Energy price rises

[hifi_dave]

Here we go again, the foreign owned energy companies are ripping us off to subsidise the bills in their own countries.

How/why are they allowed to penalise us at 7-10% increase when the cost of living index is nowhere near this ridiculous figure ? Energy costs are falling around the world and we are paying throught the nose.

Unfortunately, there is no real competition for these utilities, so they can charge what they want unless the government intervenes. Our own bills have rocketed from an insignificant amount to £2.5K in just a few years..:eek:

In the US, utilities are not allowed to be owned by foreign companies, meanwhile in the good ol' UK, pensioners are dying from Hyperthermia or starving to death. Nice choice !!!

[Audio Al]

Our government wont do diddly squat about it

All that extra revenue and tax ,

I bet they are rubbing their hands together :steam:

[Yomanze]

Here we go again, the foreign owned energy companies are ripping us off to subsidise the bills in their own countries.

How/why are they allowed to penalise us at 7-10% increase when the cost of living index is nowhere near this ridiculous figure ? Energy costs are falling around the world and we are paying throught the nose.

Unfortunately, there is no real competition for these utilities, so they can charge what they want unless the government intervenes. Our own bills have rocketed from an insignificant amount to £2.5K in just a few years..:eek:

In the US, utilities are not allowed to be owned by foreign companies, meanwhile in the good ol' UK, pensioners are dying from Hyperthermia or starving to death. Nice choice !!!

Centrica (parent company of British Gas) made £350 million profit in the first six months of 2012, which is a 22% increase on last year's figures... thus, it's just f**king robbery and greed...

[hifi_dave]

I don't remember the prices being cut when energy prices went down. Maybe that's because we fixed our prices as recommended by 'The money saving expert'. All I know is we are now paying £2.5K and it's going up 9.7% !!! If it did go down for a week or two, by how much ?

These constant, mind numbing increases are a relatively new phenomenon, as rises used to be no more than cost of living catch ups, now they are huge to pay the share holders' massive bonuses. The major share holders can't go wrong - they raise the prices by 9.7% which gives them huge extra profit and so their bonuses increase. Meanwhile, poor old Joe or Jean round the corner are having to decide between eating or heating.

In the US, the utilities are never foreign owned and the rises are limited. Here, they can charge what they feel like and we have no option but to pay. I would like to know how much they pay in France or Germany ?

[Ashmore]

As consumers with effectively no choice we are at the mercy of companies whose priority is shareholder value. Doesn't seem like the ideal template for a fair society to me.

[chris@panteg]

Prices were cut ? Did I miss that ? Well we are all in this together !

Does anyone here have a wood burning stove ? Might be time to invest in one , another hard winter on the cards .

[Wakefield Turntables]

buy shares in these companies and get inflation linked dividends. That might get you some of your money back :lol:

[StanleyB]

I started investing in some potential energy saving appliances and ideas several years back after seeing the energy costs go up. Even my old kettle was swapped for one that heats up just enough water for one cup of tea. And all the taps in the house now have a thermostat. Added together they make a noticeable difference to my yearly total savings. But since I work from home I can offset some of the heating and electricity cost against the business. Unfortunately not everyone is in that kind of position.

[daytona600]

Generate your own energy Put a pv solar system on your roof
5grand for a 4kwp installed system
Never get a bill again in your life

[Rare Bird]

One less pint of beer in the pub at the weekend jobs a good un :D

[RobbieGong]

Never ending all this - Austerity, yearly fare rises, yearly fuel hikes, Endownments went down the toilet, Pensions are worthless, Global financial crisis, no pay rises in four years for the public sector etc etc etc - The system isn't working !!! Nothing really gets better, Quote Bob Marley from 'Them Belly Full' Natty Dread lp " Cost of living get so high, rich n poor they start to cry ............. (And that was back in 1974) :(

[SPS]

Prices were cut ? Did I miss that ? Well we are all in this together !

Does anyone here have a wood burning stove ? Might be time to invest in one , another hard winter on the cards .

yes i got one fitted last year, its the best thing i've done in a long time, it took a couple of months to get used to it but to sit in a room and open the windows as its too warm when there's snow on the ground is quite something

our house was alway cold, i fitted under floor insulation at the same time what a difference that has made.

I have a chainsaw and a few trees that are now well pruned, or you need a cheap suppy of logs and places to dry them, but its a nice feeling having a couple of years heating stored in a shed..

we still have the central heating for the upstairs, ours has an upstairs and downstairs circuit so it works well with the stove.
highly recomended...

[Welder]

We’re using wood burning stoves in Catalonia.
There are five in total, three of which are in constant use over the winter months.
Where we are, it costs around one hundred and thirty Euros to have delivered one ton of wood cut to a suitable size. On average, the house, granny flat etc consumes five tones a year.
There is about eight acres of woodland consisting primarily of the local quick grow oak and pine on the farm which is apparently easily enough to managed as a sustainable wood source for the above consumption.
It took me about twenty hours to fell, strip and cut one ton of wood last month.

[chris@panteg]

yes i got one fitted last year, its the best thing i've done in a long time, it took a couple of months to get used to it but to sit in a room and open the windows as its too warm when there's snow on the ground is quite something

our house was alway cold, i fitted under floor insulation at the same time what a difference that has made.

I have a chainsaw and a few trees that are now well pruned, or you need a cheap suppy of logs and places to dry them, but its a nice feeling having a couple of years heating stored in a shed..

we still have the central heating for the upstairs, ours has an upstairs and downstairs circuit so it works well with the stove.
highly recomended...,
Thanks for that , we are hoping to get one installed soon , it's been a long time coming , my wife is determined to get it sorted , it's worth the hassle I think .

[aquapiranha]

Just fitted a new multi-fuel stove a couple of weeks ago. It is a Stanley Oisin. It is very much better than the one it replaced and was relatively cheap at £500 including flue and adapter. We still have quite a bit of peat that we lifted off the mountain last year and access to an almost limitless supply of wood plus we have coal too. The hob and the mock coal fire in the other lounge both run on bottled LPG. Of course, we also have oil (kerosene) which runs the central heating and hot water too if we want it. Don't talk to me about expensive fuel! :mad:

[Ali Tait]

We’re using wood burning stoves in Catalonia.
There are five in total, three of which are in constant use over the winter months.
Where we are, it costs around one hundred and thirty Euros to have delivered one ton of wood cut to a suitable size. On average, the house, granny flat etc consumes five tones a year.
There is about eight acres of woodland consisting primarily of the local quick grow oak and pine on the farm which is apparently easily enough to managed as a sustainable wood source for the above consumption.
It took me about twenty hours to fell, strip and cut one ton of wood last month.


Nice to see you around again John, hope you and yours are well. :)

[NRG]

Generate your own energy Put a pv solar system on your roof
5grand for a 4kwp installed system
Never get a bill again in your life

Balls!

[Rare Bird]

Get used to it, 'look after number one'...it's a selfish world these days....It pains me to say this but that's what it's come to...

[Reid Malenfant]

Generate your own energy Put a pv solar system on your roof
5grand for a 4kwp installed system
Never get a bill again in your life
& what happens when the sun don't shine?

IE it's night time :eyebrows:

Are you going to suggest a shit load of huge lead acid cells to generate 230V 50Hz from?

NiCd? Whatever, these need serious maintenance & don't last forever, they cost a bomb & will need replacing maybe every ten years or less...


Nice try ;)

[SPS]

Must say I did think of going the solar panel route, it all sounds too good be true, a bit like endowment mortgage in the 80's...

The ones with the longest guarantee are the expensive German made ones .... And they are only 15 years, a lifetime of service from a chinese panel seems rather unlikely , but you never know. ..

[SteveTheShadow]

We have a small mid terrace house we have lived in since 1981.
We had storage heating but it became completely ridiculous.

Now we have no central heating whatever, just a pair of multifuel stoves, one in the back room, the other in the front.
We are warmer than we have ever been as during the Winter, heat from the stoves travels up both chimney breasts creating about 24sq m of radiating area into the upper floors. During the heating season, the lower floors are at a constant temerature of 70F, upper floors are at 66F, perfect for bedrooms.

The Romans had it right all along

Our total fuel costs for the year are about £600, including electricity, and gas which is only used for cooking.

[daytona600]

Balls!

Never had a bill myself in 3 years & i get paid £1000 per year for the surplus i sell to the national grid for 25years

google free solar panels , they rent your roof and they will fit them free to your house , can,t get much cheaper than free

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Pages/fits.aspx FIT feed in tarrif payments tax free for your surplus

http://www.microgenerationcertification.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=154 list of over 4,000 solar installers

[Macca]

Never had a bill myself in 3 years & i get paid £1000 per year for the surplus i sell to the national grid for 25years

google free solar panels , they rent your roof and they will fit them free to your house , can,t get much cheaper than free

A gravy train that will cease to run as soon as the subsidies dissapear. The whole wind and solar thing is nonsense in terms of actually generating electricity and is paid for by the rest of us - the main reason everyones' bills are going up.

[hifi_dave]

Just heard on the TV this morning, that French energy bills are capped to not increase more than inflation - that increase is 2% this year. That used to be the case with UK companies but now they are foreign owned, they rip us off to subsidise their country's bills. Almost 10% from some of our companies.

[chris@panteg]

Just heard on the TV this morning, that French energy bills are capped to not increase more than inflation - that increase is 2% this year. That used to be the case with UK companies but now they are foreign owned, they rip us off to subsidise their country's bills. Almost 10% from some of our companies.

Right ! Energy should not be controlled by speculators , let alone foreign companies .

[bobbasrah]

A gravy train that will cease to run as soon as the subsidies dissapear. The whole wind and solar thing is nonsense in terms of actually generating electricity and is paid for by the rest of us - the main reason everyones' bills are going up.

Pretty much agreed, particularly so on PV panels, which are all the rage in Holland. Ok, the homeowner is financially better off, but the intermediary is not in this other than to make money, so the entire thing is ultimately being paid for out of the other customer's pockets or taxpayers. I read some time ago that if they changed out all street lighting to LED, it would save more energy than all the PV generation in Holland....

The wind lobby have the GREEN credential all governments seek unfortunately, and they are very visible signs of 'progress'. The problem comes when your base generation can't cope with full demand in a dead calm or cannot readily be reduced to make use of it when it generates. Nuclear can be controlled, hydro can boost at wiil, but wind is uncontrollable if you will pardon the expression. Think I read somewhere the Scandinavians export most of their wind derived energy... I know Romania has some installations doing bugger all for many years now, and there is a powerful entrepreneurial lobby to promote hundreds more....:mental:

What kills me is that the prime loading in europe is heating in winter, for which electricity is the least efficient, yet we consistently promote generation via a supplier network.:doh:
Local insulation and alternative heat generation IMHO would make more of a dent in the energy peak demand in winter. ;)
Instead of PV, the push should be for vacuum tubes being used to augment home heating systems and increasing conservation, but that leaves no room for intermediaries to make money, so will get no backing..:rolleyes:

[hifi_dave]

For a fair bit of the year, the wind turbines just don't turn, so they don't produce electricity. Even those at sea have long periods where they are static. When winds are strong, they are turned off in case of damage. During periods of cold weather, they have to be heated to prevent damage.

The only thing which makes wind farms viable at all are Government subsidies which come directly from the 'green tax' on our energy bills.

[anthonyTD]

If we had any community spirit left, we could do what the french do when they disagree with having their pants pulled down etc, and mass protest, but alas, i feel people's spirits' on the whole are so broken in this country, that we just moan a bit and end up putting up with being shafted once again! :rolleyes:
A...

[bobbasrah]

If we had any community spirit left, we could do what the french do when they disagree with having their pants pulled down etc, and mass protest, but alas, i feel people's spirits' on the whole are so broken in this country, that we just moan a bit and end up putting up with being shafted once again! :rolleyes:
A...

I think you mean backbone Anthony...
The one and only time I saw a UK government in shock and change their course was when Poll Tax was introduced in England. The preceding year that the Scots were labelled unrealistic etc vanished in the furore.....

Funny that you mention the french habit of mass protest however, as I was recounting the incident of the lorry protests (single file etc causing havoc on the motorways) to one of the lads here yesterday.
When the French did it, it was reported as one of those of those irritating french habits disrupting normal business in the press and on TV. In Ireland it was reported with a mix of admiration and expressions of solidarity.
When it hit the UK it was a case of the ton of bricks police, and Teflon Tony declaring that government policy would not be dictated to Government by a third party....
In Ireland it was all dealt with quite humorously with the Garda liaising with the truckers etc to minimise disruption, with a resultant promise from Teflon Bertie that the increase in duty would be re-examined. It was repealed then sneaked in in stages on the basis of parity with the UK.

The only explanation I could profer was that since Ireland and France had been borne out of revolution and hence were conscious of their rights as citizens, they had "a healthy disrespect for authority", and would not shirk from expressing disapproval.
The Brits form an ordely queue and grumble.....quietly....unless it gets near Londonshire and the grumbling gets loud...

PS - They should stick a horizontal rotor over the House of Commons. For 9 months of the year there is enough hot air to power a fair chunk of the city...

[anthonyTD]

I think you mean backbone Anthony...
The one and only time I saw a UK government in shock and change their course was when Poll Tax was introduced in England. The preceding year that the Scots were labelled unrealistic etc vanished in the furore.....

Funny that you mention the french habit of mass protest however, as I was recounting the incident of the lorry protests (single file etc causing havoc on the motorways) to one of the lads here yesterday.
When the French did it, it was reported as one of those of those irritating french habits disrupting normal business in the press and on TV. In Ireland it was reported with a mix of admiration and expressions of solidarity.
When it hit the UK it was a case of the ton of bricks police, and Teflon Tony declaring that government policy would not be dictated to Government by a third party....
In Ireland it was all dealt with quite humorously with the Garda liaising with the truckers etc to minimise disruption, with a resultant promise from Teflon Bertie that the increase in duty would be re-examined. It was repealed then sneaked in in stages on the basis of parity with the UK.

The only explanation I could profer was that since Ireland and France had been borne out of revolution and hence were conscious of their rights as citizens, they had "a healthy disrespect for authority", and would not shirk from expressing disapproval.
The Brits form an ordely queue and grumble.....quietly....unless it gets near Londonshire and the grumbling gets loud...

PS - They should stick a horizontal rotor over the House of Commons. For 9 months of the year there is enough hot air to power a fair chunk of the city...

hI Bob,
That too! :)
The reason i mentioned "comunity spirit" was because over the last couple of decades we have all been quietly encouraged to look after number one, and it has turned us into an "i am alright Jack" society, where as long as it dosent directly affect us personaly we pay little attention to it, hence we have lost our comunity spirit! So, unless we get back to caring about others and our comunities' and therefore that which affects us all' instead of just ourselves and our imediate family, what hope do we have of changing anything???
A...

[bobbasrah]

hI Bob,
That too! :)
The reason i mentioned "comunity spirit" was because over the last couple of decades we have all been quietly encouraged to look after number one, and it has turned us into an "i am alright Jack" society, where as long as it dosent directly affect us personaly we pay little attention to it, hence we have lost our comunity spirit! So, unless we get back to caring about others and our comunities' and therefore that which affects us all' instead of just ourselves and our imediate family, what hope do we have of changing anything???
A...

Agreed 100%.
I gave up and left for good, the easier and more realistic choice in the face of what seemed insurmountable odds at the time... I have never regretted it over the last 12 years, and visit occasionally to remind myself of UK PLC's values. It is a business not a society now I'm afraid. Europe has a better balance on things IMHO, but you have to leave it to appreciate it unfortunately...

[Macca]

Agreed 100%.
, and visit occasionally to remind myself of UK PLC's values. It is a business not a society now I'm afraid. ...

If only the country was run as a business then we would all be a lot better off! Something I have been saying for years - the problem we have today is too much concentration on the cost centres and not enough on the revenue streams. A well managed country, just like a well managed business, will draw wealth in, wealth that can then be used to improve the quality of life for everyone.

Note I said 'can'. The solar and wind scams are just two examples of how this does not add up. If you need to subsidise something in order to attract uptake that prooves it is not a viable proposition long term. No well run company would do such a thing. The UK governmert excels at it.

[hifi_dave]

Hopefully, the Government will do something to force the energy companies to put us all on the lowest tariff, instead of baffling us with a bewildering array of figures.

Apparently, there are almost 800 tariffs available from the energy suppliers. These have nothing to do with choice but all to do with scamming us. You are never really sure if you are on the best deal and this shouldn't be. At one time, the energy companies only had a handful of tariffs and all was clear and fair.

I bet our foreign owned energy companies are not allowed 800 tariffs in their own countries.

[Reid Malenfant]

I see a problem there, if everyone goes onto the lowest tariff, then it'll be bloody expensive you can bet :rolleyes:

Think about it, there will only be one tariff that they can supply :mental:

[The Grand Wazoo]

There's no easy fix - doing what Cameron has proposed will only serve to reinforce and legitimise the cartel that already exists in the retail power industry.
As stated earlier on this thread, the foreign owned suppliers of our energy are busy using us to offset the the low charges they are forced to levy in their home markets - how do we feel about paying a good portion of the power bills of people living in France & Germany?

[Reid Malenfant]

There's no easy fix - doing what Cameron has proposed will only serve to reinforce and legitimise the cartel that already exists in the retail power industry.
As stated earlier on this thread, the foreign owned suppliers of our energy are busy using us to offset the the low charges they are forced to levy in their home markets - how do we feel about paying a good portion of the power bills of people living in France & Germany?
This is also what I have taken to be a given. Their bills are capped by the governments, so the foreign suppliers take it from us.....


From what I have read it might be a 2% cap in France, now what energy company do they own? :scratch: .....

[The Grand Wazoo]

I spent a few years working as an in-house consultant to a wholesale energy supplier - i.e. one who supplies only to the grid & not to the end customer (yes, a strange place for a forestry professional to work, I know) and I gained a remarkable education in the high level machinations of the power industry.

[goraman]

You could all buy shares in the company pool them and do a hostile take over in the next board meeting.
Start up a group of people able to kick in a thousand pounds each,name an executive share holder and take them to task at there own game.
If that doesn't work, start a nation wide bill paying freeze,just get everyone to stop paying there bill at the same time and in one week if 1/3 dosen't pay they will be brought to there knees,executives fired ect.. then new rates ,lower ones.

[bobbasrah]

....I bet our foreign owned energy companies are not allowed 800 tariffs in their own countries.

Rather afraid they do not Dave, but it is a minefield elsewhere whereby your assessment of how much you are liable to consume determines the rate, and if you exceed that either way you attract penalties. It is a lousy way to do business but Eon (predominant here on both gas and electric) seem to be halway between a energy supplier and a croupier these days. ;)

Another scam they run here is penalty charges for late payment. They bill for a date with 4 weeks to pay but with delivery of the bill up to 3 weeks later, if it arrives at all. If you are on holiday or working away, or put off chasing the bill in a 3 hour queue at their offices, penalties are inevitable. :doh:
They also charge penalties on when the money shows up in their accountancy system, rather when it was received in their bank account. I have seen up to 6 days difference in some cases. Other utilities are following a similar tactic in efforts to raise additional cash, as nobody has yet gone to court over it. Look out UK....:eek:

These companies have a monopoly for a contract term and milk it for all it is worth, something they can not do in germany for instance. Are we better off with choice of supplier? Not so sure to be honest....:scratch:

[goraman]

Or you could have Neville Chamberlain get them to sign a non aggressive rates treaty.