MSE News: Energy bills to rise to pay for grid upgrades

smala01

Road_Hog wrote: »

Feel free to see how much wholesale gas prices haven't risen, nor electricity.



Your price increases and green taxes are not saving the planet, they are lining the pockets of politicians and elites.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1642/yeogate_2_more_evidence_of_big_green_cronyism_in_tory_led_government

http://order-order.com/2012/09/12/tim-yeo-made-10000-from-green-interests-in-july-alone-336-an-hour-conflict-of-interest-for-select-committee-chair/

That's just two of many that decide our green policies and line their pockets.

Cameron's FiL makes a few quid from it as well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038898/Samantha-Camerons-father-plans-wind-turbines-Britains-glorious-landscapes--YOU-helping-pay-it.html

Energy is priced differently every 1/2 hour. This means that energy during lunchtime can be 1000 times more expensive than energy at 4am.

Consumers would not like to be charged a "live" price that changes every 1/2 hour, so power companies forward purchase electricity years in advance.

This gives two advantages - 1) certainty of price so tariffs can be fixed or at least remain constant for a period of time and 2) certainty of income to power stations so they can plan for investment in the infrastructure.

Of course forward purchase is a bit of a "punt" - prices can go up or down on the live market.

My first point being that your graph only tells half a story - it doesn't tell us the energy price at the point the energy company "bought" as this can be substantially different to the average price.

My second point is that a huge proportion of the cost of your bill is administration and social initiatives. The call centers, IT systems, engineers, rebates to poor customers, pre-payment meters, insulation etc. This inflates every year... A comparision of cost Vs raw materials again does not tell the whole story.

Like i said in an earlier post energy companies make 5% profit.

I'm not sure i agree that "green" polices "line the pockets of politicians" but i certainly question the value they bring, as the cost is huge.

Smala01

[Deleted User]

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

So the customer has to pay for a private company AGAIN. I am sick of being screwed by these multinationals and have already planned to have a wood burning stove with back boiler in, so that is the gas sorted. Now I will have to save for a wind turbine and solar panels.:(

we have the solar panels, PV panels and pellet stove. No gas in the village so there is no standing charge for gas. We do have electricity so have the usual fixed daily standing charge, same as everybody else

hanlou007

always said that having insulation hanging from my walls instead of wallpaper was gonna do me good

lardeedeedar

do the gas and electricity companies pay bills for their consumption?

I don't mind contributing to upgrades and improvement EXCEPT when shareholders are making profit.

Why do we have to pay for upgrades when there is profit enough to pay 'investors'. WRONG WRONG WRONG

Utilities should be in public ownership. Full stop. They are not luxuries that wealthy people should profiteer from at the cost to others who are struggling to make payments. Its immoral.

Privatisation of utilities has failed. It has not made a competitive market place for consumers, its just another way for the general public to be had over by those vested with the power and control.

Soubrette

The trouble with nationalising the utilities is that a whole different (or maybe not so different) setof people will see it as a cashcow - a cashcow to gain votes or money depending on their priorities. What I would like to see is some kind of co-operative type company where the consumers have a real say in the running of their local companies. Don't want high bills, be prepared for the infrastructure to suffer. It could be run as a not for profit industry where the people get to decide the level of service they want. Of course we could go some way towards this if people started buying shares in the utility companies they use and then grouped together to use their shares to influence policy.

Road_Hog

smala01 wrote: »

Energy is priced differently every 1/2 hour. This means that energy during lunchtime can be 1000 times more expensive than energy at 4am.

Rubbish, please give me a source.

smala01 wrote: »

Like i said in an earlier post energy companies make 5% profit.

You'll notice that I didn't say it was the energy companies goughing us. It is the people who set green energy policies, that are forcing energy companies to follow these policies and therefore increase prices.

However, these politicians have vested interests in the green companies and are making lots of money on the back of it. I'm suggesting that we are paying to line their pockets through energy prices increases, whilst wholesale energy prices are quite clearly not going up.

Conclusion:

Someone is getti g very rich over the green energy scam and a lot of people are getting poorer over it, can you guess which is which?

Once again, wholesale prices are not going up, only retail prices.

Pincher

China is spending on infrastructure, in their version of Quatitative Easing. They also subsidise energy costs. Why don't we apply to be a colony of China?

smala01

Road_Hog wrote: »

Rubbish, please give me a source.


You'll notice that I didn't say it was the energy companies goughing us. It is the people who set green energy policies, that are forcing energy companies to follow these policies and therefore increase prices.

However, these politicians have vested interests in the green companies and are making lots of money on the back of it. I'm suggesting that we are paying to line their pockets through energy prices increases, whilst wholesale energy prices are quite clearly not going up.

Conclusion:

Someone is getti g very rich over the green energy scam and a lot of people are getting poorer over it, can you guess which is which?

Once again, wholesale prices are not going up, only retail prices.

Rubbish eh? Interesting as i was part of the team designing the system!

Here is an example of the in-day difference in price determined by time of day. Recently, the difference in only a magnitude of 6x but illustrates my point.

There is of course the private forward contracts that are confidential between the energy company and power station. But rest assured that peak times are substantially more expensive than non-peak.



http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

smala01

lardeedeedar wrote: »

Why do we have to pay for upgrades when there is profit enough to pay 'investors'. WRONG WRONG WRONG

Utilities should be in public ownership. Full stop. They are not luxuries that wealthy people should profiteer from at the cost to others who are struggling to make payments. Its immoral.

Privatisation of utilities has failed. It has not made a competitive market place for consumers, its just another way for the general public to be had over by those vested with the power and control.

If you have worked in any nationalised industry you would know of the utter waste and complete lack of any modern management methods - and consequential HIGHER cost of doing anything.

During privatisation we had a guy who was responsible for PHOTOCOPYING who was earning £30k - this was in the 1990`s. I could go on...

Don't you remember the constant strikes, blackouts and tax payer bailouts that last time we tried this dumb experiment?

So tell me this:
As i stated earlier in the thread, if the energy companies made no profits your bill would be £1120 per year instead of £1200. Would you then be happy? Would this fix your problems?

Or do you expect tax payers to subsidise these bills?

If the industry was nationalised i am certain your bill would be substantially higher than £1200 !

Smala01

Cardew

smala01 wrote: »

Don't you remember the constant strikes, blackouts and tax payer bailouts that last time we tried this dumb experiment?

One might well argue that the main reasons for privatisation were firstly that 'Sid' raised £billions for the Government by selling off 'our' assets(The family silver!)

Secondly to break the power of the Unions(for the reasons in your quote) in the same way, and for the same motives, as Maggie destroyed the mining industry!

I totally agree with you that an average £60 pa profit for a dual fuel customer is low.

However we have the situation where six major companies, and a handful of small companies, are buying their energy on the same market, and having it delivered by the same means(wires and pipes) and the scope for any meaningful 'competition' is nil!

Yet £millions(billions?) are spent on advertising and comparison websites on the pretence that there is competition.