Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Centrica and energy costs

On this side too. My electricity bill went from roughly 99 GBP to 162 GBP in one month with no explanation.
Liquid propane heating fuel went from 1 GBP/Gal last year to 1.85 GBP/Gal this year.

Prices are doubling on everything. Everywhere!

So is it communistic of me to think that perhaps it's time energy supply was a nationalised industry?

PS I'm led to believe that the railways cost us (each individual ) less when they were nationalised than they do in Gov assistance to the privatised ones...?

I can't believe I sound so "left" ... But I can see civil disturbance coming over winter....

One of my clients who is in gov world told me that when Gordon Brown bailed out the banks it was because the cash machines were about to close which generated the advice that we were about six hours away from mass civil disturbance when the average member of public could not access their money.....

Thanks Richard, Yes we also use Boilerjuice to find the best area price. Although we are not far from a Marine terminal where the fuel comes in, it is still a fairly high price area. Interestingly what used to be the cheapest provider in our area is gradually becoming more and more expensive...

It is far worse for business customers as they have experienced much bigger increases than domestic customers, so the likely hood of more businesses going down the pan through the winter must be high when combined with wage increase demands and increasing material costs.

We bought a 250kW photovoltaic array 2 years ago which will pay back in about 3 years at current prices and have signed off a further 500kW as the decision is a no brainer.

Same with us but we are on variable rate and with solar helping and a moderate feed-in it was £3.62 last month. Mind you rates double from now on so bracing ourselves for next month's bill

I have to declare an interest here, as a (very modest) Centrica shareholder I now have a dividend payment to look forward to - mind you, I don’t think £6.68 is going to get me very far!
I think Keith is right, it’s going to take a program of mass non payment to make the powers that be take notice.
For my part, I have doubled my order for this winters logs and the wood burner will be our main source of heat with the central heating getting as little use as possible.

Problem is that screws your credit rating as all providers report personal data into the credit rating agencies, so for most 'borrowers' will cause more difficulties down the line...I don't have a solution though

Hold on, I'm good at digging, I feel a tiny coal mine developing at the bottom of the garden

It only works if you haven't a pot to piss in and are happy being declared a bankrupt - not for me on either count. It won't solve a thing.

Solve it at the ballot box when the time comes or move overseas where they still love the ICE and have weather to match topless Morganing for a while as the only opposition here is a wet weekend isn't he..

Just in case you are wondering who owns our big energy companies -

British Gas (Centrica) – set up as a private company in 1997, it began selling electricity a year later
EDF – still mostly owned by the French government, it was created out of a series of mergers in 2003
E.ON – the UK arm of the German company was set up in 2002, after they bought privatised PowerGen in 2002
Npower – originally part of Innogy (part of the privatised National Power), it was set up as Npower in 2002 after being bought by German company RWE
Scottish Power – set up as a state-owned company in 1990, it was privatised the following year
SSE – set up in 1998, it was a merger of two Scottish electricity companies that had already been privatised earlier in the 1990s

I find it ironic that the largely state owned French company EDF probably pays a large dividend to the French government majority share holders, who in turn subsidise French energy.

Wow, what do you do with all that solar power?