Power giants 'stitch up' UK customers ???

[LMagic007]

Power giants 'stitch up' UK customers
Sean Poulter, Daily Mail
21 May 2008

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Power companies have been accused of operating a 'stitch-up' that means UK gas and electricity prices are rising at the fastest rate in Europe. And they are threatening yet another round of price rises that could see bills climb by a total of 46% this year.

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Power giants 'stitch up' UK customers on bills | This is Money

[forfismum]

Where would we be without the Daily Wail,it used to be a good paper 40 years ago.

[spadlet]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

???

As per your own advice, check out the Daily Mail's reporting of other issues, compare them to the reporting that other UK papers have done of the same issues, maybe have a look for some more scientific evidence and come to your own conclusions about the accuracy of the articles you are reading

[LMagic007]

That's fine, I was just curious on seeing a UK persons view. By the way, what do you currently pay per kWh for electricity in the UK ?

[spadlet]

11.25p/kWh plus VAT at 5% according to my last bill

[LMagic007]

Wow

11.25p/kWh plus VAT at 5%

That's not cheap compared to what I pay. Thats around 23c Australian based on todays currency. I pay 15.14c AU per kWh, though our power cost per kWh has gone up steadily over the years.

[spadlet]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

Wow

That's not cheap compared to what I pay. Thats around 23c Australian based on todays currency. I pay 15.14c AU per kWh, though our power cost per kWh has gone up steadily over the years.

Yeah, it's got more expensive reently, according to a collegue petrol went up 8p last week too. You need to bare in mind that we've deffinitely reached/passed the peak in North Sea oil reserves so we've gone from being a net exporter to a net importer of fossil fuels.
I guess that we are utilising the resources provided by the Caspian oil pipe from Azerbaijan (BBC NEWS | Business | Giant Caspian oil pipeline opens) though I have not seen any direct evidence to support this.
We are in the process of/have just completed a gas pipeline to Norway (BBC NEWS | Business | New pipeline to deliver a fifth of UK gas).
We have an electricity connection with France.
We have gas pipeline connection to Europe (Interconnector :: The UK to Europe natural gas pipeline).
There was a massive project to run an oil pipeline through Azerbaijan about 5 or so years ago. I htink that was part of an oil connection to Eurpoe

As per another thread Wales is looking at importing loads of wood from Canada for biomass electricity generation. Without wind/wave/tidal and biomass (from sustainable UK grown timber) electricity generation we are completely dependant on other countries for our electricity. Nuclear may help, but it seems we would also be dependant on other countries for the uranium/chosen fuel. Solar may also help but the larger resources in countries like Australia make it more economic to develop over there then deploy in the UK once it is mature. Wave and tidal seem to be the technologies where the UK has the most advantage, due to the large ammount of UK based research into the areas, I hope that alot of the manufacturing is also in house.

I don't think that electricity companies in themselves bare the full responsibility for the price increases, unless there is evidence somwhere of Europe and Scandanavia supplying us as prices that work out to produce electricity for significantly less than customers are charged.