Britain's Coal Free Power Generation - Courtesy of Nuclear and Gas

From tonight's BBC News. 😂🤣😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/KAho4FeeAR

— Bruno Prior (@bgprior) June 10, 2020

Don't tell Greta!

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British Gas Hikes Electricity Prices By 12.5%

British Gas will increase electricity prices by 12.5% from 15 September, its owner Centrica has said, in a move that will affect 3.1 million customers.

Gas prices are unchanged, but the average annual dual-fuel bill for a typical household on a standard tariff will rise by £76 to £1,120, up by 7.3%.

Centrica said the rise was a result of transmission and distribution costs and the costs of government policy.

Methinks that British gas will continue to lose customers!

SSE Potential Overcharge

It seems that faulty electricity meters may have given rise to a situation where 16,000 customers of SSE have overpaid their energy bills.

Customers on 'Economy 10' tariffs may have paid too much because the meter clocks were set incorrectly.

SSE said a "manufacturing fault" with one batch of electricity meters could result in them incorrectly switching back an hour after a power cut in winter.

SSE is quoted by the Telegraph:

"For customers timing their electricity consumption in order to benefit from off-peak rates, this could mean that some of these units would be charged at the normal rate rather than the off-peak rate. SSE... estimates that a total of around 8,000 customers are likely to have been affected."

It also admitted a separate issue where meters had been "installed with the off-peak times set incorrectly for the customer’s supply distribution area". About 8,000 meters could also be affected by this problem.

SSE will now write to all customers who may have been affected to inspect their meters.

Greed

Britain's utility companies are to be congratulated on being even more greedy than banks, insurance and credit card companies, in their brazen fleecing of the consumer.

E.ON added its name to the list of shame by raising prices this morning, electricity up by 16% and gas by 26%.

Similar recent increases were imposed by EDF and British Gas.

Time that the sleepy old watchdogs, that are allegedly looking after the interests of the ripped off British consumer, to wake up and earn their pay.

Crime and Punishment

Following last week's announcement by npower of an average 17.2% increase for gas prices and an average rise of 12.7% for electricity, Ofgem (the energy regulator) has tried to damp down fears of increasing residential gas and electricity prices.

Ofgem, in a response to a letter from Chancellor Alistair Darling, said that market forces (ie customers being able to switch accounts) would ensure that the consumer would not suffer unduly.

Quote:

"In Britain's competitive market some energy suppliers will be better at buying their energy than others and will be able to price at an advantage to their competitors,' Ofgem said.

Over the last five years we seen this happen and companies with high prices have been punished severely by customers. With customers switching at record levels this is set to continue."

This is all very well. However, it assumes that other energy suppliers will not follow npower's lead. Npower disagrees, and said that it expects other suppliers to "follow suit very shortly".

Darling and the government will be sweating in their beds, fearful of the effect that such dramatic price rises will have on the voters' perceptions of the effectiveness of their handling of the economy.

Interest Rates Set To Rise

Yesterday's shock rise in inflation to 3.1% has sent a warning signal to the financial markets that interest rates are sure to rise, in order to try to tame the inflationary tiger.

The rise in inflation forced Mervyn King, Governor of The Bank of England, to write a letter of explanation to Gordon Brown, as its rate was more than 1% higher than the 2% target.

This was the first such letter in almost 10 years.

Mr King blamed the sustained rise in inflation partly on sharp increases in food, electricity and gas prices over the past year, but also on businesses discovering a greater degree of pricing power as the economy continued to grow.

Sterling broke the $2 barrier, for the first time since 1992, in anticipation of the rise in interest rates.

However, before savers rush to celebrate in anticipation of seeing their meagre returns on savings rise; they should be aware that banks are very happy to pass on interest rate rises to borrowers, but are remarkably recalcitrant when passing on benefits to savers.

Households Lamentably Unprepared

Research from Scottish Widows reveals that British households are lamentably unprepared for the loss of a breadwinner's income. The research identified a "protection gap" that meant serious financial hardship for families if a main earner was to fall ill or die.

Over 10 million households are now dependent on more than one salary, to maintain an acceptable standard of living.

Over 50% of take-home pay goes on essentials such as mortgage repayments, managing debt, food, gas and electricity bills.

The study warns that many families would face serious financial hardship in the event of the worst happening.

Nick Kirwan, protection-market director at Scottish Widows, said:

"The majority of the population is walking a financial high wire without a safety net.

Nobody knows what is around the corner, but we have to accept that all too often illness does strike and accidents do happen.

If people don't start to take responsibility for their own financial futures then they could be left in a position where they can't even cover the essential expenditure in their lives."

It is not unreasonable to assume that Scottish Widows would like to sell these underprotected families some protection.