Eon energy raising the price of gas and electricity

laptop1967 · 5 Aug 2011 at 20:45

Jokester said:
Indeed.

As OC has pointed out, they're only making ~3% profit, which given inflation is what ~4% means they're effectively losing money in real terms. And EOn from the OP are only making 6.7% profit, again not obscene, but hey lets all look at the big numbers and ignore these facts.

Time to suck it up guys, the age of cheap energy is drawing to a close.

So all the news reports,consumer groups, and Ofgem are wrong then, my opinion is based on what i've read in the news

arknor · 5 Aug 2011 at 20:47

OldCoals said:
They are not all making record profits.

they didnt pass the savings onto us when they had it good though and energy prices came down

Jokester · 5 Aug 2011 at 20:50

PMKeates said:
It doesn't quite work like that

They don't account for inflation on their books do they?

Edit: Saying that they might "inflate" the value of non-cash assests due to market value I guess but it doesn't change the facts that the two companies profits in terms of percentage of turnover is absolutely normal and by no means excessive.

Jokester · 5 Aug 2011 at 20:51

laptop1967 said:
So all the news reports,consumer groups, and Ofgem are wrong then, my opinion is based on what i've read in the news

Well if there is any truth in the matter, then Ofgem will take action. We'll see what happens

MrMoonX · 5 Aug 2011 at 21:41

southern electric just emailed me saying oh thanks but gas is going up 18% and electric 11%, i just replied thieving ********

its a **** take do prices ever go down, errr no so **** off and stop robbing us

PlacidCasual · 5 Aug 2011 at 21:43

How much profit per customer do people think is acceptable?

Before you answer think about what it is they supply and to what reliability.

LordSplodge · 5 Aug 2011 at 22:00

I'm envious of the French.

PMKeates · 6 Aug 2011 at 16:48

Jokester said:
They don't account for inflation on their books do they?

Edit: Saying that they might "inflate" the value of non-cash assests due to market value I guess but it doesn't change the facts that the two companies profits in terms of percentage of turnover is absolutely normal and by no means excessive.

I was purely commenting on the claim that a company is making a real-terms loss if it makes a profit as a % of revenue less than the rate of inflation.

MrMoonX · 6 Aug 2011 at 16:53

PMKeates said:
I was purely commenting on the claim that a company is making a real-terms loss if it makes a profit as a % of revenue less than the rate of inflation.

**** them we are all making a loss on our salaries etc due to inflation, i don't see why these ****s can't as well

Raikiri · 6 Aug 2011 at 16:54

laptop1967 said:
what's the use of ofgem!, these energy company's are ripping us off, posting record profits and their not doing anything!.

Net profit came in at 6.28bn euros ($8.7bn; £5.4bn), down 28% on the 8.67bn euros the company made in 2009, largely due to one-off writedowns. Revenue rose by 16% to 92.9bn euros.

Revenue was 92.9bn Euros, profit was 6.28bn. Even assuming they had earnt a record profit of say, 9bn that's only 10% or so.

It's not like they could reduce prices a lot before taking a loss, and why would a company, whose primary goal is to make profit operate at a loss?

I don't like it, but I wouldn't work for free either.

jumpy · 6 Aug 2011 at 17:44

Raikiri said:
whose primary goal is to make profit

I know I'm quoting you out of context, but that's the problem with opening up the essential utilities market to privatisation, the dynamic becomes all about shareholders and profit and not about supplying an essential service to people.

Free market economy and all is fine for business, but to my thinking is a dangerous thing for utilities suppliers/consumers. After all, it's not like we have a choice to use them or not, despite what is said otherwise, either you pay lots to BG, or you choose to pay lots to eon or whoever. Same with the railways, for a slightly improved service you pay a massive amount for a ticket.

Spook187 · 6 Aug 2011 at 17:49

Eon are charging me £160 a month now :mad:

i dont have gas,1 bed aparment.

Raikiri · 6 Aug 2011 at 17:54

jumpy said:
I know I'm quoting you out of context, but that's the problem with opening up the essential utilities market to privatisation, the dynamic becomes all about shareholders and profit and not about supplying an essential service to people.

Free market economy and all is fine for business, but to my thinking is a dangerous thing for utilities suppliers/consumers. After all, it's not like we have a choice to use them or not, despite what is said otherwise, either you pay lots to BG, or you choose to pay lots to eon or whoever. Same with the railways, for a slightly improved service you pay a massive amount for a ticket.

I agree, but they are private companies and as such you can't expect them to operate without making a profit.

Whether or not they should be private is an entirely different issue.

Energize · 6 Aug 2011 at 18:15

A simple solution to reduce costs is to switch to alternative sources of power like solar, and stop using as much electricity. Take things into your own hands because no one in charge is ever going to help you.

Spook187 said:
Eon are charging me £160 a month nowi dont have gas,1 bed aparment.

There must be an error in the reading then. Even a 4 person family does not use that much electricity.

razerbwfc · 6 Aug 2011 at 18:38

Energize said:
A simple solution to reduce costs is to switch to alternative sources of power like solar, and stop using as much electricity. Take things into your own hands because no one in charge is ever going to help you.

There must be an error in the reading then. Even a 4 person family does not use that much electricity.

It is high, for sure, but it's an all electric property so I would expect it to be at least around the £100 mark as all electric properties tend to cost more to heat than one with gas. I work in the industry and regularly see people spending this much in 1 bed all electric apartments.

Can be down to inefficient heating systems, poor insulation and general flagrant use of appliances. Could also be a billing issue, perhaps on the wrong type of tariff as I presume it should be on some variant of Economy 7.

krooton · 6 Aug 2011 at 18:58

Our all electric 1-bed flat is £80 a month (£10 of that is my pc, lol)

razerbwfc · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:04

£80 a month is good going. I was speaking to a woman in Scotland the other day in a 3 bed semi who's annual spend was just shy of £2500!

Energize · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:05

razerbwfc said:
It is high, for sure, but it's an all electric property so I would expect it to be at least around the £100 mark as all electric properties tend to cost more to heat than one with gas. I work in the industry and regularly see people spending this much in 1 bed all electric apartments.

In the summer with no heating?

razerbwfc · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:23

Energize said:
In the summer with no heating?

Aye it should be less in the summer, but if paying by direct debit most companies work it out yearly so you're overpaying in the summer anyway.

As I said though, there a lot of factors that can come into it. I would be looking into it if i were forking out that much to check if there was a billing/tariff issue or if there was something I could do to reduce my consumption if everything was correct. I hope he's not leaving his immersion heater on for several hours a day...

PlacidCasual · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:55

Dividends on profits pay pensions and nationalised industries are over staffed and inefficient. The UK privatisation saw dozens of power station close that should never have been open and your average dark fuel station reduced manner power by half with no appreciable reduction in reliability.

But the question still stands, what is a reasonable level o profit for an energy utility?