We’re number one… in unaffordable electricity
Posted by bugtheft
We’re number one… in unaffordable electricity
Posted by bugtheft
26 Comments
That would all be very interesting if it was still October 2024.
Work like a slave for an annual pay rise that is eaten away (and some) by bill and rent rises.
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What an absolute fucking disgrace the UK has become
Perhaps it was a stupid idea to bet the farm on natural gas based on ‘Lets see how quickly we can drain the North Sea’.
> They (the Government) should focus first on ending subsidies for renewables and cancelling any further auction rounds.
That’s an interesting position to hold during a climate crisis.
> Second, they should abolish the Emissions Trading Scheme to bring down the cost of gas-fired generation. The Government would then need to invest in new sources of gas supply by encouraging more North Sea drilling and lifting the moratorium on fracking.
I wonder who these IEA fellas are…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs
> The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a British right-wing free market think tank
> It published climate change denial material between 1994 and 2007.
> In October 2018, an investigation by Greenpeace found that the IEA was also receiving funding from the oil giant BP, which was “[using] this access to press ministers on issues ranging from environmental and safety standards to British tax rates.”
Very cool.
They could fire up the coal power stations and it’d be cheap electricity for all. Why are we paying the price whilst other countries do what they like. Sure – renewable energy, great – but not when we cannot fucking afford it.
Edit: Wow looks at the down votes. 20%+ of the country is in poverty… We need practical solutions INCLUDING full consideration of our own energy generation. We are IMPORTING fossil fuel energy. Yes, OFGEM and energy companies are also profiteering – government to sort this. But we are simply not generating enough energy ourselves and other clean sources are lagging behind. Wake the fuck up seriously.
Why UK electricity are so affordable? Don’t they have oil production in Scotland?
These are the things that will lose you an election, people aren’t going to say: “my energy bills are 50% higher at the end of the parliament, but at least Rachel Reeves stuck to her fiscal rules!”
IEA – right wing think tank in bed with big oil. Oh look they want to sell more fossil fuels to help us all out. ???!
But remember if you’re against privatisation you’re a looney lefty
8.5p/kwh on my last bill.
Bought ev so get cheap overnight electricity and invested in a battery for the house.
If you invest in the eco hippie stuff you save monies.
I mean the article has domestic gas over 8p and electric over 35p when its actually 5-6p and 25-27p respectively. Hard to take seriously when it’s so wrong.
I never pay more than 6.7p/kWh for electric because I had a small home battery installed that will pay for itself by charging up on cheap overnight electricity (loans and grants are available if you can’t afford the up front cost)
It should be nationalised. There were no objective supply issues after the Russian invasion of Ukraine as we get almost all our oil from the North Sea (Norway and domestic). We got fleeced by our own oil companies who just threatened to sell it elsewhere to more desperate customers if we didn’t pay through our ears and give them record profits. What a joke to allow vital national infrastructure to be held hostage by crude profiteers.
Used to currently line the pocket’s of hedge funds, investor’s and CEO bonuse’s. We are being ripped off to pay for pension’s in france uk. And be under no illution there are party member’s on both side’s profiting from this.
Utilities need nationalising, and we need to curb the green agenda. Not eliminate, just curb. It is costing us quite literally our livelihood. Our missing industries, jobs, production, all cut so we can wave a little green flag and say we’re better than all other 6 countries wealthy enough to even try. Menawhile we contribute 1% of global emissions, half of which is electricity generation going straight into big data and AI. Total shit show.
Yes, electricity prices are out of whack.
No, we should not be looking to the IEA for answers.
The Labour government would win the next election by bringing in electricity market reforms that will drop the price of electricity. Especially if powered by renewable energy. I am very sure there are lots of complicated reasons why this is actually harder than it is, but dropping energy prices is an absolute must for any government.
Having said that, the IEA is a shady think tank that supports oil barons, mass deregulation, and shrinking of the state. They are the ones who provided the key intellectual justification for Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng in their disastrous mini budget. So I would take what they say with a continent full of salt.
The issue is **marginal cost pricing** meaning that we always pay the price for the most expensive form of electricity at any given moment. The only people who benefit from this status quo are the energy companies, who benefit financially from these higher prices.
The government *could* end this in a snap if it wanted, but that would involve market intervention, disadvantaging greedy energy companies, and admitting that privatisation of things essential to life in this country is actually bad.
The issue is not a difficult one to solve, the government just cares more about maintaining a private market for the benefit of a few than actually improving things for the rest of us.
The source of this article is a free market think tank that was a huge influence in the infamous Liz Truss budget. They don’t want to talk about the real issue here (privatisation and marginal cost pricing) because they have decided that moaning about net zero is the best way to ensure that the wealthy vested interests in the energy industry are unmolested by the growing public anger about the high prices *they* have created.
Number 1 problem in the UK at the moment we have politicised basic living standards. Guys we need to start thinking about our general quality of life outside of the right vs left political mud slinging. We need to look at how others are fixing these issues, we need to consider how we increase wages, reduce inflation and bring down energy costs. Of course avoiding extreme. But the time for the usual left vs right is over. We no longer have the luxury of argument.
A load of shit from a load of arseholes.
The IEA are just a right-wing Tory/Reform thinktank
i’d sit in the bath and throw the toaster in, but it’s cheaper to buy a gun
The house of lords gets free cocaine and bummings off of the power companies, why would they care about anything else?
Ffs
Make these guys fund solar panels for houses make them issue huge grants to every house hold wishing to take up the offer.
The insulated millions of homes this way in the 90s.
I could go into a boring explanation of how they still made money by selling the carbon credits but I won’t.
We already have a mechanism in place to cap energy costs, why can’t they just lower it a reasonable amount? Energy companies are obscenely profitable right now and making more profit than they ever have before, why can’t we just lower the cap and cut into their profits?
To think my gas and electric used to be on average £45 a month…