Almost unnoticed

[cromwell]

Was an announcement this week that us consumers have reduced our energy consumption by 25% over the last six years.
So how are the energy companies managing to make such vast profits?
Simple, they just put the bl@@dy price up! You just can't win, honestly. If you use less gas, they just bang the price up to maintain their levels of profit.
I'm not of a communistic turn of mind, but I'll make an exception for the privatised utilities. What they are doing is scandalous. Didn't one of them make more than £1 billion profit in six months?
Not only a communistic turn of mind, I'd bring back old Jo Stalin for this lot. Up against the wall, imperialist capitalist lackey and no, you can't have a last cigarette unless you want it placing between the lips that never told a lie, lit end first!

We've had a new boiler, new central heating radiators and pipes and new loft insulation, all to make the house more energy efficient, and we haven't saved a penny on the gas bill.

[Workingman]

ONS: Energy use down 24.7% in six years.

Ofgem: Bills have risen 28% in three years, or nearly 50% in the six year period.

Centrica alone makes £billions.

Energy in the UK, just like fuel, food, banking and politics, is operated as a cartel. Salaries at the top of the cartel are obscene and that's before all the bonuses. Cartels are illegal. I would round up all the top layers of management of these institutions, plonk them on an old HMS with a few bags of spuds, and anchor them midway in the Iceland gap.

[Aggers]

Public utilities - water, gas , electricity, and water should never have been privatized.

The present Government must know what is going on, so why don't they do something about it?

If this sort of thing goes on much longer, we might perhaps soon be seeing scenes in this country similar to those in Egypt.

I don't like swearing, but I can't help it when I think of the way this once-great country of ours is declining.

[cruiser2]

We keep getting pestered to have cavity wall insulation. As it means having scaffolding put up over the garage roof and kitchen extension which we would have to pay for we have not had it done. The firms who come say it will be free for the installation but not for the scaffolding.
Have insulated the loft myself. Part near the eaves is over 12 inches thick. In the center there is insulation between the rafters and this part is boarded over. Also have double glazing.
Boiler is over 15 years old but still serviceable. If we had a new one, it would also mean new radiators and pipe work. Mrs.e says we are not having the upheaval at our time of life.

[Aggers]

I don't blame you, Cruiser. You've done enough.

Go on another cruise.

[Workingman]

I don't blame you, Cruiser. You've done enough.

As have so many others...... My home has cavity wall insulation, DG, 12" loft insulation and energy efficient light bulbs. What the hell else can I/Cruiser/many of us do? Are we going back to the days of housecoats, gloves with the finger tips snipped off, scarves and bobble hats as we sit round a candle supping lukewarm pottage?

[cromwell]

Public utilities - water, gas , electricity, and water should never have been privatized.

I agree. I wonder what would happen if any party promised to re-nationalise them?

[pederito1]

I imagine the energy reduction is a run down of industry rather than domestic use.

[Suff]

I suspect the energy reduction is a combination of industrial change to push manufacturing out of the UK and also businesses moving heavily into power cost reduction by insulation and power management. Home energy usage reduction will be a small part of this.

Welcome to the reality of the EU. EU competition authorities insist that utilities be opened up to competition and purchase. Then the utilities in Germany and France, with heavy state ownership, buy them up. Nobody can complain that the state subsidised utilities in Germany or France are not opened up to competition, nobody in the EU can afford to buy them and nobody outside the EU will be allowed.

Of course, energy prices are heavily regulated in Germany and France. So to make large profits, they must rack the prices up outside of Germany and France.

Simples.

It's not just the UK which is feeling the pain.

There is only one answer to this. Invest in going off grid. It's not a cheap option, but you are quite literally insulated form future energy price hikes. You would, of course, have to go both solar electric and solar water at the same time. Even doing the work myself, a totally bullet proof off grid system is going to set me back about £15,000. Plus the cost of the hot water solar heating which is currently about £5,000. If I wanted someone else to install this for me, it would cost about £35,000 for the electric.

Of course I could build up to it and just take things like my hot water, fridges/freezers and my computers off grid. That would cost me about £6,000 in the first instance and wouldn't need a generator as I would not be fully off grid.

This, of course doesn't include central heating. Well my CH is already wood burning and I fitted all but the boiler myself.

Naturally building up to going off gird would cost me more as I'd have to replace the batteries as I went along. But, I guess, in the long run, things would get cheaper as I went along so perhaps it would balance itself out.

I’ve been nagging Mrs S for this for a long time. I think with our serious power outage earlier this month I have made my point. She’s for it in the next year or two.

What this is leading up to is simple. Look at low energy bulbs. They are a ecological disaster, but they make the problem of human climate change and CO2 emissions your problem. Governments have decided not to engineer the problems out of the system. They’ve decided to make your life so expensive that you decide for yourself to stop using the energy.

I’ve decided that the way out of this is not to take any of their energy anyway. Just to make my own. It will take a few years but I’ll get there.

Oh and I’ll need about 120sq meters of roof space to do it too. For that I’ll have to be a touch inventive. Mrs S is not going to be happy but I’m guessing she’s going to accept in the end….

[cromwell]

Of course, energy prices are heavily regulated in Germany and France. So to make large profits, they must rack the prices up outside of Germany and France.

Simples.

It's not just the UK which is feeling the pain.

No, energy price rises by "foreign owned companies" are part of the reason for the recent unrest in Bulgaria.