Power NI electricity bills to increase by 18% from July

warmhands.coldheart

Listening to Newsline last night it seems it's the Power Station owners who are making the big bucks from this. Electricity Supply market is regulated and NI Powers Profit Margin is only 1.5%.....
Also seems the Interconnector to Scotalnd is STILL only running at half capacity due to failures so that doesn't help..

chunter

No surprise. It's what NIE have been doing since they got the monopoly through Thatcher's privatisation - shafting the consumer. They have no backbone, no credibility. They can change their name all they want, they are and always will be a shower of ......

GlynD

NIE don't have the monopoly though do they?

D.A.

GlynD wrote: »

Due to paying by DD and accepting paperless billing we've been getting 20% discount and actually have a surplus of funds of about £40. It's annoying to think it's going to be wiped out by this rise. I thought there was some stablility at the moment.

You think that's bad? We have a £169 credit balance with Budget Electricity. It would be nice if they would bother to respond to my emails on the subject...

tommie

D.A. wrote: »

You think that's bad? We have a £169 credit balance with Budget Electricity. It would be nice if they would bother to respond to my emails on the subject...

I have a big credit balance with them too. Phoned them monday, asked them to change to keypad, was installed on wednesday.
They `said` the finance dept would post me out a cheque for the balance.

butterflymum

And to think it was only Autumn 2012 when Power Ni sent a 'great news' letter out saying......

...we've listened to our customers and we know that outstanding service and better value are more important than ever. So we are delighted to bring you this price reduction......AND.......with Power Ni, great discounts and superb value just keep coming......you don't have to worry that our discounts will disappear after an 'introductory offer'.........AND.... as energy experts, we know a thing or two about helping you save energy and money.....

Pity that nowadays especially, it seems that many businesses do not make full use of their knowledge and such doesn't, it would seem, extend to annual forecasting/planning/budgeting (and yes, I know they do not have the benefit of a crystal ball or hindsight), in an attempt to average out charges to their customers, based on potential peaks and troughs in wholesale costs of their service, thus endeavouring to avoid large price reductions one month followed less than a year later by even larger price increases. With any utility bills, most folks would probably be just as happy to see a smaller initial price reduction and subsequent smaller price increase, that would not mess about so much with their own household budgeting.


Ah well, such is life.

caz2703

So the Single Electricity Market has made a really big difference and reduced our bills dramatically by introducing competition across the island.

My bad, that was what was meant to happen.

darwin-rover

How long until Airtricity (we generate most of our electricity from wind power) put up their prices so they're just SLIGHTLY behind Power NIs prices.
Someone should ask them "Has the price of wind gone up?"

not-so-civil

I have been waiting for someone to query this increase. Its been remarkably quiet!
Oil Prices are at a low $102/barrel when it was around $107 six months ago and due to the general downturn from China it is not expected to increase.

Cheap coal being dumped in the European market by the Americans who are turning to cheap fracked gas from shale deposits.

Gas prices are likely to reduce due to lack of commercial business and the fact that more gas has been discovered in the North Sea.

So why the increase? It does not make sense.

GlynD

not-so-civil wrote: »

I have been waiting for someone to query this increase. Its been remarkably quiet!
Oil Prices are at a low $102/barrel when it was around $107 six months ago and due to the general downturn from China it is not expected to increase.

Cheap coal being dumped in the European market by the Americans who are turning to cheap fracked gas from shale deposits.

Gas prices are likely to reduce due to lack of commercial business and the fact that more gas has been discovered in the North Sea.

So why the increase? It does not make sense.

I fully agree and was going to make the comments you did but ultimately I know very little about how the wholesale price of electricity is calculated and was hoping somebody with more acumen that me would speak out.