Energy Bills

[Squaredy]

17 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

Has to be blanket, how else do you decide who gets it without an indepth investigation into each case?

Arguably this is the most unfair system - do you want to pay to subsidise the fuel bills of the super rich?  I do agree it is very difficult however, as you say we certainly don't want a complicated means test for every energy user in the UK.

[GarethM]

I've said it before but let those who believe the world is burning pay more.

 

Have a tariff for those that want to pay and we'll see how quickly the support falls flat.

 

It's the elec/gas version of everyone is picky about firewood they're cold!.

[Squaredy]

12 hours ago, Mark J said:

I'm not advocating nationalisation of our power supply in order to use those mega profits for good, but it sounds to me like a better plan than what is currently on offer. The numbers in the article suggest that we could do significantly more with the money we're going to 'lend' the power companies. 

I started to read the article but decided any article which says 50% of UK households will be in energy poverty by October just goes in my bin.  Do they think we are all too stupid to manage our usage?  I know some people are, but how about giving some people credit - many will cope fine as they have spare cash, many people will cut back as they have a brain.  It is only a small minority who are already living their lives on a knife edge who really need help. 

 

Why do the press seem incapable of distinguishing between people getting annoyed by large price rises and being genuinely in trouble due to the large rises?

[Steve Bullman]

3 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

I started to read the article but decided any article which says 50% of UK households will be in energy poverty by October just goes in my bin.  Do they think we are all too stupid to manage our usage?  I know some people are, but how about giving some people credit - many will cope fine as they have spare cash, many people will cut back as they have a brain.  It is only a small minority who are already living their lives on a knife edge who really need help. 

 

Why do the press seem incapable of distinguishing between people getting annoyed by large price rises and being genuinely in trouble due to the large rises?

You seem a bit detached from reality on this one. There will he plenty of people who will he in energy poverty as you put it. You can be as careful as you like with how much energy you use, that doesn’t change the fact that the standard charges have also gone up…those you can do nothing about 

[openspaceman]

7 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

You seem a bit detached from reality on this one. There will he plenty of people who will he in energy poverty as you put it. You can be as careful as you like with how much energy you use, that doesn’t change the fact that the standard charges have also gone up…those you can do nothing about 

Yes it very much annoys me that standing charges have gone up. As a percentage of the bill it becomes worse for those that conserve their energy use.

 

It particularly bugs me as it represents over 50% of my gas and electric utility bills but I'm looking at ways to reduce that.

[difflock]

What is their excuse for increasing the standing charges, just because the cost of the energy has increased, since I imagined the standing charge was to cover fixed installation costs?

And, sigh, Nationalisation, sigh, remember I worked as a Supervisor in Local Government and witnessed appalling laziness, inefficiency, ineptitude and waste.

Gawd help us is all I can think.

Edited September 7, 2022 by difflock

[openspaceman]

2 minutes ago, difflock said:

What is their excuse for increasing the standing charge

It was to do with the algorithm that Ofgem dreampt up for deciding the cap and now there is no competition in the domestic market all the companies have gone to the maximums allowed. The worrying thing is that the wholesale price of energy is the minor part of domestic bills. Worse still much of our energy is not related to the gas price, which has spurred all the increases.

 

Government has taken a lurch to the right in the last two days and policy is now led by someone whose faith means that increases in pollution will be annulled as we return to a garden of Eden. I do not share that faith but will apologise to him when we meet at the pearly gates, anyone for tennis?

[Squaredy]

2 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

You can be as careful as you like with how much energy you use, that doesn’t change the fact that the standard charges have also gone up…those you can do nothing about 

Yes, but the current standing charge for domestic users is £0.72 per day and in October is going up to £0.74 per day (total for both electricity and gas).  The bit that is the real biggie is the bit we do have some control over thankfully.  

Edited September 7, 2022 by Squaredy

[Muddy42]

[Muddy42]

Remember there are two different markets here - Energy Supply and Energy Production (some companies are linked though).  Energy Producers dig it out of the ground, burn stuff or harness wind and solar to make energy.  Energy Suppliers rent space on the various grids to supply it to the end customer.  In the above diagram, running costs includes the cost of renting the pipes and wires from national grid.

 

There are six massive energy suppliers that compete by trying to lower their price for customers.  Yes I suppose they could be price setting, but this is illegal and they risk the companies being shut down and jail sentences for the executives. I seriously doubt that (any) incompetent government could run these companies more efficiently.  We haven't really had nationalized industry since the 1960s, the government and civil service simply don't have the skills or capability anymore. It would be a mess.

 

Energy Production is a different matter.  The Energy Producers, BT/Shell etc. or Equinor (owned by the Norwegian government) are making a fortune because their is a European shortage of gas and prices have been driven high by market forces. European countries are bidding up the price of gas as they all want to boost their reserves of gas.  Maybe Equinor can be persuaded to give up profits and supply gas at the cost of production?  The UK government will probably impose a windfall tax on BT/Shell.  This is not that simple because not all of their operations are in the UK, plus business hate sudden changes in tax and they could simply relocate operations elsewhere.