Crunch time......

Money, investing, mutuals etc
macliam
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Re: Crunch time......

Post by macliam » Wed Mar 02 2022 8:20pm

So, pray tell, what acceptible change can result in an almost doubling of this "grey area" in just one year..... on top of the increase in the unit charge?

As for "regional variations" this is exactly what a national system is supposed to avoid - you don't pay more for other your favourite broadband or telephne calls or postage, do you - so why electricity?
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Richard Frost
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Re: Crunch time......

Post by Richard Frost » Wed Mar 02 2022 10:06pm

One of the biggest if not the biggest reason for the increase in standing charge this year was covering the cost and maintaining the balances of those who were transferred to other companies of the companies who ceased to trade during the year.

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Re: Crunch time......

Post by macliam » Wed Mar 02 2022 11:23pm

yep, as I said, covering the costs of a screwed up experiment by using consumer's money.

Privatization has been a total disaster, except for those in the City and the CEOs
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Re: Crunch time......

Post by Richard Frost » Wed Mar 02 2022 11:54pm

macliam wrote:
Wed Mar 02 2022 11:23pm
Privatization has been a total disaster, except for those in the City and the CEOs
+ Shareholders and I do accept that many of those shareholders are Pension Funds who rely on the income from those shares.

I fail to understand why OFGEM does not stipulate that companies ringfence the balances of those customers who choose to keep a credit balance.

IMO all privatisations are a disaster and tantamount to theft from the taxpayer. However I accept that it is a controversial view and that the majority view of the great British public is different to mine. I also accept although hope that I am wrong that it is unlikely privatisations will be reversed.

I have just had my DD for Power increased from £62.00 to £105.00 from April to compensate for the upcoming increases. With this and other upcoming increases in the pipeline. (I know that I will get some money off my council tax to compensate & I will not include the loan from the government which will need to be paid back) and a further Increase to energy prices currently due in October. There is a veritable storm brewing.

Due to the failure to increase the tax allowance in line with inflation. I will start to pay Income tax for the first time in over ten years. Projected to be £3.00 per month. Not a lot I know.

National insurance up by 1.5% will not affect me
VAT increase on the way from 12.5% to 20%

+ lots of other increases I am sure, Council tax, Water, Telecoms and the cost of the weekly shop amongst them. I can set against that an increase in my pension of around £22 pm

Dishy Rishi maintains the Conservatives are the party of lower taxation. Bah humbug, another Conservative lie.

I am lucky, I have a partner who works in a relatively well paid job and so the increase will not affect me greatly. But I feel desperately sad for those in the country who are on Universal Credit or basic incomes. How will they manage?

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Re: Crunch time......

Post by pabenny » Thu Mar 03 2022 8:33am

Regional variations in electricity standing charges go back decades to before privatisation, probably even to when the industry was nationalised in 1948 and regional electricity boards. Today's regional standing charges reflect those historic groupings.

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Re: Crunch time......

Post by pabenny » Thu Mar 03 2022 8:51am

macliam wrote:
Wed Mar 02 2022 11:23pm
Privatization has been a total disaster, except for those in the City and the CEOs
Would energy consumers be in a better place if the industry has not been privatised? It's easy to see errors and bad judgements with hindsight but very difficult to conclude on counter-factuals.

I would say, though, that monopolies - which energy supply was - rarely serve consumers well. Which is one of the reasons we have the Competition and Markets Authority (formerly the Monopolies and Mergers Commisson) and why there are regulators in the utilities sector.

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Re: Crunch time......

Post by macliam » Thu Mar 03 2022 10:39am

Where has privatization of energy supply profited us? We have energy costs higher than those in mainland Europe and, as proven in past months, no stability whatsoever. Energy supply is still not "liberalised", we have to choose the least bad end-supplier from a limited offering and the supposed choices given to the consumer have been proven false. This led to the disastrous attempt to disguise this manipulation by broadening the base of supplier companies and stopping the blatant exploitation of consumers, for which we are all left paying.

The remaining "big boys" use tricks to boost their profits at the expense of the consumer, whilst duplicating roles across the sector and thus imposing unnecessary costs..... how on earth can anyone see this as anything but the golden goose it is? There is one network to deliver the utility, there is a world price for energy.... the customer-facing companies skate on the surface and add little to nothing of value to the consumer.

The regulators are all but useless.... proven useless in this latest debacle where all they have managed to achieve is to reward scammers and leave the consumer paying the costs of securing their own money, whilst the scammers scuttle off to look for their next opportunity. The "ability" of the regulator to "guarantee continuity of supply" is not due to anything but the vast redundant duplication of roles across the industry, dipping into the public purse to justify their own existence.

Privatization has been good for those who profit for it.... and that is not the consumer.
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Re: Crunch time......

Post by pabenny » Thu Mar 03 2022 11:43am

I think you'll find that the energy sector is privatised in many European countries. But notably not France, where 77% of electricity is nuclear-generated, compared with 22% here. There are significant differences in the generation mix which partly account for the price difference.

There is quite a wide range of prices across the EU - see data here
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistic ... statistics
This is for H1 2021 - at that time, I was paying approx Eur 0.21/Kwh, so a little below the average shown for Euro area.

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Re: Crunch time......

Post by macliam » Thu Mar 03 2022 12:40pm

I have some experience of the "privatization" in Europe!

In Portugal, the market was "liberalized" and the national provider, EDP - Electricidade de Portugal, lost it's monopoly and was privatized. This was done with an eye to the market boost seen in the UK, by a government keen to profit from selling the family jewels, just like in the UK. The result has been a plethora of meaningless companies and scams offering no meaningful improvement for the consumer, who basically has little real choice and a greater chance of being ripped off.

EDP has split itself into mutiple sub-companies (each with a well-paid management board) and, rather than providing a career path (my FiL and both BiLs worked for them), now has minimum-wage annual contract staff or external "agencies" to provide the actual workforce.

It has also divested itself of all the former social requirements....so that, for instance, the external lighting on rural roads and properties, provided to "prove" the supply line and provide "free" illumination for the rural poor, has now been handed off to agencies who take the money, but do nothing. My external light failed before Christmas 2020 and is still "dead" despite multiple calls to EDP, Camara and every other agency under the sun.... nobody seems to take responsibility, the "sloping shoulder" syndrome we know so well in the UK.

So, is this an example of the qualities of privatization? Just because a scam is copied elsewhere, it does not make it less of a scam.
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