Utility companies - price rises

Originally Posted by Sirius

I don't need to explain the rest of the rises, anyone with half a brain knows they are to feed more money to shareholders. But the second that idiot Milliband said he was going to sort them out and halt there price rises, just like any bully they retaliated with even more bullying. This price rise is just them saying you have no chance of stopping us and if you try this is what we will do. Problem is thats thanks to the idiot we are all paying for it.

No you should explain the rest of the raises because it makes your rant illogical otherwise. If your contention is that this rate raise is a anomaly as a result of Miliband then you need to answer why all the previous rate raises occurred when he hadn't said these things.

Why did British Gas raise their prices 6% last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19921042 ?

Why did they raise their prices 16%! the year before that:
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/blog/201...energy-prices/ ?

Why did they raise their price by 7% the year before that: http://www.britishgas.co.uk/blog/201...-announcement/ ?


Every year they raise prices but this time it's because of Ed Miliband?

---------- Post added at 18:22 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Wrong. EU membership means that once VAT is put on ANYTHING it can never be removed. 5% is the lowest rate our masters in Brussels permit.

OK. I concede that. So one of the green taxes and the 5% VAT is down to the EU but it still leaves a lot that isn't.

The cost of fuel is down to the fact he didn't build new power plants 5/10/15/20 years ago. France is a member of the EU and has relatively cheap energy because they built nuclear power plants decades before. This is our own fault and we need to address it.

[Taf]

Originally Posted by Damien

France is a member of the EU and has relatively cheap energy because they built nuclear power plants decades before. This is our own fault and we need to address it.

France has high electricity costs despite the nuclear plants. I know, I paid bills there. And most of their gas comes from Russia AFAIK, and the Russians are very quick to follow the trends of the energy market.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Damien

The cost of fuel is down to the fact he didn't build new power plants 5/10/15/20 years ago. France is a member of the EU and has relatively cheap energy because they built nuclear power plants decades before. This is our own fault and we need to address it.

We now have the issue in this country that any major project is held up for years and years in red tape and protests whilst we fight the following group

Greens
Tree huggers
Toad protectors
Green belt protectors
We will complain about any major project group
NIMBY's amalgamated
The Liberal Democrats
Any group who does not like anything they dont understand

So any new power stations might be built at the end of the next century

[Hom3r]

Energy companies are worse than fuel companies, we can live without a car.

Leeches the lot of them.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Sirius

We now have the issue in this country that any major project is held up for years and years in red tape and protests whilst we fight the following group

Greens
Tree huggers
Toad protectors
Green belt protectors
We will complain about any major project group
NIMBY's amalgamated
The Liberal Democrats
Any group who does not like anything they dont understand

So any new power stations might be built at the end of the next century

Whatever gets built in the future must be built quickly or else the spectre of power cuts will loom large as we need far more capacity and quickly.

---------- Post added at 18:56 ---------- Previous post was at 18:54 ----------

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

You do realise that over 60% of the cost of transport fuel is down to El Govs taxes and duty?

And who was it that invented the fuel duty escalator and the beer tax escalator?

Can't we keep politics out of this discussion as it always seems to descend into a Tory/Labour blame game and that's not going to help us now.

Originally Posted by Damien

No you should explain the rest of the raises because it makes your rant illogical otherwise. If your contention is that this rate raise is a anomaly as a result of Miliband then you need to answer why all the previous rate raises occurred when he hadn't said these things.

Why did British Gas raise their prices 6% last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19921042 ?

Why did they raise their prices 16%! the year before that:
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/blog/201...energy-prices/ ?

Why did they raise their price by 7% the year before that: http://www.britishgas.co.uk/blog/201...-announcement/ ?


Every year they raise prices but this time it's because of Ed Miliband?

---------- Post added at 18:22 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------



OK. I concede that. So one of the green taxes and the 5% VAT is down to the EU but it still leaves a lot that isn't.

The cost of fuel is down to the fact he didn't build new power plants 5/10/15/20 years ago. France is a member of the EU and has relatively cheap energy because they built nuclear power plants decades before. This is our own fault and we need to address it.

Thing is though wholesale gas prices are pretty much at the same level they where in 2009 so that cannot be reason why there has been such a big rise and then there's this from SSE

Will Morris, Group Managing Director, Retail, said: “We’re sorry we have to do this. We’ve done as much as we could to keep prices down, but the reality is that buying wholesale energy in global markets, delivering it to customers’ homes, and government-imposed levies collected through bills – endorsed by all the major parties – all cost more than they did last year.“Eighty five per cent of a typical energy bill is made up of costs outside our direct control and these costs have increased. So far this year we have made a loss from supplying energy as a result of the higher costs we have been facing and continue to face.

http://www.sse.com/PressReleases/2013/OctoberPriceChange/

Nor can Green levies since they've been there years.

Originally Posted by Damien

Nor can Green levies since they've been there years.

SSE say they have gone up from last year though

Originally Posted by martyh

SSE say they have gone up from last year though

Apparently they went up £10.

---------- Post added at 19:49 ---------- Previous post was at 19:46 ----------

BTW It's a nightmare to get any concrete figures on this stuff. If you Google it you come up with news story after news story otherwise it's figures from the Taxpayers alliance (it's all green taxes!!!) or Green pressure groups (Green Taxes actually make it cheaper!!!)

Still some progress:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24604218

The government is set to give the go-ahead for the UK's first new nuclear plant in a generation on Monday.

Originally Posted by Damien

Apparently they went up £10.

i've no idea ,and i'm as confused as the "energy experts" that where on the radio on friday ,they also have no idea what could justify such a rise so i still think that the energy companies are showing the gov who's the boss

Originally Posted by martyh

i've no idea ,and i'm as confused as the "energy experts" that where on the radio on friday ,they also have no idea what could justify such a rise so i still think that the energy companies are showing the gov who's the boss

They rise every year. It's either profiteering, reflecting a genuine increase in operation and investment costs or an increase in wholesale prices, as well as the portion which are Green taxes (which seem to be about 10%). Probably all three. I doubt they did it as a political decision as it doesn't make sense, it only increases the pressure on the Government to act. If they are simply making massive margins then isn't this what competition is meant to solve? Someone could come in and undercut those margins drastically after all...

Wholesale Energy prices do seem to be increasing: http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/poli...-retail-prices

It is quite difficult to get a clear idea. For a start we don't know exactly what the energy companies actually pay...

Originally Posted by Damien

They rise every year. It's either profiteering, reflecting a genuine increase in operation and investment costs or an increase in wholesale prices, as well as the portion which are Green taxes (which seem to be about 10%). Probably all three. I doubt they did it as a political decision as it doesn't make sense, it only increases the pressure on the Government to act. If they are simply making massive margins then isn't this what competition is meant to solve? Someone could come in and undercut those margins drastically after all...

Wholesale Energy prices do seem to be increasing: http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/poli...-retail-prices

It is quite difficult to get a clear idea. For a start we don't know exactly what the energy companies actually pay...

You're probably correct but the cynic in me is screaming that they are getting what they can while they can.

OK This seems to be the structure of the typical UK energy bill:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publi...uly2013web.pdf

Gas:

Wholesale: 67%
Distribution Costs: 16%
'Transmission' costs: 2%
VAT: 5%
Green Taxes: 6%
Other Costs: 4%

Electricity:


Wholesale: 58%
Distribution Costs: 16%
'Transmission' costs: 4%
VAT: 5%
Green Taxes: 11%
Other Costs: 5%

Some places seem to put 'Other Costs' (Ofgem describes this as the cost of electric meters, storage and so on) as a 'Green Tax' so that raises to 10% and 16% respectively or 15% and 21% if you wack VAT onto that as well but the actual green policies are included in the Green Tax figures (minus the poverty taxes as well).

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by martyh

You're probably correct but the cynic in me is screaming that they are getting what they can while they can.

Tell your inner cynic to pipe down, the top five guys at british gas are paid fifteen million between them, they aren't silly enough to ignore the fact that just about the only thing that resonated with the public during conference season was the fuel cap, if anything their hike will encourage other parties to adopt similar policies or for Dave to tell us all to switch

Originally Posted by Damien

OK This seems to be the structure of the typical UK energy bill:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publi...uly2013web.pdf

Gas:

Wholesale: 67%
Distribution Costs: 16%
'Transmission' costs: 2%
VAT: 5%
Green Taxes: 6%
Other Costs: 4%

Electricity:


Wholesale: 58%
Distribution Costs: 16%
'Transmission' costs: 4%
VAT: 5%
Green Taxes: 11%
Other Costs: 5%

Some places seem to put 'Other Costs' (Ofgem describes this as the cost of electric meters, storage and so on) as a 'Green Tax' so that raises to 10% and 16% respectively or 15% and 21% if you wack VAT onto that as well but the actual green policies are included in the Green Tax figures (minus the poverty taxes as well)/

Nice find


---------- Post added at 21:16 ---------- Previous post was at 21:11 ----------

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Tell your inner cynic to pipe down, the top five guys at british gas are paid fifteen million between them, they aren't silly enough to ignore the fact that just about the only thing that resonated with the public during conference season was the fuel cap, if anything their hike will encourage other parties to adopt similar policies or for Dave to tell us all to switch

Your forgetting that should such a fuel cap ever happen it won't happen for a few years yet and if it does happen the cap will most likely be set at the current prices of the time so getting the prices as high as possible before that happens is very much in the interest of the energy suppliers