Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Dis86 said:
Yes but they are limiting the profit of an energy company. I cannot see justification for increasing profits of energy companies when the end user are being hit by ever greater bills which is impacting them both directly and indirectly. The French government are at least doing something to combat this. Ours are doing nothing.
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jpaul said:
If the french government are 85% shareholders couldn't they have orchestrated a charitable gesture as major shareholders anyway.


still a misconception as far as I'm concerned, if they had sold the energy a year in advance on the futures market current market cost is irrelevant,
50% of the BP profits are not from their generation capability.
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Part of the problem is you need to differentiate between energy suppliers who deal with billing and supply and Energy companies who generate or extract the resource. The profit margin for energy suppliers is slim, the profit for Energy companies who generate or extract energy is considerably higher and those are the ones Labour are calling for the winfall tax on.

With regards to buying the energy a year in advance, once a company reaches a certain customer base (cant remember this off the top of my head) they have to buy 12-14 months in advance and cant buy on monthly or day prices. Smaller companies can buy on daily or monthly prices and the enforced reduced price benefits these the most but they only supply a fraction of the consumer base as the majority are with the larger companies who have to buy 12+ months in advance
 
Zenduri said:
Part of the problem is you need to differentiate between energy suppliers who deal with billing and supply and Energy companies who generate or extract the resource. The profit margin for energy suppliers is slim, the profit for Energy companies who generate or extract energy is considerably higher and those are the ones Labour are calling for the winfall tax on.

With regards to buying the energy a year in advance, once a company reaches a certain customer base (cant remember this off the top of my head) they have to buy 12-14 months in advance and cant buy on monthly or day prices. Smaller companies can buy on daily or monthly prices and the enforced reduced price benefits these the most but they only supply a fraction of the consumer base as the majority are with the larger companies who have to buy 12+ months in advance
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All too often they're intrinsically linked. For example I will be inside of an EDF wind turbine tomorrow, my company's energy provider is...EDF. Yes, they're separate entities but they're not disconnected from one another.

I agree the generation side is where the large profits are being made but that doesn't mean we cannot control it at that stage, in fact that is the stage we should be tackling. As it stands I believe our government are still subsidising it!
 
Dis86 said:
snip.....Yes, they're separate entities but they're not disconnected from one another.

I agree the generation side is where the large profits are being made but that doesn't mean we cannot control it at that stage, in fact that is the stage we should be tackling. As it stands I believe our government are still subsidising it!
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This statement i can agree with and is more reasonable and based
 
The whole situation is farcical. A month or so back I had a letter from the energy company asking me if I wanted my monthly direct debit to stay the same for the foreseeable future. If so, all I had to do was make a one-off payment of £450 and then I could have peace of mind for this ‘foreseeable future’, knowing I would carry on paying the same amount.

Of course, I knew prices were going to rise again in the winter, but I thought at least by paying the £450, it would make budgeting for the next six months or so a little bit easier. So I paid it.

Lo and behold, last week I get another “regretfully” letter, stating that my monthly DD needs to increase by £27.

Trust no-one.
 
So Martyn Lewis seems to suggest if you can get a fixed (probably only with your existing supplier thats an increase of 30% or less than current price cap then might be worth thinking about it. Ive been running the numbers and BG fixed for me would be 22.73% electric unit increase 11.38% standing charge and 40.53% gas unit and 10.06% standing charge increases. Considering most of the Gas usage is likely to kick in post october anyway at which point the cap rate would be more than the fixed being offered. Wonder if it just makes sense to bite the bullet. As im guessing in all likelyhood not gonna see a drop in rates until April at the earliest anyway.
 
TimTom said:
The whole situation is farcical. A month or so back I had a letter from the energy company asking me if I wanted my monthly direct debit to stay the same for the foreseeable future. If so, all I had to do was make a one-off payment of £450 and then I could have peace of mind for this ‘foreseeable future’, knowing I would carry on paying the same amount.

Of course, I knew prices were going to rise again in the winter, but I thought at least by paying the £450, it would make budgeting for the next six months or so a little bit easier. So I paid it.

Lo and behold, last week I get another “regretfully” letter, stating that my monthly DD needs to increase by £27.

Trust no-one.
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You expect your energy company to have a crystal ball to know what's going to happen with prices?
 
MatsyLR said:
You expect your energy company to have a crystal ball?
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I'd expect them to have some grasp on expected market trends. Again though, let's not forget record profits being made. That shows they do not need to increase prices to the extents that they are.
 
Dis86 said:
I'd expect them to have some grasp on expected market trends. Again though, let's not forget record profits being made. That shows they do not need to increase prices to the extents that they are.
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Depends if you believe them when they say they technically make a loss buying and selling electricity/gas and make up the costs from other areas (obviously enough to heavily profit). I know this is what EDF claim. I think Octopus say they are not making money either yet (from the sale of electricity / gas).

Then it becomes a question of is a company allowed to profit? What is too much? At what point should a company cut into profits specially when the thing they are selling is a required resource.

Just to be clear I think the prices are ridiculous when you take into account average wage with most the country on minimum wage last time I looked which is just not enough anymore. Its only going to get worse.
 
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Dis86 said:
I'd expect them to have some grasp on expected market trends. Again though, let's not forget record profits being made. That shows they do not need to increase prices to the extents that they are.
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The record profits being talked about are really the energy producers not the energy retailers.
 
Dis86 said:
I'd expect them to have some grasp on expected market trends. Again though, let's not forget record profits being made. That shows they do not need to increase prices to the extents that they are.
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Except the whole energy situation and the insane rises hasn't been seen before and no-one expected wholesale costs to go as mental as they have. Cant reasonably expect them to expect the unexpected
 
MatsyLR said:
You expect your energy company to have a crystal ball to know what's going to happen with prices?
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No, of course not. But they sent a letter which had a bold headline message saying, ”Would you like certainty about your monthly direct debit for the forseeable future…?”

That was the exact wording. So I pay £450 and a couple of weeks later, they put up the direct debit by £27. So no, I don’t expect them to have a crystal ball, but I do expect a little more decency in their approach. I was fortunate in that I could find the money for the one-off payment they suggested and I also expected another price hike, but I imagine there are others for whom such an outlay would have been a real struggle, and the company should be ashamed at their approach.
 
Dis86 said:
All too often they're intrinsically linked. For example I will be inside of an EDF wind turbine tomorrow, my company's energy provider is...EDF. Yes, they're separate entities but they're not disconnected from one another.

I agree the generation side is where the large profits are being made but that doesn't mean we cannot control it at that stage, in fact that is the stage we should be tackling. As it stands I believe our government are still subsidising it!
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EDF are not making record profits. For a start they are being forced to sell power to consumers at less than it’s costing them. France are propping them up due to reactor down time too.

Not sure which utility company is making record profits ? Most of the U.K. ones went bust.
 
Goodie said:
Yes but at least we’re going to have a faster train to get in and out of London, that’s more important surely..?
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Something else that will go over budget take years longer than it should to complete and everyone's got pay for that only a few will benefit from a tory project that will surely go **** up
 
Simon said:
EDF are not making record profits. For a start they are being forced to sell power to consumers at less than it’s costing them. France are propping them up due to reactor down time too.

Not sure which utility company is making record profits ? Most of the U.K. ones went bust.
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SSE. British Gas.
 
British gas service ltd supplier profits 118M - Centrica supplier profits billions
SSE/OVO supplier domestic loss - SSE supplier profits billions

nonetheless to what extent the domestic supply companies relationship are architected by vertical integration with associated suppliers to make small profits (does the british gas services ceo have shares in centrica)
keeping the supplier siloed as a a separate company presumably allows it to fail without taking out the parent.
 
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