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"Electricity is projected to increase by 50% in the coming years which is why generators are gearing up to produce more"

Where's the extra consumption coming from? As I said previously, it seems to be more about retiring fossil fuel generation and replacing it with a diverse array of renewable's. Obviously it costs money to connect a wind farm near Hebden Bridge in the pennines, or a solar farm on the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk border, but it wont increase NG's profits if Gas and oil fired power stations close as more renewable capacity comes online.

The Government are saying 50% demand increase by 2035, but where's the extra 50% demand coming from?

To give you an example of where demand will drop off in coming years, BT account for around 1% of UK electricity consumption across all their estate. BT are implementing technology to save electricity wherever they can, like their cell sleep technology:

https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-rolls-out-energy-saving-cell-sleep-technology-to-ee-mobile-sites-nationwide/

Disregarding energy saving measures like that, BT are also reducing their building footprint from 4800 to around 1000 buildings. The current PSTN exchange network equipment will go completely, including all the central office battery banks, aircon's, etc for the closed sites, meaning fewer sites serving Passive Optical Networks and a single core converged network carrying everything including mobile data. My point is that BT's network energy consumption will fall through the floor over the next 6 years, and any extra electricity they use as they convert their vehicle fleet to EV will be more than offset by their energy savings elsewhere.

Other companies will also try and conserve energy wherever they can, so consumption could actually drop over the next 10 years if companies implement new energy saving technology to be more green and save money.

"Electricity usage in the coming years is going to surge which is why generators are in a queue to plug into the Grid, and why NG are making the investments to accommodate them."

The reason I mention Heat Pumps and EV's is because NG mention them in their releases, so they're obviously modelling demand based on the assumption that household's will move to electric heating, and EV's will replace ICE vehicles. I don't see datacenters increasing demand greatly, even with AI; And as I pointed out previously, Telecom power requirement's are going to drop dramatically as legacy network is replaced with FTTP and a fully converged Core Network. As far as EV's are concerned I expect the early users will be mainly service industry and retail delivery.

Statista say:

"The United Kingdom’s electricity use has been declining since peaking at 357 terawatt-hours in 2005. In 2023, the UK's electricity consumption fell to its lowest level this century, at 266 terawatt-hours. Electricity consumption in the UK typically follows a seasonal trend, peaking in the winter months."

https://www.statista.com/statistics/322874/electricity-consumption-from-all-electricity-suppliers-in-the-united-kingdom/

It seems to me that the CAPEX is about the move to renewable's and nothing to do with extra overall demand. The Generator's can't afford to pay NG unless they've sold the electricity they generate, so the only way I can see that NG increase profits is if demand goes up, where's this extra demand coming from?

"NG charges the generators under the Transmission Network Use of System, worked out by their Entry Capacity onto the Grid transmission network"

The Electricity Generators only supply electricity based on demand, so generation equals demand. The only way NG's profit increases is if demand goes up. There will be a move to Heat pumps, but you could be talking 20 years before heat pumps outnumber gas boilers; They're also talking about blending 20% hydrogen with Natural Gas after 2028, with possible percentage increases as technology moves forward. Hydrogen production will probably become ever more important for powering trucks, heavy machinery, and as a substitute for natural gas, but it'd make sense to generate power for the hydrolysis on site rather than transporting it through the grid.

Common sense suggests that NG's profits will only increase if demand increases, since electricity generation equals demand.

How do you figure that Abject? BT is in a far better position than the Royal Mail.

Before anyone else brings this up, Labour have stated that they want to build 1.5 million new homes over the next 5 years, meaning around 300,000 a year; And from 2025 onward it will be illegal to fit a Gas boiler in New Builds, so the likely alternative is Air Source Heat Pumps. Should Labour manage to achieve their target for New Builds, then there's a chance the new properties will increase Grid demand, but it's debatable if this quantity of energy efficient New Build's are achievable; Think workforce availability and supply chain constraints, if there's competition for skilled workers the developers will have to pay more to attract the Plumbers, Electricians, Brickies, etc, which could potentially push up build costs significantly. The NIMBY's will throw a fit and there'll probably many new build green belt developments going through litigation with objections from councils and locals. These new build aspirations are the only thing I can think of that might increase electricity demand, but I don't see much of a demand increase coming from the current housing stock.

LTI, I previously pointed out charts 5.1 and 5.2 in the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/667c16427d26b2be17a4b3a5/Energy_Trends_June_2024.pdf

Chart 5.1 is consumption and chart 5.2 is Generation, both charts correlate because Generation is directly associated with demand.

As far as future demand is concerned, the model's assume big moves from Gas Heating to Electric Heat Pump's and from ICE vehicles to EV's; What I've been saying is that assumed increases in demand aren't necessarily going to be nearly as big as the model's suggest.

You say I need to think a bit more, suggesting that the price of electricity isn't linked to demand, but future demand increases will be very dependent on the price of electricity; Households will always need to power essentials, especially heating, but why take a chance on alternative electric heating if there's no financial benefit? As I've already pointed out, if the price of Gas is much cheaper than Electricity where's the incentive to switch from gas heating to a heat pump? Involving more expense and possible refurbishment due to the whole heating system, including pipework, requiring replacement.

It's possible the new Labour Government will tax the Gas suppliers, but that'd make them really unpopular as lots of people can't afford the expense of upgrading to heat pump's, and most properties require improvements to facilitate low temperature heating system's.

As far as AI's concerned I did previously mention Datacenters, but front end processing can move out to edge servers with much of the back end processing done elsewhere. Why would any company build an AI datacenter where the electricity is expensive, when they can build them in countries with lower charges, with front end processing done at the edge to save money?

Time will tell if demand increases in line with models suggesting a 50% increase by 2035, which'd still only be an average of 120 TWh consumption during the winter period. I can see the move to renewables replacing fossil fuel generation, I just don't see how that translates to increased profits for NG.

"The Spark Ratio, also known as the ‘Spark Gap’ or ‘Spark Spread’, is a term used to talk about the difference in prices between gas and electricity, measured per kilowatt-hour (kWh). It’s like comparing how much two different things cost, but in this case, it’s the types of energy we use in our homes.

In the UK, there’s a noticeable price ‘gap’ where electricity is often much more expensive than gas, creating a barrier in the adoption of carbon-reducing technology, such as heat pumps.

For example, before the recent Electricity Price Guarantee, under which levies were removed from bills, electricity could cost around 4.7 times more than gas. Although this gap has closed slightly, it’s still quite large. This makes it challenging for more carbon friendly, efficient electric options, like heat pumps, to be as cost-effective as they could be."

https://www.lowcarbonhub.org/p/spark-gap/

"Electricity generation will vastly increase in future years"

That depends on demand and demand is dependent on the price per Kwh for electricity vs gas, and consumers being able to afford EV's. For most UK consumers the choice of a heat pump over gas boiler will depend on what the industry calls the Spark Gap, with Gas currently 4 times cheaper than electricity Heat Pumps aren't currently economical. The adoption of EV's in preference to ICE vehicles will require EV's to see a considerable price drop. I suspect the largest users of Electricity will be data centers going forward, but a good percentage of that power might be offset by the reduction in power required by Telecom companies moving to Passive Optical Networking and convergence.

There's no guarantee that electricity demand will increase as much as the models suggest, much will depend on consumer and industry requirements, and the economics of using fossil fuels vs renewable energy. There's also a possibility that Gas could get cheaper as the Electricity Grid draws more capacity from renewables in preference to gas fired power station's.

Surprisingly Domestic is the biggest user of Electricity, followed by commercial/other and industrial coming in third. Check out charts 5.1 and 5.2 on the link below, Electricity consumption hasn't increased much from 2021, trending between 70 and 80 TWh dependent on the season:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/667c16427d26b2be17a4b3a5/Energy_Trends_June_2024.pdf

Where's the extra demand coming from over the next 5 years?

Bitcoin is just Digital Fools Gold, with it's value based purely on belief, it's inevitable that it'll eventually die. If something has no use then it has no intrinsic value, if Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow the World wouldn't miss it, because it serves no purpose outside of the Crypto casino where it's traded by believers and speculators. I have no idea when the end of Bitcoin will happen at some point.

In their words the £7 Billion they've raised will only reduce Net Debt by £500 Million by the end of FY25 and they're also looking at spending £60 Billion over the next 5 years. They've also stated that their debt level will increase during the period of increased CAPEX, even taking into account the sale of Grain LNG and National Grid Renewables. They say:

"As part of our five-year financial framework, we anticipate making approximately £60 billion of capital investments between 2024/25 and 2028/29, which we intend to finance through a package of funding sources that includes a combination of these sources of liquidity, as well as the net proceeds of the Rights Issue. As further discussed below, reliance on these sources of liquidity can expose us to the risk of higher financing costs and the imposition of restrictions on our business"

They also say "following the Rights Issue, the Board will aim to grow annual DPS in line with UK CPIH", note the use of the word "aim".

National Grid have been and are disposing of their Gas assets, so they betting big on more adoption of Heat Pumps and EV's, they say:

"We will aim to prepare our network for over a million electric vehicles during RIIO-ED2, around 300,000 heat pumps, and a significant increase in renewable energy, whilst making it quicker and easier for our growing customer base to connect to the network"

RIIO-ED2 runs through to 2028: "1 April 2023 and cover the five-year period to 31 March 2028"

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/RIIO-ED2%20Final%20Determinations%20Overview%20document.pdf

Apparently there are already 280,000 heat pump's in the UK, are they talking about a further 300,000, or just 20,000 further heat pumps? And there are already over 1 Million EV's on UK roads, are they talking about another million EV's?

OK so there's a big drive for renewables and the increased CAPEX is about connecting these to the Grid, but if that means increased electricity prices for consumers Labour probably wont last long in power, pardon the pun. If they want to encourage households to take a chance on heat pump's, then consumer electricity cost's per KWh need to be cheap enough to compete with gas, which is currently 4 times cheaper per KWh than electricity; The theory is that heat pumps are 4 times more efficient than a gas boiler, but there are few UK households who'll achieve a heat pump COP of 4, so gas boilers will likely remain cheaper to run than heat pumps, for most properties, unless the price of electricity comes down or the price of gas goes up.

It isn't written in stone that NG's dividend is safe.

Saw a green bar and my curiosity got the better of me. Just because it's at £9.41 now doesn't mean it'll climb higher, or that it wont drop like a stone in the next couple of years. Ok it's held up surprisingly well since the Rights Issue, but all it'll take is for the big players, or ratings agencies, to change narrative and NG could easily see £6. NG is currently being given an easy ride by the market commentators, that could change should the market decide to punish it for its huge debt pile; It could easily happen, it has with other stocks.

The Bond debt is eye watering, EMTN €34bn, ECP $10.5bn and USCP of $10.5bn, assuming their Debt page is up to date.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/investors/debt-investors/debt-information

I don't see NG as going bust, but there are questions about dividend sustainability in view of their upgrade plans. The market would tear strips of most companies with NG's level of debt. I'm surprised by NG's recent climb, but it wouldn't take much to see a reversal in the price.

Stagecoach if only it was that simple, much depends on strategy and the ability to change strategy when circumstances go against you. A significant portion of the market's profits come from retail, so it stands to reason that brokers, and others, don't like retail investors who invest and hold long term, they want investors who trade day in day out. One of the reasons the Government are pressured to remove stamp duty on UK traded stocks, is because the brokers believe it will increase the amount of day trading on the UK market and increase their profits; The market profits more from retail day trading gamblers.

The beauty of dividends is that they give you options when your chosen stocks drop post purchase, in that dividends can be reinvested if you believe your stocks are undervalued after a drop. Personally I'm a dividend investor with an open ended investment window and although it's nice to see my chosen stocks showing a paper gain, the only effect from that is the choice of whether and where to reinvest the dividends, or take the cash income.

I would suggest investing in safe'ish dividend paying blue chip stocks is far safer than investing in growth stocks paying no dividends, since you get nothing back from a growth stock until you sell.

Just to add, if they're using Margin loan's the interest will eat into any potential profits the longer the short's are in play.

The notification is for 0.82%, which is 10,588,773 shares, so however they've done it that's the size of their position. I've never shorted a stock in my life and I have no idea how it works in practice, so I can only go off what they've notified as the size of their position.

Zesty I'd be grateful if you could explain to me how they might use Derivatives, Spread Bets, or whatever to amplify their profits/losses more than they would using a conventional short sell? And I'd also be curious to know what's notifiable and what isn't?

I think this idea that GSA are employing people to spread negativity and influence the share price needs addressing.

GSA have shorted 0.82% of QBT, or 10,588,773 shares. If GSA were planning to make a profit on their shorts right now, they're probably showing a paper profit of around 0.3p, or 0.4p per share shorted; If they covered their shorts now, then they'd make a maximum profit of around £42,000.

Are GSA going to employ people to continually post here, on a daily basis, for such a miniscule profit? I don't think so. GSA are most likely betting that QBT wont produce a commercial product and will eventually fail, even then with the current short position they'd only make around £127,000 profit. GSA's positions are most likely a short, wait and forget bet.

Out of curiosity. what is your average £ per point and at what average price?

I saw your 9th May post where you said "Added more short @ 54.08p...Average @ 52.34p...@ £2kpp".

It is possible that currency fluctuations might have an effect, but that'd be across all UK stocks.

Savage, I don't see why anything in the US should affect BT's share price. BT isn't listed on any US stock exchanges and has very little exposure to the US economy. If BT did drop on anything US, it'd only be because the market is using it as an excuse to drop the price.