Energy Companies & Government

[JohnMathers]

Why are the Energy Companies privately run? Seems strange to me that they generate huge profits for their shareholders but at the same time look to the Government to come up with billions worth of investment to improve the networks / build power stations etc. Surely if these are private companies they should fund their own power stations, network improvements etc ??

Isn't the winter fuel payment state aid for energy companies?

According to my bills 17% is due to obligations imposed by Government. Surely what we need to do is force energy companies to provide energy at the lowet possible price, and in order to do that we need to stop imposing obligations on them as this provides them with a ready made excuse as to why bills are so high.

Why are there so many different tariffs - I mean BP, Texaco & Shell have just one price for petrol and one for diesel so why do energy companies need over 6000 different tariffs??

Just some thoughts, be interested to know what other people think.

John.

How about we fine energy companies on a sliding scale according to how many of their customers are spending more than 10% of their income on their fuel bills.

[Peter.Chisnall]

If you go back to Victorian times quite a few of the power companies were run by councils, as was the water and sewage undertaking.

After the war the industry was nationalised and interesting that the main thrust was to provide electricity at the cheapest price, not power! If it had been worded as power then we would probably have seen a lot more CHP instead of the giant cooling towers belching out the majority of waste energy as steam.