Energy Prices - are they taking the piss???

Slatz63 said:
About the same price as our world beating Track and Trace system. Seems like a bargain to me. Control our own infrastructure and milk profit out of the septics.
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I've lost count of the number of times I've explained this but the programme was called Test and Trace. A lot of the money went on tens of millions of free tests and was broadly successful. The UK has a world leading genomics capability. It was the contract tracing part which was a disaster but there wasn't a country in the world who got it to work without Chinese levels of authorisation processes. I don't think we would have accepted the army rounding people up and locking them away. Critics just call it "Track and Trace" to neglect the positive and highlight the negatives. It's sheer spin.
 


GingerNick said:
Truss still wittering on about lowering taxes, when the people who are going to be worst hit will not be tax payers... She is as thick as a castle wall

And the 30 quid or so a month you might get back if they reverse the national insurance increase is like pissing into a hurricane when you see how the price "cap" is going up
I think her grasp on how normal people are being impacted is minimal to say the least
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She isn’t thick, there’s a reason she prefers tax cuts over handouts.
 
Slatz63 said:
About the same price as our world beating Track and Trace system. Seems like a bargain to me. Control our own infrastructure and milk profit out of the septics.
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I'm not sure what difference it would make buying the likes of British Gas, they're not making money because of the cap.

All your going to do is spend £50bn and be in the exact same position.

EDF Group 2021 financial results: highlights for EDF Energy in the UK

"The historic increase in wholesale energy prices increased costs for our Customers business in 2021. The energy price cap meant that we were unable to pass on most rising costs and as a result our residential business was loss-making."

There's nothing stopping the government lowering the cap and subsidising the difference to the providers, it's all the French Government is doing with EDF pretty much.
 
parttimer said:
We had this last year in a big fight with EDF, our gas meter was knackered and not sending readings for nearly 2 years. When they did eventually come out and fix it, they said the industry standard method is to measure the average usage over a week or 2 and use that to estimate back billing as far as they can go. They said they couldn't/wouldn't charge us beyond 12 months and for the last 12 months, they'll use the average gas usage to calc our gas bill. It was July, our gas usage was next to nowt as only used for hot water and heating so we paid next to nowt for a year of gas. Getting their money back now the bassas.

If anyone is in a knackered meter/smart meter position and they try to recalc historical usage based on current unit and SC costs, just tell them it's not accepted and you'll just go straight to the ombudsman. They have a regulatory requirement to bill you accurately and in a timely manner, it costs them just to have a case referred to the ombudsman and that's over and above any judgement they make and they'll often back down. If their billing using the latest unit/SC costs leaves you out of pocket because they couldn't bill you correctly and accurately over a period of time and you've previously complained, it's just about a guaranteed win with the ombudsman and a goodwill lumper on top. Source - me and my knackered meter.
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They should calculate usage over two seasons and use that to create a new AQ/EAC, submit that to Grid/Elexon and smear that consumption over a user profile for the appropriate period & tariff.
 
Frankel said:
Labour spot on with this.

See what the Tories do now.
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Well they are blaming Brown for the mindset in the Treasury today so probably blame Starmer for wearing what they say is an expensive polo shirt for our ills.

They'll do nowt in the short term until forced by public opinion and act at the eleventh hour, be to little to late as usual.
 
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cfg said:
Well they are blaming Brown for the mindset in the Treasury today so probably blame Starmer for wearing what they say is an expensive polo shirt for our ills.

They'll do nowt in the short term until forced by public opinion and act at the eleventh hour, be to little to late as usual.
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Agree 100%. To me, theyve done very little / dragged their offer of "help" out to claim as much revenue back that they lost / spent on Covid . I`m not sure if they would ever make it back but the taxes / VAT etc associated with elevated energy costs will at least of put a dent in it.

They`ll then do something just before the prices go mental and claim that they are the countries great saviours
 
Just moved house and EDF are wanting £255 a month on DD. Am I ok setting the DD at £200 letting the £400 from the Government kick in and just keep my usage as low as humanly possible? £255 is a massive stretch on top of everything else at the moment.
 
Fletch said:
Nationalise them , too much foreign ownership , danger to national security , don’t give them an easy ride still need to save costs etc but should be about providing a reliable service not shareholders profits
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Nationalisation would require giving those shareholders tens of billions of taxpayer money to purchase their shares. Most of which would be held overseas either by private individuals, investment funds or foreign governments and it wouldn't reduce the market price of energy by a penny.

Services are more reliable now than they used to be - I can remember the regular power cuts of the 1970s. The problem now is the surging wholesale cost.
 

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