possible cheaper tarriff for the future

oogie1000

Hi All,   
I have come across the following petition in .Gov website which goes beyond the usual re nationalise the energy companies.
It suggests that just by setting up an energy supply company as a non profit entity,  people would switch if the other companies did not stop ripping us off.
So it would be a case of compete or fold.  Soudns an easy prospect and I am sure the legal team would have their hands full, but its our government, we make our own laws now,   why not. 
I have signed it and hope many more do as its just gone live 
The title of the petition is  

Establish a not-for-profit state owned energy provider

Petition number  617446  on the governments:  petition.parliament.uk website
I have not been a member here long enough to post a link,  so if someone else could it would help.

Cheers all

pochase

You mean something like Bulb?

Charging the same rates as other suppliers and costing a lot of tax money? 

Seems Bulb had 640 million debt when it went into administration and they are currently at 3 billion cost for keeping it running. At least they don't make any profit...

Gerry1

Some of us remember Robin Hood Energy and Bristol Energy.

Well, they certainly didn't make any profits, reportedly losing taxpayers £38 million and £46 million respectively.

Astria

Anyone can startup their own energy company as long as they have sufficient funds to do so (or appropriate backing/funding) They'd have to have sufficient customers to make it worthwhile though, so they'd probably be making a loss whilst they did that.

The end result wouldn't be much different to what we have already as they have to buy the energy from someone to sell it on.

agentcain

Astria said:

Anyone can startup their own energy company as long as they have sufficient funds to do so (or appropriate backing/funding) They'd have to have sufficient customers to make it worthwhile though, so they'd probably be making a loss whilst they did that.

The end result wouldn't be much different to what we have already as they have to buy the energy from someone to sell it on.

The difference would be that you would make sure administration is competent enough to properly hedge energy
You know, like what these suppliers were supposed to?
Also, it could segregate customer credits, so that they are not affected by the companies debts (as opposed to what happened with all the companies that went bust)

MWT

agentcain said:

Astria said:

Anyone can startup their own energy company as long as they have sufficient funds to do so (or appropriate backing/funding) They'd have to have sufficient customers to make it worthwhile though, so they'd probably be making a loss whilst they did that.

The end result wouldn't be much different to what we have already as they have to buy the energy from someone to sell it on.

The difference would be that you would make sure administration is competent enough to properly hedge energy
You know, like what these suppliers were supposed to?
Also, it could segregate customer credits, so that they are not affected by the companies debts (as opposed to what happened with all the companies that went bust)

If you want to ring-fence customer credit balances and you want to ensure that future supply is properly hedged, where do you expect the money to come from to do both of those?

markin

They weren't 'not for profit' and made stupid mistakes trying to make a 'profit', They all seem to have made the mistake of selling at a loss and spending big on advertising to gain customers in the hope of profit.

But with the price cap the profit is... caped at a tiny amount.

Petriix

markin said:

They weren't 'not for profit' and made stupid mistakes trying to make a 'profit', They all seem to have made the mistake of selling at a loss and spending big on advertising to gain customers in the hope of profit.

But with the price cap the profit is... caped at a tiny amount.

Arguably they weren't even trying to make a profit, just extract cash to buy crypto and pay inflated wages to their directors while knowingly making a loss etc.

Cardew

Post above has summed it up.

For many years there was a genuine 'not for profit' company called Ebico. The directors( I believe?) were unpaid and the administration/accounts was handled by Southern Electricity.

They couldn't make the company work and it was 'given' to Robin Hood Energy backed by Nottingham council who lost a stack of money.

Even when things are going well the profit margin for companies is a very small percentage of the overall cost; and when it goes badly they make a loss that small companies cannot bear and they go bust. This happened years ago as well and even energy companies backed by big corporations e.g. Virgin and Sainsbury bailed out.

Norman_Castle

oogie1000 said:

It suggests that just by setting up an energy supply company as a non profit entity, 

Are domestic energy suppliers currently making a profit?

pochase

Norman_Castle said:

oogie1000 said:

It suggests that just by setting up an energy supply company as a non profit entity, 

Are domestic energy suppliers currently making a profit?

Seems they make a huge 2%

Components of a typical energy bill The Summer 2022 price cap, introduced on 1 April, consists of: • 54% wholesale costs of energy • 19% network costs • 10% operating costs • 8% policy costs (levies to support low carbon generation, energy efficiency and vulnerable customers) • 5% VAT • 2% assumed suppliers (profit) margin • 2% other costs

source

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9491/CBP-9491.pdf