Fuel bills and bankers bonuses

If you live in the United Kingdom and do not have any form of microgeneration, such as solar panels, you are now paying more for your household energy than ever before. Since we founded Genersys in 2000 household energy bills have risen by 88%. Gas bill have risen by 120% and electricity bills by 48% [...]

Rising energy bills and the scramble for energy

When I first started to write about the forthcoming energy crisis, many years ago, it was because it was something that I had studied and analysed; it was my reason for founding Genersys, a renewable energy company; in this case the analysis created the decision, rather than the decision to found Genersys creating my views [...]

Why energy prices will rise in a temporarily falling wholesale energy market

In the United Kingdom there are only six large suppliers of gas and electricity who count their customers in the millions. There are a handful of other suppliers who count their customers in the tens of thousands but the biggest six have a dominant position in the energy market. Do they abuse this market dominance?

What happens when they turn off the gas?

Will Eastern Europe have another cold winter? I have just been visiting Slovakia. It was a very hot sunny day with temperatures around 29 Celsius (83 Fahrenheit) and we sat outside in shirt sleeves enjoying the early September sun. In a few months time our view would be covered in snow and the weather would be [...]

Don’t worry about the climate change deniers – it is the renewable energy deniers that are the problem.

The real problem that environmentalists face is not the climate change deniers. It is those who think that fossil fuel is cheap and plentiful and with harm. I do not mind those that deny man made global warming and climate change; it is a perfectly respectable view to take and one that has a respectable [...]

Energy independence and freedom

I have written a great deal about energy from the climate change perspective. This has roused, from time to time, the ire of climate change deniers, who have often not bothered to read my views but argue against opinions that I do not hold. However, in all the arguments of those that think that climate [...]

Waiting for future proof energy

The Royal Society has issued a statement saying that the United Kingdom’s way of providing and delivering energy to the population is “no longer fit for purpose”. I wonder what took them so long.

Consumer energy price rip off or not?

I wrote yesterday about the allegation by Consumer Focus that the big six energy companies are overcharging their customers, because they are not putting prices down as energy prices fall. A year ago oil and gas prices (as well as coal prices) were at an all time high. Oil was $147 a barrel and it [...]

Energy, monopolies and cartels

 The ambition of every business is to become a monopoly, if it cannot achieve that, its ambition will be to become part of a cartel. The ambition of every government should be to prevent monopolies and to outlaw cartels.  A business having a monopoly or being part of a cartel enables it to make profits without any market [...]

Annual £5,000 energy bill for households in ten years time

The average household in the United Kingdom in 2004 was paying £580 a year for its household energy bills, usually its gas and electricity bills. Today that figure has slightly more than doubled with the average household paying £1,243 a year. Recent calculations by Ernst & Young, one of the world’s top accounting firms, indicate [...]