Bulb to be Nationalised?

[Deleted User]

MWT said:

Dolor said:

Putting to one side the cost of the failure, there is a certain truth that the cost will be passed on to consumers as per past supplier failures. I do not believe that the fact that Bulb will be managed under SAR will change this practice.

The SAR does shift costs to the tax-payer rather than onto energy bills unlike the SoLR process.

Specifically under the SAR regime... "The Secretary of State can make grants and loans to the company in administration and may also give guarantees for any sum borrowed while it is in administration."

All of that is of course still our money as tax payers, but it doesn't cause a massive increase in the amount being passed back via the energy bills.

The final disposition of the customers could still involve a SoLR process at some point in the future, if and when that happens then the costs related to that would end up on the energy bills, but not the direct costs of keeping Bulb running for now.

That isn't what the advice in support of the Legislation states:

Quote:

1. Under a SAR, the Government is able to provide grants or loans (or to underwrite any loans taken out by the special administrator in order to maintain electricity and gas supply). Should the company not be in a position to repay some or all of the loans, there will be provision to allow the SoS to modify electricity and gas licences, subject to consultation with the industry, to recover any shortfall. We envisage that SoS will exercise this power in relation to National Grid’s licence and that any shortfall will be recovered through National Grid’s network charges to industry participants. As under the current arrangements (see paragraph above), these costs would ultimately be borne by customers of other suppliers.

Unquote

Time will tell!

[Deleted User]

Bulb not very popular, apparently 

https://electricityinfo.org/news/utilities-339/ 

[Deleted User]

Breaking. To be continued...

FT and Bloomberg News win legal challenge to see court documents from energy regulator Ofgem about the collapse of provider Bulb. A judge said: "The proceedings in question are of obvious interest and importance to the public"

Court documents filed last week as Bulb entered special administration show that Ofgem recommended the more expensive route as it worried about the domino effect that the supplier’s collapse could otherwise set off.

Ofgem usually deals with failed companies by moving their customers to a new supplier, something called the Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) process.

However Bulb’s size qualified it for the Special Administration Regime (SAR), which means it will run as normal, but with an administrator in charge.

The Ofgem documents, released on Friday, show that the regulator estimates that the SoLR process would have cost the new supplier £1.28 billion.

In comparison, administrators last week estimated that it would cost around £2.1 billion to keep Bulb trading until April.