sheepyvillian Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 18 minutes ago, Davkaus said: Yup. Fwiw, I'm generally in agreement with you, it should be state owned, there's no real competition, and if it was state owned now, it would sound ridiculous to propose selling it off to let people profit from it, but where we find ourselves, I think it's quite hard to make a case for it, with all the other broken services that need fixing. Well, at least the trains may arrive on time. Every cloud and all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 2 hours ago, bickster said: Do you have even the remotest shred of evidence to back the claim in bold up? In relation to record profits, that's how margins work The cap this winter will nowhere near as high as it was last winter I didn't say it would be as high. But what's the use of a cap, if they keep moving it. You seem to be okay with everything. Higher taxes, higher, energy costs. We are all being screwed so the rich can get richer, an here's you trying to justify it. They can ***** right off!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 2 minutes ago, foreveryoung said: But what's the use of a cap, if they keep moving it. So you think the price should stay the same forever? OK Comrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 4 minutes ago, bickster said: So you think the price should stay the same forever? OK Comrade So what's the use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 (edited) 21 minutes ago, foreveryoung said: what's the use of a cap, if they keep moving it. The cost of energy that the companies send to us varies each day. They buy it at cost price, then feed it to us along pipes and wires that they maintain and bill us via people they employ and computers and meters they maintain. The cap is changed every 3 months to reflect the changes in cost price of the energy. What I’d like to see happen is for the government to completely change the way costs are calculated. But that’s a long term thing because of existing contracts with generators and needs to happen over many years. Edited September 13 by blandy Quoted wrong post 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 (edited) 3 hours ago, foreveryoung said: Re, stopping winter fuel payments too. We do realise that not fit for purpose Ofgem is raising the price cap again.Just in time for when we use the most energy coincidently, I think the end of September. Gotta make sure the big energy companies top up there profits, as well as Ofgem getting its bung. An before a few jump on and say it's world oil prices. You need to remember, when our bills were 3k plus, an we were all struggling, the fat cats were making record profits. It's going up by 10% isn't it. Thankfully I'm locked to a fixed rate price until next April. Going to be a tough winter because last year the kind tories were giving up to £1450 in cost of living payments to the most vulnerable. Yet prices won't be much cheaper this winter than last. Talking about the not so vulnerable I met Tyson Fury today. Looking super fit already. Edited September 13 by PaulC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 12 minutes ago, blandy said: The cost of energy that the companies send to us varies each day. They buy it at cost price, then feed it to us along pipes and wires that they maintain and bill us via people they employ and computers and meters they maintain. The cap is changed every 3 months to reflect the changes in cost price of the energy. What I’d like to see happen is for the government to completely change the way costs are calculated. But that’s a long term thing because of existing contracts with generators and needs to happen over many years. One small note here - the "pipes and wires that they maintain" - they don't. Our energy supplier market is competition based on little more than who's more effective at gambling on market fluctuations, as well as a customer service and billing department. They're not in the business of doing anything as useful as maintaining energy infrastructure. They're responsible for our meters, but obviously you don't tend to change your meter when you change suppliers, so that's all just them contracting it out to people who know how to fix them. Energy suppliers are broadly useless and shouldn't really exist 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 Just now, Davkaus said: One small note here - the "pipes and wires that they maintain" - they don't. Our energy supplier market is competition based on little more than who's more effective at gambling on market fluctuations, as well as a customer service and billing department. They're not in the business of doing anything as useful as maintaining energy infrastructure. They're responsible for our meters, but obviously you don't tend to change your meter when you change suppliers, so that's all just them contracting it out to people who know how to fix them. Energy suppliers are broadly useless and shouldn't really exist Yeah. I simplified it a bit. Standing charges, which have gone up a lot, cover all kinds of stuff and they are a bit of a killer, but it’s the energy companies that bill them 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 7 minutes ago, blandy said: Yeah. I simplified it a bit. Standing charges, which have gone up a lot, cover all kinds of stuff and they are a bit of a killer, but it’s the energy companies that bill them Another reason why I think Ofgem are just paper tigers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 6 minutes ago, foreveryoung said: Another reason why I think Ofgem are just paper tigers. They are, but it’s the governments that lay down a lot of it. Standing charges cover stuff like the ones that went bust and climate change stuff and the big hikes in standing charges are mostly due to the government getting back the money they spent resolving the issue of bust companies 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 Back in 2017 Corbyn's Labour claimed that four thousand more pensioners would die from the effects of cold, if the winter fuel payments were cut by Theresa May. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delboy54 Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 2 hours ago, Davkaus said: Yup. Fwiw, I'm generally in agreement with you, it should be state owned, there's no real competition, and if it was state owned now, it would sound ridiculous to propose selling it off to let people profit from it, but where we find ourselves, I think it's quite hard to make a case for it, with all the other broken services that need fixing. Agreed, same as the Water Industry. There is no choice if I want water from another water company. We never ever should have nationalised the water industry or in fact any critical infostructure. But it would cost billions to get them back under state ownership. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 Just now, MakemineVanilla said: Back in 2017 Corbyn's Labour claimed that four thousand more pensioners would die from the effects of cold, if the winter fuel payments were cut by Theresa May. Indeed. It’s needed doing for ages and it’s still “wrong” that rich folk get given dosh they don’t need, but since 2017 shit has happened that’s made the need for poor folk more desperate. Liz Truss, Ukraine and so on. The idea is right, the implementation is terrible. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 19 minutes ago, blandy said: Indeed. It’s needed doing for ages and it’s still “wrong” that rich folk get given dosh they don’t need, but since 2017 shit has happened that’s made the need for poor folk more desperate. Liz Truss, Ukraine and so on. The idea is right, the implementation is terrible. My own take on it, is that, as it was not unthinkable by the Tories then, it's rather hypocritical of them to start hand wringing now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 (edited) 2 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said: My own take on it, is that, as it was not unthinkable by the Tories then, it's rather hypocritical of them to start hand wringing now. I guess my take would be that a) it was in her manifesto so it wasn't done by stealth and b) they didn't actually remove it , where as Kier Shipman actually has removed it despite openly using it for political gain along with his MP's not so long ago Edited September 13 by tonyh29 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted September 13 VT Supporter Share Posted September 13 1 hour ago, blandy said: The cost of energy that the companies send to us varies each day. They buy it at cost price, then feed it to us along pipes and wires that they maintain and bill us via people they employ and computers and meters they maintain. The cap is changed every 3 months to reflect the changes in cost price of the energy. What I’d like to see happen is for the government to completely change the way costs are calculated. But that’s a long term thing because of existing contracts with generators and needs to happen over many years. They need to decouple the price of electricity to gas so we stop paying artificially high electricity prices. This would also change the game for EV's and especially heat pumps which would immediately make them significantly cheaper to run than Gas Boilers. Its ludicrous that 23 hours of cheap wind power is charged the same price as expensive gas if gas is used for 1 hour of the day to fill a gap. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted September 13 VT Supporter Share Posted September 13 1 hour ago, delboy54 said: Agreed, same as the Water Industry. There is no choice if I want water from another water company. We never ever should have nationalised the water industry or in fact any critical infostructure. But it would cost billions to get them back under state ownership. They need to fine them properly for every breach. Prosecute directors, force them to meet every requirement they're supposed to like building and maintaining infrastructure. It'll be much cheaper to buy them back when they're not making excessive profits from rinsing the public. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 2 minutes ago, sidcow said: They need to fine them properly for every breach. Prosecute directors, force them to meet every requirement they're supposed to like building and maintaining infrastructure. It'll be much cheaper to buy them back when they're not making excessive profits from rinsing the public. For some reason the words "Thames" and "Water" are coming into my head ... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 13 Moderator Share Posted September 13 2 minutes ago, sidcow said: Its ludicrous that 23 hours of cheap wind power is charged the same price as expensive gas if gas is used for 1 hour of the day to fill a gap. For the past couple of weeks or so, Octopus have been sending me messages saying free electricity tomorrow for an hour (not every day) because when it’s windy there’s excess power. Which is nice and kind of means that do the washing and stuff in that hour and it costs nothing, but it shouldn’t need to be an exception thing, it should be pretty routine and all bills should and could be lower. Generate clean power in the uk, cheaply, provide it to the population. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 1 hour ago, sidcow said: They need to decouple the price of electricity to gas so we stop paying artificially high electricity prices. This would also change the game for EV's and especially heat pumps which would immediately make them significantly cheaper to run than Gas Boilers. Its ludicrous that 23 hours of cheap wind power is charged the same price as expensive gas if gas is used for 1 hour of the day to fill a gap. Petrol being Cheaper than deisel comes to mind also. When the fuel stations average it out its pretty fair game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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