Lazy Utility Consumers - Huhne is toast

jalexa · 18 September 2011 at 4:26PM

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Really?

I'd think about that one again!

I'm happy to respect posters pet hobby horses, it's not as if I don't have a few myself:D

but (thinking about it again) what I said was...

Or is it that they only make money if you do change supplier.

Well that is true but....there is no obligation and no charge to the consumer.

Perhaps you saw "cost" when I said "charge" (in a response to a particular specific and narrow question).

rogerblack · 18 September 2011 at 4:39PM

grahamc2003 wrote: »

This indeed isn't 100% accurate accounting I'd bet.

Looks very selective to me to give an invalid view of your saving from switching.

In what way is this invalid?
These are the prices I was on as I left my previous supplier, and taking the upcoming price rise into account on my new supplier.
I could of course have counted the slightly lower prices before the price rise in October - but this would have not have reduced the saving.

I did however accidentally omit the 8% bill reduction due to paying through direct debit of my previous supplier.

Sure - I'm not saying that everyone can get this level of saving. Simply that it was correctly identified as a tarrif that would save me money, taking into account all the discounts on offer.

grahamc2003 · 18 September 2011 at 4:40PM

jalexa wrote: »

I'm happy to respect posters pet hobby horses, it's not as if I don't have a few myself:D

but (thinking about it again) what I said was...

Well that is true but....there is no obligation and no charge to the consumer.

Perhaps you saw "cost" when I said "charge" (in a response to a particular specific and narrow question).

Well, just to save a lot of to and frowing over semantics and meaning of words and hobbyhorse riding, I'd just like to state the obvious which I think wasn't clear in your post, and that is that consumers do pay for comparison sites. It may or may not be in the form of a charge, a cost, a gift, an ex-gratia payment, a levy, an adjustment, a fee, a bursary, a tip, a promiscuity note, an undertaking or whatever - but the fact remains, whatever the type of payment is required, we all pay for it somehow in our utility bills.

(ps what's your hobby horse?)

StephenM_2 · 18 September 2011 at 4:51PM

Whether or not I personally use a comparison site, the indirect cost is still going to be there. So I may as well use one to make sure that I personally get the best deal available.

jalexa · 18 September 2011 at 5:05PM

rogerblack wrote: »

In what way is this invalid?

I'm not intending this to be a "nitpicking quibble" because I generally agree with what you are doing but surely you have only calculated electricity pricing but you have factored in a "dual fuel" discount?:(

jalexa · 18 September 2011 at 5:07PM

grahamc2003 wrote: »

(ps what's your hobby horse?)

Oh, "deferred discount":eek: will do for starters...

rogerblack · 18 September 2011 at 11:42PM

jalexa wrote: »

I'm not intending this to be a "nitpicking quibble" because I generally agree with what you are doing but surely you have only calculated electricity pricing but you have factored in a "dual fuel" discount?:(

I have both electricity and gas.
I don't use the gas - it's not significantly cheaper than electricity (7p vs 9p) on the initial units of gas. And my boiler is broken at the moment, with resultantly no major incentive to fix it.
I will be using one or two (literally) units for an outdoor barbecue type thing, to avoid any possible issue with them saying I can't have the discount.

On a more general topic.

The energy market in the UK is broken.
The most obvious breakages are those that take money from the poor, and give it to the rich.
This would include both prepayment meters, and the large number of green incentives that are only claimable by the rich.
Then there are the less obvious issues.
From the standing charge meaning low-users pay more, not less, and for every kWh they save, they get less return.
To the breakages around feed-in-tarrifs - which are promoted as a green measure - but if the aim was to be green, it's _far_ cheaper to put in ~100kW solar projects in fields, than on peoples roofs.

Feed in tarrifs would be fair, only if they were funded from the pool of people who could utilise them.

(The 'rent a roof' schemes I do not count in this, they are primarily for the benefit of the panel owners, not the people whos roof they are on who get small savings)

An example of how broken FIT is.
If I could purchase on the open market, and install on my lawn (quite legally, not requiring planing permission) 4kW of solar panels, this would cost 5500 pounds or so.
(I'm cheating somewhat, and using US prices for solar cells, as I'm assuming this would be done on a large scale).

This would produce around 3600 units per year.
If I could get FIT payments for this, this would pay back in under 4 years.
Even without FIT, assuming that I only get the 'per unit' price that I pay currently (9.?p), it would pay back in 16 years (assuming that cost of electricity tracks inflation).

However, at the moment, it's quite impossible to simply install this, due to the FIT regulations. As it is to provide micro-solar solutions for the home installer.
(say 2*250W panels, and a small inverter, that can be put on a shed roof)

The massive subsidy for the most inefficient way of doing solar, paid for largely by those not able to use it is utterly broken.