
Third world conutries would benefit well. Their open expanses of wastland and increase heat from the sun (equatorial regions) would allow for an massive economic shift that would hopefully sort out even more problems.
The biggest curse to all of this advancement though comes in one word. Greed. Humans are too greedy, greeedy for money, food, possession, resources etc. Unless over half the world had no greed, the greedy would overthrow anything. And THAT is why we shall not succeed.
Ben said,
Some questions:
Since how many years did we hear the breakthrough is here?
Why is such a product folded? Would you fold your x million dollar research piece?
Where are the conductors for the currents of ~800W electrical energy per m2 ?
Some research will be needed. Let’s wait for peak oil in the mean time.
Anne Robert said,
Thx for this !
I have just discovered SOLAR cooking vie You Tube because one of the leading TV in France spoke about it on prime time with trendiest stars saying how cool.
It seemed a bit obscured til I saw the videos: !
Enjoy trying
Anne
Love your blog!
Spuffler said,
So… does the infrared energy heat the planet to the same extent if 20% is reflected into space? Does all work output from electricity produce the same heating as the 80% of the absorbed infrared would have created if the 80% had struck the earth as per before this device blocked the sun (Does moving the point of absorbtion and converting the absorbed energy to electricity make the crops grow the same as before the infrared energy was blocked?)?
JUST COOL Design Blog said,
i cant wait to carpet the exterior of my new house with this technology when it is finally implemented. VERY COOL!
Tim said,
Ole Dubya prepared for this long ago.
His ranch house is totally energy self sufficient.Solar and wind provide all the energy needs.A deep earth heat pump and a fireplace provide heat and cooling.All the rain water is collected in an underground cistern for plant watering and the pond provides all its water needs.
Matter of fact this houses green imprint is about 1% of Al Gores Mansion in Tennessee.
Not bad for a person most consider a dumb@ss.
mikey D said,
i can honestly say that big uncle sam seems to be a real big pain in the ass pocket. i doubt this will ever happen at a high production level(nano) because bushy just topped off the tanks in time for his departure into the history books. i heard that an oil reserve has a life expectancy of about 85 years at the current rate of usage it sees. so we will have some time before texaco starts to come up dry. the war on terror is a great cover up for the oil pilfering project, why else would he not pull out? hey, whos osama bin laden anyway, where is he? weve all but forgot about that guy but this is sopposedly the reason for the war? bushy knows what hes doing and so did his father. they play dumb to keep you off the scent of oil!! watch the prices start to come down after the election, as we pull out of iraq. better get used to the monopoly game our new world government has implemented for us and we better mount the nano to kevlar sheets to stop the terrorists we forgot about from blowing us all up off the map. we should destroy all the vehicles in protest and get horses. if we dont melt our planet in the process. well all be rowing our boats to work anyway in another 85 years. nano is a wonderful theory, reality is the problem.
bionadeguy said,
Hopefully we’ll have enough time to evolve, and help create a positive future. Realistically understand the challenges and work to find solutions…
Required Name said,
They’re only “working on it”? Well I hope they get it.
Solar said,
Yes! Keeping in mind the drastic environmental changes and rising fuel prices going Solar is one option open to all at minimal investments. The Solar Water heating systems are so easy to install and most of them come in a Do-it Yourself kit, With the technological advancement the once heavy, bulky hard to move panels are now available widely in light weight easy to carry by one personal only packages. The advancement in technology is not only limited to light weight, but for those concern about the aesthetics of the panels, the good news is that the panels are now available with a variety of trim colors to choose from and can be easily matched to your roof. Saving about $25.oo on ones electricity bill every month on a residence of 4. We all use hot water, as one of our basic needs and what can be a better way, than helping our environment, saving our resources and ourself’s some money other than by investing in a Solar Water Heating System.
There are a couple useful websites I’m aware off, that I would like to share with you
1. http://www.dsireusa.org – is a comprehensive source of information on state, local
, utility ans federal incentives that promote renewable engery ans energy efficieny.
2. http://www.powerpartnerssolar.com – one of the many manufacturers of certified Solar Water Heating Systems available. One place I saw the light weight panels and trim color options I was mentioning earlier.
Lastly, the local utilites in some areas also provide additional rebates and incentives for adding a Solar Water Heating Sytem to your exisitng water tank.
Keep the look out on. Feel Good and save- money for you, environment for us.
Antonio Corrêa Carlos Filho said,
The heat collector equilibrium both internal temperature x external temperature; if diference between atmospheric temperature and liquid storageg in the boiller has capture wihthout solar irradiation presence, night too.
Gene said,
I read the short article and was surprised to read efficiency ratings were at 20%. I find that hard to believe. When the first cells were created, in one of those big mean company labs that we all seem to hate because they are destroying the universe, we were looking at 2%. Breaking 15% was a dream.
It just strikes me odd how people with doctorates working for capitalist companies are redirecting the future and meeting the demands of our time. You would think all the bloggers, who don’t seem comfortable with the English language, would have saved us all by now.
Oh, following up on comments, are we in global warming, global cooling, or global change (to be safe.) I would like to know what to complain about; don’t want to make a mistake out of ignorance.
I have to check, but I though fuel prices were falling dramatically. Hard to keep up with all the panic. I am glad there a people who wear ties.
Alain Chevalier said,
Did anybody have an update of this new ?
The oil company and electric coal will eat their sucks.
Hope that will come true to kick out those pollution companies such are car builders and oil companies.
Their an emergency to act, and I think so Obama are a Hope.
Uncle B said,
We are only a few technological break-throughs away from total feasibility of off-grid dwelling for many parts of the U.S.A. The truth about super-insulation, still hidden by Military and Industrial folk, and patent law,will slip out to the public, leak, as usual through the net, to the peons of America, and make heating and cooling to livable temperatures by solar efforts easy to do! GMOed veggie crops will make eating, feeding a snap! Chickens have always been good, GMOed ones better!, LED lighting and H2,O2 storage overnight from solar sources is already here, thanks to MIT! We will not need oil, factories, 8 to 5 jobs, and go looking for clean lakes and rivers, fertile land, and super-plants to grow there! The city style development is dead, and a new lifestyle is waiting for a few significant brak throughs and a few courageaous folk to take the first steps . . . in the new “American Dream”, a greenhouse for each of us and some fertile soil, an earth-ark style survival home, ready for the inevitable downturns, and aquaponics, composting and bio-gassing of humanure, all quietly performed by computer controlled super servants in our garden estates!
captbilly said,
It is very frightning to see how amazingly bad science education is in the US. There is not enough information in this article for anyone to come to an intelligent conclusion about the feasability of this “new technology”, but one thing is clear, we need to switch away from fossile fuels. I wrote a paper in college, over 30 years ago that concluded fairly conclusively that fossile fuels could only last several decades. Nothing has changed since then to change those conclusions other than possibly having erred on the optomistic side. Fission energy sources could last several times as long but come with extreme risks int he form of nuclear weapons proliferation. Essentially any country with a nuclear reactor can easily produce a nuclear weapon.
I am always leary of the promise of “new technologies” to solve our immediate problems. It is not so much that these new technologies disappoint, although most do, but more that they take decades to commercialize and often become more of distraction than benefit. As an example we only need to look back 8 years when our new “fearless leader” decided that hydrogen powered cars made much more sense than electric or hybrid cars that were well along in development. All that we accomplishe with our hydrogen economy R&D was to greatly slow the pace of electric and hybrid developement. I suspect that the plan all along was to simply buy time for the car industry to continue selling huge gasoline powered SUVs and pickups, but we can see by the demise of Chrysler and GM that was an incredibly short sighted goal.
There are no rechnological breakthroughs required for most countries to switch to solar power for heating and cooling the vast majority of houses and commercial buildings. Photovoltaic for electricity is pretty far from being cost effective if cost of money is factored in, but it certainly could make sense in some cases if we factor in the cost of mitigating pollution. All we need to move to a much more susstainable energy system is the will to do it. In the US, with the huge influence of money on political decisions, it could be another decade or two before we take solar energy seriously. I am afraid that we may not have the economic power at that time to switch to solar.
Rectfied said,
The high freq energy could be rectfied to Direct Current then run into and inverter to make 60Hz AC that coould be used to power homes and industry. I relize that is not 100% efficent but other than the cost of equiptment the energy is free.
Simon Icke said,
UK Utility companies are using the global green environmental debate, to rip-off the public,
in reality the whole ‘green thing’ is largely just another political and capitalist scam. Just another false reason to rip- off the consumer and there are so many fools who buy into this new false religion, without any real evidence to support the false theories of the so called experts. Governments use it to introduce false new green stealth taxes and meanwhile the fat cat utility bosses are enjoying their luxury life styles, whilst major shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank; as they see their utility company profits nearly double in just one year. And the trendy green PC fools have the gall to tell us how good it is for us all. (The utility bosses can’t believe they have such a merry band of gullible fools, supporting their continued daylight robbery domestic consumer pricing policy).
The poor and the old are the real victims of this nonsense and they have no one to protect their interest from this blatant extortion. Sadly before something is done to bring fairness and a public conscience in what domestic consumers are charged for electricity and gas usage, many poor people will have died of hypothermia; as they were too frightened to use their heating during the cold winter months.
This is the scandal of the century and the trendy green brigade are aiding and abetting this government approved theft from ordinary people by trying to peddle the lie that it’s in our interest. I have never heard such rubbish in all my life. And the government quango, Ofgem tries to convince us there is no cartel between the big six utility companies; the truth is there is no need for a cartel, as they all just follow the first one to move and charge the highest prices to the domestic consumer that they can get away with. There is no real competition between the utility companies as they all charge the same; more or less.
The utility companies are taking the poor and the old for a ride, but as they freeze to death don’t forget to tell them it is good for them and good for the planet!