MSE News: Consumer groups urge action on energy prices at summit

Cardew

harz99 wrote: »

Originally Posted by harz99
Incidentally, in all the charts you have been posting to show the UK as having reasonable energy prices versus the other countries, are standing charges taken into account and do all the other countries even have them?




Is there an answer to the last part of the question, or is that another assumption (that they do have standing charges).

Yes the standing charges are taken into account.

If you go to this website http://www.energy.eu/

You will find a link to the methodology used to arrive at the prices for the various countries: shown in this link:

http://energy.eu/Methodology/Energy/Methodology-Gas-Electricity.pdf

it is quite a complex document but this extract is relevant:

Miscellaneous costs, e.g. standing charges and metering

Ministers stand up in Parliament, and spokesmen for Energy companies frequently, and accurately, state that Britain has some of the cheapest energy prices in Europe.

If it were not true, do you not think it would be challenged?

magyar

harz99 wrote: »

Too many assumptions there.

Well Cardew has kindly helped out on the standing charges point. On the point about nuclear build costs, I only made an assumption about what another posted meant, which he clarified! I think I'm allowed that sort of assumption!

Consumerist

Cardew wrote: »

Ministers stand up in Parliament, and spokesmen for Energy companies frequently, and accurately, state that Britain has some of the cheapest energy prices in Europe.
If it were not true, do you not think it would be challenged?

Thank you Cardew for a welcome break into rational discussion.

Cardew

adwat wrote: »

magyar,

You seem a little confused. If you find the International Energy Agency figures too hard to figure out, well, that's not my problem. However, they are widely recognised as the most authoritative resource, multi governmental etc. etc. - more so than the Mickey Mouse figures you present.

I would dispute your conclusions.

Whilst the IEA document is excellent, the IEA tables are for 2010 and I believe are the retail prices before taxes and indeed subsidies in some countries.

Far more relevant for Europe is the EU data in this link http://www.energy.eu/ which is as of June 2011. and certainly not 'Micky Mouse'
You stated:

Fact : Electricity in the UK costs nearly 30% more than in France.

If you take electricity they give two consumption levels – 3,500kWh pa(approx. UK average consumption) and 7,500kWh pa – they take an average price of +/- 25% i.e. a range of 2625kWh to 4375kWh for the 3,500kWh figure.

At 3,500kWh pa UK costs are 0.1587Euros/kWh and France is 0.1396E/kWh so UK is 13.7% more expensive.

At 7.500kWh pa UK is 14.2% more expensive.

Talking of gas you stated

Natural Gas is 15% more expensive in France compared to the UK.

Again two consumption levels: 15,000kWh(just below UK average consumption) and 30,000kWh.

At 15,000kWh gas is 34.3% more expensive in France and at 30,000kWh it is 32.2% more expensive

The difficulty in accurate comparisons is that the IEA tables give prices in US$ and the EU tables in Euros.

Since June 2011 when the prices in the EU document were given Sterling has fallen against the Euro by approx 5% (from around 1.20 to 1.14). This of course distorts any comparison by 5%.

Despite electricity being cheaper in France - I take it that you are not disputing that UK has generally the cheapest prices for Energy for major countries in Europe?

crazyd

We are encouraged to switch suppliers for savings/better tarrifs ect.
I have done this but because I have switched it cost £60.00 to switch to a new supplier so comparing the savings looks good but the the sting in the tail is the cost of the leaving charge.
They have a licence to print money.

Consumerist

crazyd wrote: »

. . . but because I have switched it cost £60.00 to switch to a new supplier . . .

Perhaps you switched before the end of a fixed-term contract. Another possibility is that you have been charged termination fees where you should not have been.

chris1973

The fact that is ignored in all the rubbish that is talked about UK energy prices is that UK Gas and Electricity prices ARE CHEAPER than much of Europe !

You forgot to end that statement with 'for now' and include a 'currently' within it!.

The fact that is ignored in all the rubbish that is talked about UK energy prices is that UK Gas and Electricity prices ARE CURRENTLY CHEAPER FOR NOW than much of Europe !

But seriously, do the Google News archive search I mentioned before, and search for how frequent and by how much energy prices have been rising, even over the past 18 months and add all of the percentages together. The archive also shows that price increases are not only happening more frequently than 3 or 4 years ago, but the increases being sneaked in are no longer small, but large chunks, and there is no sneaking, its done openly.

Given that France, Spain and Germany have largely put a cap on their 2011 increases, and in one case, abandoned them altogether, common sense says that it wont be long before what void still remains between Energy prices in the UK and some of the rest of Europe narrows and equals. Do you really think that the Energy companies will play fair and stop these increases, and introduce the same type of cap, when we draw even with these other countries?, what happens when our prices overtake those prices refered to in other European countries, what will we all be talking about then eh?.

You dont need to be Carol Vorderman to work out that it doesn't take many more 11%, 20% etc increases at our current energy price level to play catch up, especially when they are occuring two or more times per year!.

Some of these European countries have also announced, back in 2010, that they were capping the Feed in Tariff rates they pay out to those generating small amounts of Electricity back into the network. Obviously some of these other countries have been quick to notice the obvious flaw in paying out upto three times the amount to those suppling electricity back into the grid as it actually sells it for to other consumers is likely to end in tears, and its obvious common sense aspect in relation to rising energy costs. Now we are hearing rumours that a similar change to the UK feed-in-tariff may be on the cards here in the UK around March 2012, wow! its only taken us 18 months to cotton on to the basic facts!.

The fact also remains that some of us would love to be paying the 15p per KW/H often banded about here as being some kind of national average for Electricity, with due respect some of us have being paying far more than this 15p KW/H 'example' whilst resident here in the UK, and indeed some of us do pay more for Electricity than many other countries in Europe and have done for soem time, which essentially makes your statement that everybody in the UK is paying less for energy than their neighbours in Europe factually incorrect. Check out Npower's prices on some tariff's for one example - then come back and tell me i'm wrong!.

Not everybody is fortunate enough to be able to change suppliers either, some have landlords and tenancy agreements which make it impossible to. I'd welcome the chance to pay 15p per KW/H, in fact i'd welcome the chance to pay what some of the example countries in Europe pay, because i'm certainly paying more than them already, as are 1000's of other people in the same boat, as I dont suppose the tariff i'm on exists soley for me, and me alone!.

Dont just assume that IMBY is exactly the same for everyone!.

meggsy

Did Martin manage to speak at this summit, there were a lot of people in that room and it barely lasted one and a half hours

By the time they had introduced themselves and passed around the tea cups .. ok then says Huhne, we'll tell them to switch and insulate shall we ..... just wondering

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/consumer_summi/consumer_summi.aspx

grizzly1911

MiserlyMartin wrote: »

Oh come on! When the utilities were government owned and run they were as inefficient as Prescotts two jags! Governments are no good at running anything efficiently. Privatising was the best idea, and you will be hard pushed to find many state run gas or electricity companies left abroad.

Privatising was one way of balancing GDP. We have been on our uppers from before maggie started the process.They are telling Greece to do the same.

We sold the silver and now have little else to sell.

With the utilities in Foreign hands we are slowly allowing hard won export generated cash inflows to be poured back out again.

For nationalised inefficiency read high profits for private sector. As a consumer it makes little difference when it comes to basic commodities with little or no choice. Same for the NHS look at the cost per capita compared to that wonderful example across the pond.

One thing Maggie did do though was make sure a bank of fossil fuels is nicely stock piled. At some point in the future we will be grateful for that.

grizzly1911

Dave_save wrote: »

Most people on this site are well aware of costs, and how to reduce costs by taking energy saving measures (so no need to lecture us).

Indeed, most of us here have screwed every last ounce out of energy savings and we are now at the mercy of the cartel, otherwise known as 'THE BIG SIX'!

What I, and thousands of others would like to know, is how competent are these people who run our energy supply industry.

Just what are they good at?

For example when I moved into my relatively modern house we had total light energy of 440w it is now 66w in operating mode ) in standby mode and 12w in luxury standby....

The trouble is the choice s delivered by the capitalist system have encouraged all to consume further. How many TVs especially large LCD/Plasma, PCs, DVDs, Game stations, phone chargers have we amassed in the last 10 years. Apsrt from just 1 game station the rest have increased 3 fold or more. Admittedley they are not on all the time but it shows part of the reason for increased consumption while.

Remember the days when you made do with a 60w incandescent and benefited from the warmth from the valves in TV?