Energy Suppliers, Suppliers of Energy. Gas / Electric

Best of luck.
My credit score was destroyed by various things that I have only just resolved after about 5 years - it’s hilarious the change of tone in emails when loan companies find out they are the ones in the wrong.
Felt weird having to prove I hadn’t committed a driving offence, Gbh, and defaulted on a court fine before even holding a driving license.

I know the root cause of mine... The energy company asked Experian for who probably lives at an (incomplete) address, Experian replied with their best guess... Me. But the question was "probably" and based on incomplete information... So the answer was low confidence / wrong.

I can prove it's wrong, and I feel confident I can go ballistic on their upper management if they escalate in any way.

This looks pretty bad if it's real.

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Looks like a fairly standard winter preparedness communication. The PSR is something that is around, but a bit more of a focus on it this year in the industry and highlighting that its available to those who may not have needed or been aware of it before.

Worth signing up for, and/or encourage those you know who need it to sign up to as well. Also means you (often?) get prioritised with your supplier, as they will have access to this database from UKPN as well.

.. doing the rounds on WhatsApp

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Which is exactly what they are going to do… £2.5k cap is far below wha the price should be, so I hope that person who wrote that is happy!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62801913

Just love the fact we're going to throw £100 billion worth of taxpayers' money to prop up a non-market when we could spend £2.9 billion nationalising it and solving the problem overnight. Great work, neoliberalism. Tremendous stuff.

That doesn't make much sense. The gas companies are making record profits and effectively getting £100bn subsidised revenue plus plenty more on top of that but could be bought for £2.9bn?

Yes. Nationalising the big five energy retailers would cost 2.85 billion. Admittedly according to the TUC, but they won't be a billion miles away. Even if it's 10 times that, it's still less than the six-month sticking plaster Starmer's proposed (which has, unsurprisingly, already been outflanked on the left by the Tories).

E2a: that 100 billion subsidised revenue melts away if they're in public ownership. The profits come into the state rather than shareholders. Costed up, I reckon you're looking at a net gain over the long term rather than a cost. A cost that would still benefit the British public way more than us all ploughing loads of our money into energy company shareholders' pockets.

Ah, we're talking about different things. I'd imagine most of that £100bn is going to be going on buying the energy and will be needed regardless of who owns the energy retailers.

I'm not saying nationalising them is necessarily a bad idea but it's not going to fix the current underlying issue and the need for a subsidy.

It would fix a lot of the issues because, in the first place, you would consolidate all the retailers into one huge buying 'company', which would wield a lot more buying clout on international markets and be able to command a lower price for any imported gas and domestically produced gas. Next, it would do away with the ridiculous electricity unit pricing that sees the rate set at the cost of the most expensive generation method (this would remove most of the problem we're seeing currently). Then it could properly channel money/investment and effort into renewables that would help the country achieve net zero targets and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels (particularly from insane dictatorships).

There is literally no downside to nationalisation apart from admitting privatisation didn't work. And maybe capitalism is fucking shit. But those two admissions are more than any government or opposition are willing to make. So muggins 'ere (i.e. you, me and everyone else in the country) need to cough up our hard-earned instead.

Reading whilst currently sat in the dark, as our power went out at 3pm and now they're digging up the road

Counter argument: the general public have also liked the choice, new entries and lower prices that a diverse range of suppliers have offered in the past decade.

Whether that has been built on shakey foundations, possibly, and OFGEM have come in for criticism but it has meant very low consumer prices until now.

Can’t have it both ways, either higher prices under a large conglomerate who never changes, is slow to act and has no incentive to do better or allow competition but then take the rough with the smooth

Next, it would do away with the ridiculous electricity unit pricing that sees the rate set at the cost of the most expensive generation method (this would remove most of the problem we're seeing currently).

That is decided by the regulator not the retailers you are privatising

Then it could properly channel money/investment and effort into renewables that would help the country achieve net zero targets and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels (particularly from insane dictatorships).

That is done by the generators, not the retailers you are privatising

Your £2,9bn is buying you admin and billing and not much else

Can’t have it both ways

Exactly, same for marginal pricing that everyone is now livid about but were happy with when it was driving investments in renewables

If you nationalise energy, then you are the regulator. I mean, the government could do it now without even nationalising energy. It won't because it wants a 'market'. Nationalisation would take away the need for the artificial market.

Counter argument: the regulator is there to ensure the market works, not that consumers are protected. Hence why it has utterly failed over the last two years to prevent what is now an utter catastrophe for consumers and businesses.

So-called competition has cost the taxpayer a fortune and channelled money into the hands of private shareholders. It has has done nothing to improve efficiency and has ultimately had no benefit for the consumer.

That is done by the generators, not the retailers you are privatising

Your £2,9bn is buying you admin and billing and not much else

I mean, if it's that worthless, what's the point of them in the first place? And how are they making so much money out of it?

Except you can have it both ways because you can take away the artificial market and pay a unit price for electricity that makes sense and isn't just plucked out of the air to satisfy the most expensive generator.

I mean, I can't seriously believe you guys are arguing what we currently have here in the UK for an energy system is working really well.

Because * gestures at everything*

Would a nationalised power (gas/elec/etc) industry have protected consumers from a global shock and market forces?

If they operated in the same manner then short answer is no. If they extract, produce and supply the power to consumers outside of global markets (a mini domestic market) then possibly, but is this really feasible?

Just becuase it’s not working right this moment isn’t necessarily an argument to nationalise. But there possibly is an argument to be made for a de coupling of fossil fuel and renewable power generation, micro generation stations and investment in de centralised grid to reduce the impact of external shocks.

Has anyone argued it is working well? We are pointing out that your suggestion wouldn't achieve what you think it would, you suggested £100bn of delivered energy could be achieved by buying some retailers for £3bn. It's like saying if I buy Tesco without any stock the country will be fed cheaply for a year

I'd say given only 20% of the gas we use to generate electricity is imported (and much of that could have been avoided had we kept our storage capacity) means largely we could have protected consumers from the global shock.

There's a shit tonne we could have done to avoid this, but it meant shareholders not making eye-watering sums, so we didn't do it.

The point is not operating in the same manner, because the current manner is an utter clusterfuck - unless you're an energy company. There are huge arguments for not doing things the way we've done it since privatisation, the brief period where unviable energy retailers were competing and driving prices down artificially notwithstanding. Again, it was a false market and failed catastrophically. The so-called energy market in this country is a failed experiment. Unless you're one of the big six/suppliers, in which case it's a beanfeast.

It's like saying if I buy Tesco without any stock the country will be fed cheaply for a year

I'd like to see you elaborate on that analogy.

What is there to elaborate, you suggested:

Just love the fact we're going to throw £100 billion worth of taxpayers' money to prop up a non-market when we could spend £2.9 billion nationalising it and solving the problem overnight.

2.9bn gets you the retailer but no energy, how does that solve the problem of high prices that the 100bn is poorly targeted at.

The TUC proposal was about stopping exposure to retailers going bust not capping energy bills