Energy prices.

[Domdom]

Right chaps, I am so confused. We are told that the energy market is global, yes?

So a chap I know lives in Thailand and his energy bill for the month was 550 Baht, which is about six quid. Air con, kettle, charging devices, domestic appliances etc all in use. Six quid!!!!

My elderly father in law minimises his use and still gets a bill for 120 quid. He pays about 30p a Kw/h. Hmmmm.

And then I get this advert on my pc today for the best deals here in Spain. See below.

So my question is simple. In a supposedly global market, why the huge differences? It smacks of profiteering to me, energy companies charging whatever they think they can get away with.

 

[premmington]

Operating costs in Thailand - will just be - well just cheaper...

 

[Morris]

550 bath is 6 years wages. Or something.

 

[zzr1200]

It's because they don't know who to bill, so its an average cost....

 

[mart]

The energy regulator are supposed to keep things fair & reasonable and impartial....The standing charge for the electric meter is 66p per day.

 

[ajlelectronics]

The answer is politics and the suicidal drive to "nett zero".

 

[Morrisman]

Friend of mine lives in Pattaya. Years ago, he was telling me how the electric meter guy would sell what they call a ‘shunt’, a resistor device of some sort, that connected across the meter, effectively partially bypassing the meter. They came in various sizes, depending on how much you wanted to reduce your bill.
And apparently just about everybody used them.

I lived across the waters, in the Philippines. We had the most expensive electricity in Asia there. Our bill was about £100 a month.

 

[premmington]

The answer is politics and the suicidal drive to "nett zero".

Oh I wish you were wrong about the above - but sadly you are not.

 

[Domdom]

Lack of info by the OP as usual.

Only energy source for the property ?

Size of residence?

Type of residence?

Locality?

Just looked at mine. Half that of your FiL. I have a NG connection, too.

I don’t pay 30p/kWh. I’m not aware of any ‘normal’ tariffs that cost that much per kWh.

My gas bill is about £20 per month - only 6-7p/kWh.

Irrelevant really. He has both Electricity and Gas but my question was why the massive differences in cost when this is allegedly a global market?
The price cap is at about 28p for electricity at the moment and most suppliers seem to be at that level in the UK. Whereas its a third of that here. I was only trying to get him a better deal which is probably why that ad came up.
And talking to a colleague in France, they also have high prices at the moment which is bizarre considering they have nuclear. That said, they do pay the same roughly for feed in if you fit solar which sort of removes the need for battery storage. About the same cost in or out of the grid which seems quite sensible.

 

[Domdom]

The energy regulator are supposed to keep things fair & reasonable and impartial....The standing charge for the electric meter is 66p per day.

Yeah, that makes my blood boil. I get that the grid need money to keep it up and invest in improvements, but based on about 25m houses in the UK, that's roughly £16m a day.

 

[gaz1]

The energy regulator are supposed to keep things fair & reasonable and impartial....The standing charge for the electric meter is 66p per day.

that standing charge is unfair and total greed on the industrys part

it also paid for the meter reader twice a year as well and that was on the previous price of 33p a day whilst the smart meter has a higher standing charge the prepay meter is even higher

the increase was due to the energy cap so they rammed the increase through the standing charge instead

 

[Erie Fred]

"Energy" referred to as "Global" I always understood that as oil & LNG.

Easily transported, so as to make the prices sort of level throughout the world.
Along with other commodities like corn, wheat, coal, etc.

Moving electrons, not so much.

YMMV

 

[piman]

Irrelevant really. He has both Electricity and Gas but my question was why the massive differences in cost when this is allegedly a global market?
The price cap is at about 28p for electricity at the moment and most suppliers seem to be at that level in the UK. Whereas its a third of that here. I was only trying to get him a better deal which is probably why that ad came up.
And talking to a colleague in France, they also have high prices at the moment which is bizarre considering they have nuclear. That said, they do pay the same roughly for feed in if you fit solar which sort of removes the need for battery storage. About the same cost in or out of the grid which seems quite sensible.

There is not a global market for electrcity, as the globe is not interconnected.

As a general rule, more renewables on a grid gives higher price. As to the idea that gas is why our electricity cost is so high is due to ignorant statements by those who should know better.

Alec

 

[Gareth J]

So my question is simple. In a supposedly global market, why the huge differences? It smacks of profiteering to me, energy companies charging whatever they think they can get away with.

What makes you think that UK companies are not competing with each other?

It's a cut throat marketplace. Several companies that didn't have sufficient backing to weather the post Ukraine gas price spike went bust.

The UK is just a relatively very expensive place in which to operate.

The reasons are numerous. It isn't just lack of infrastructure spending, or government subsidisation, or relying on the marginal cost of generation to set wholsale prices, or lack of large scale reliable baseloads or paying for the r&d of renewables it's all these things and more.

 

[minimutly]

Irrelevant really. He has both Electricity and Gas but my question was why the massive differences in cost when this is allegedly a global market?
The price cap is at about 28p for electricity at the moment and most suppliers seem to be at that level in the UK. Whereas its a third of that here. I was only trying to get him a better deal which is probably why that ad came up.
And talking to a colleague in France, they also have high prices at the moment which is bizarre considering they have nuclear. That said, they do pay the same roughly for feed in if you fit solar which sort of removes the need for battery storage. About the same cost in or out of the grid which seems quite sensible.

The price "cap" was brought in by the previous tozzers because prices went crazy due to Putin's invasion, but the current tozzers realized it was silly to remove it since it got them extra income, so it's still there, and all the suppliers charge up to it - instant monopoly, guess who loses out?
You are right, the power companies (and National Grid and Scottish power) are profiteering - the current tozzers are allowing these two to do it because they are using the cash to upgrade the network -why? So we can have more wind turbines and solar farms that only work some of the time....

 

[Morrisman]

I just fixed my prices with Octopus. 18 months I think. My bill is only £44 a month.

 

[Gareth J]

The price "cap" was brought in by the previous tozzers because prices went crazy due to Putin's invasion, but the current tozzers realized it was silly to remove it since it got them extra income, so it's still there, and all the suppliers charge up to it - instant monopoly, guess who loses out?
You are right, the power companies (and National Grid and Scottish power) are profiteering - the current tozzers are allowing these two to do it because they are using the cash to upgrade the network -why? So we can have more wind turbines and solar farms that only work some of the time....

That's not true.

It's a price cap, not a floor.

Any elec supplier company is at liberty to charge less than the cap. And they do. They have to in order to not loose all their customers.

 

[minimutly]

Do they? By how much? The only difference in prices are for off peak deals, generally.Sorry, but the cap was a useful tool, now it's a licence to print money.

 

[Gareth J]

Do they? By how much? The only difference in prices are for off peak deals, generally.Sorry, but the cap was a useful tool, now it's a licence to print money.

By whatever they can do and still retain good margins of profit.

Are you saying that energy companies are colluding to keep prices artificially high? Really? Which companies? All of them? Really, really? There are loads of supplier companies, it would be nigh on impossible to keep that scale of conspiracy secret.... So, where's the evidence? If you have evidence this is happening, send it to a journalist. Collusion is illegal.

 

[minimutly]

You only have to compare prices, the cap goes up, they all follow suit. And as for people changing suppliers, it,s become pointless on the basis of cost, people now do it on customer service.
Wholesale electricity costs are way down from what they were at the height, yet the cap, and retail costs remain high, it's not collusion, they don't need to, the competition has gone.