and put it uo to what ? £2000, £3000. Next year when they put it up combined with council tax raises, National insurance rises add in inflation, a lot of people are going to struggle to pay.
Bulb - Finally going into Administration
- Thread starter neil_g
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Soldato
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Bulb and co are largely only sellers not generators. I don't see that this needs to be nationalised but plainly some degree of risk management improvement is required because these failed firms lacked the financial resources to ride through and respond to market fluctuations which is plainly a failure of regulation.
With regard to the bail out, I don't think the Government could allow the firm to cease operating in the same manner as the previous firms. The big players were already saturated with new customers following earlier failures and 1.7m customers was just too much to expect them to absord. It is a reasonable if undesireable reaction.
Now the risk associated with energy generation is substatial and growing and there is no market really because every single player is subject to explicit or implicit subsidies from the state or bill payer. In this "market" we are seeing no security of supply investment without subsidy and then only in useless things like gas engines. Natioanlisation might actually be a rational way to see us through the energy transition because I fear the technical risks are growing with no remedial action in sight.
With regard to the bail out, I don't think the Government could allow the firm to cease operating in the same manner as the previous firms. The big players were already saturated with new customers following earlier failures and 1.7m customers was just too much to expect them to absord. It is a reasonable if undesireable reaction.
Now the risk associated with energy generation is substatial and growing and there is no market really because every single player is subject to explicit or implicit subsidies from the state or bill payer. In this "market" we are seeing no security of supply investment without subsidy and then only in useless things like gas engines. Natioanlisation might actually be a rational way to see us through the energy transition because I fear the technical risks are growing with no remedial action in sight.
What exactly are you suggesting as a "form of protection"? I don't think a price cap is a good idea, IMO it should be removed - it's only a recent thing and it was introduced to "help" people who didn't shop around, it's resulted in various firms going bust. It's only ever a temporary cap anyway, it's not going to shield anyone from energy prices rising beyond the period over which it applies.
That price caps are only temporary, they get adjusted twice a year, it will have to rise next year anyway - you're deluded if you think energy firms can sell electricity at a loss on an ongoing basis - how do you propose they'll remain in business?
It will certainly make renewables more economically viable and encourage people to go off grid to escape this sort of debacle, might push me to get solar heating if I can afford it, but I'm not sure the average 20% efficiency of electric solar panels is going to be worthwhile in the north.
Soldato
Once all the smaller companies are gone and we're left with the original old school 6, it's going to be back to a nice cosy monopoly with no competition and a load of fat cats getting richer. Welcome to Britain!
Even Ofgem are hell bent on shovelling all the customers back to one of the big 6 everytime a supplier collapses.
Even Ofgem are hell bent on shovelling all the customers back to one of the big 6 everytime a supplier collapses.
Soldato
Who else should they go to?
Soldato
It's no better in Spain where Iberdrola has pretty much a monopoly. 20% of Spain's power is from gas even if gas isn't used in the home. VAT was still 21% on energy until recently. The government eventually buckled and so there's now a reduced rate of 10% but I believe it's only temporary.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
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- 8,851
Have you got any stats to demonstarte that the Big 6 (some of whom no longer exist Npower is part of Eon now) are making ridiculous profits. Domestic energy the best of my knowledge isn't even a nice safe bet and hasn't been for a long time.
His claim is that they will be, it's a prediction not something he can demonstrate now - they're basically losing money right now albeit the big firms should be better placed to survive.