Energy bills

[irie]

Saw this bullet coming so in September fixed our dual fuel tariff for two years until September 2023. Looked relatively expensive at the time, now looks the opposite.

I got a new 2 year fix in September, only to go pop in October. Been switched to shell and according to my wife's colleague's it will probably double. ☹

Everything is going up and you don't know if it's justified or not. Companies just jumping on the wagon.

Our two year fix is with Shell Energy 'cos I reckoned that as prices rose there'd be a bloodbath of energy providers, as there has been. Very likely to get far worse I think

[Mussels]

All this stuff has made me have a closer look at MVHR, while I don't think it will make a huge difference to the gas bill I really like the idea of constant ventilation and reduced humidity.

[Screwdriver]

I went through fuel poverty coupe of years ago, almost finished me off. My then supplied EOn were complete cunts.

Went to Green.Enegy, finally got to a manageble level at circa £125/month.

They went bust, my first bill from Shell was £425. Not a hope of paying it but they took a HUGE positive balance from my Green account and have taken it out of that. I had spent MONTHS trying to get my money back and they kept promising and promising and "your money is safe" etc.

But they nicked it and I still don't have any details for this new account. I have no idea what my usage is or what I should have paid etc.

[Hoonercat]

I've almost halved my heating bill over the last 3 years. First year here I went through 3.5 tonnes of wood pellets which cost 1540 BGN, this year I bought 1 tonne of pellets and 6 cubes of wood which cost 920 BGN but I suspect I'll have plenty of pellets left over for next year. I've set the central heating (pellet burner)to come on one hour later in the morning and noticed no difference, and only use the log burner in the evenings. I think having to buy your winter fuel upfront, rather than having it on tap, makes a huge difference to how you use your heating. We had an unusually cold October this year, in the UK I'd have had the heating on but here I just throw a fleece blanket over my legs and within an hour I'm taking it off because I'm too hot.

[Mussels]

I see e.on has formed a subsiduary company for domestic energy and transferring customers over to it, battening down the hatches for a big storm?

[Dodgy69]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

[Treadeager]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

They could , but on it's own , it would send the " wrong signals " to investors !

( Least I think that's what they said on Radio 4 t'other morning )

[slowsider]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

Because the 'market' is the only true god.

[Yorick]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

They're making so much money that 25 of them have gone bust recently.

[Count Steer]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

They're making so much money that 25 of them have gone bust recently.

Yer. I thought it was the exploration and production companies that were minting it (for gas). Some of the suppliers were having to buy gas on the spot market at more £ than they could sell at because of the cap. I assume the bigger companies have big forward contracts but if the price stays high long enough, they'll be in a similar situation if the cap doesn't rise.

One of the owners of 2 gas fired power stations switched them off - because they had bought forward gas at an agreed price that they made more money on selling it than using it to make electricity*. They still went to the government with their hand out for a sub though. ie if you give us the difference in profit we'll turn the stations back on. Marv innit when you hand over your critical infrastructure to the market?

*Same reason the fertiliser companies stopped making fertiliser, causing a shortage of CO2.

[Dodgy69]

My supplier went tits up and we were moved to Shell. Shell are making massive profits due to the wholesale costs going up. I think the big energy companies who supply to the customer aswel are taking the piss.

Ye, the smaller suppliers went down. We're doooomed.

[Kneerly Down]

Marv innit when you hand over your critical infrastructure to the market?

If the Government was the supplier of energy and had the same cap in place it'd be the taxpayer funding the losses to supply energy to themselves rather than 'the market'.

Of course you might say that Gov't should be the producer of the gas also.
But then they'd have lawsuits against them claiming the producing of gas is counter to the stated climate crisis and must be stopped, along with the obvious way that the UK government excels at running fundamentally commercial enterprises.

[Felix]

I am still PAYG with British Gas and still yet to notice the hike. I am only paying a tad more just now due to it being winter but averaging £25 a week for gas and electricity for a two bed house.

[irie]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

They're making so much money that 25 of them have gone bust recently.

The 27th supplier, Together Energy, has just gone bust.

[wull]

Why can't the government make ofgem fix the cap where it is. Apparently energy suppliers are still making big bucks.

They're making so much money that 25 of them have gone bust recently.

Don’t be so naive and deluded. The big players are still taking in astronomical profits even if it’s down on previous years. Their costs have went up, so what? Everybody’s costs have went up but we weren’t making ridiculous millions of profits before, even more, they are so greedy and are so comfortable with their bonus schemes that the very thought of it being slightly less scares them.

[Screwdriver]

The more expensive gas/electric are, the more profit utilities companies make. They could not care less how that affects their customers. They have no incentive to petition or explore for lower prices. The other obvious fact is that many of these companies will only ever reveal their net profit, after shares, dividends and salaries are discounted. Their gross profits are enormous.

How much does your typical untilities company boss pay themselves: MILLIONS. They have salaries of several million per year, plus bonus, plus dividends and additional share options etc. etc. ad infinitum. The top five asset management companies literally own in excess of 90% of the entire world resources.

It is a zero sum game, there's only so much money sloshing about and the more multimillionaires and billionaires there are in the world, the poorer everybody gets. Everybody except the super rich. It is Monopoly playing out as the inventor of that game intended. Somebody wins and has all the money, all the property, all the utilities and everybody else loses.

COVID has hit most of us hard. The super rich never had it so good, especially big pharma. I think I read somewhere that the past two years have seen a massive spike in how quickly money is transferring from the very poor to the very rich. No wonder the powers that be are still making noises about "the great reset". That's where they own everything, everybody else owns nothing. I'm not even kidding...

[weeksy]

The more expensive gas/electric are, the more profit utilities companies make. They could not care less how that affects their customers. They have no incentive to petition or explore for lower prices. The other obvious fact is that many of these companies will only ever reveal their net profit, after shares, dividends and salaries are discounted. Their gross profits are enormous.

How much does your typical untilities company boss pay themselves: MILLIONS. They have salaries of several million per year, plus bonus, plus dividends and additional share options etc. etc. ad infinitum. The top five asset management companies literally own in excess of 90% of the entire world resources.

It is a zero sum game, there's only so much money sloshing about and the more multimillionaires and billionaires there are in the world, the poorer everybody gets. Everybody except the super rich. It is Monopoly playing out as the inventor of that game intended. Somebody wins and has all the money, all the property, all the utilities and everybody else loses.

COVID has hit most of us hard. The super rich never had it so good, especially big pharma. I think I read somewhere that the past two years have seen a massive spike in how quickly money is transferring from the very poor to the very rich. No wonder the powers that be are still making noises about "the great reset". That's where they own everything, everybody else owns nothing. I'm not even kidding...

Isn't that the whole purpose of setting up a company?

[Yambo]

The other obvious fact is that many of these companies will only ever reveal their net profit, after shares, dividends and salaries are discounted.

And tax of course.

If they are PLCs their accounts are available for shareholders etc. So they will be revealing gross and net profits.

[Screwdriver]

Isn't that the whole purpose of setting up a company?

Yes. That's how capitalism works and while regular ordinary folk (like many of the people on this forum) have not been suffering from the unregulated greed of the rich and powerful; it's your turn next.

The problem with "the love of money" is that there is never enough. They literally want it all (hence "the great reset" doing the rounds at Davos). And the problem with capitalism (as crudely explained via Monopoly) is that there is in fact an end game.

So yes, while I agree individual, companies, corporations can "play the game" in the pursuit of money, there are a number of flaws in the system.

Firstly, how do you place a monetary "value" on say the Amazon rainforest? It is being slashed and burned at an increased rate to plant more monocultural crops and grow cows. It is being destroyed merely for already rich players to become even richer. The entire planet suffers.

Top players (Global corp, super rich, politicians) are changing the rules to suit themselves. It is not a level playing field. Insider trading? Not if you're a politician setting the market trends AND simultaneously playing the market making themselves millions. That's just the free market economy, ask Nancy Pelosi.

Anyway, there's more but I'll wait until the "you're a lunatic" bollocks subsides to see if there is a rational discussion to be had.

Meantime, I thoroughly recommend readers should Google the great reset. There's an hilarious YouTube from some fat cat who is the spitting image of Ernst Blofeld. Only more evil...

[weeksy]

So which companies are allowed to make a large profit and why?