The government should not continue to inflict upon us increases in costs for heat and light on the basis of a poor hypothesis
Sir, The Blair/Brown governments’ head-in-sand policy on long-term energy security delivered us into Vladimir Putin’s hands, and Ed Miliband as Energy Secretary greatly increased our “green” taxes.
If it is true that 85 per cent of energy companies’ costs are outside their control and their target profit is only 5 per cent on sales, then it is hypocritical for Miliband to say that “the Government is letting the energy companies get away with it” and that the firms are “ripping off customers”. They would not last long if they made losses of 5 per cent a year. What we never see is an analysis of the firms’ return on the massive investment in the capital assets necessary to provide us with energy all year round. Without such analysis much of the adverse comment is economically illiterate and superfluous.
John Birkett
St Andrews, Fife
Sir, We consumers will soon understand that hidden green levies in our power bills are not used for insulating attics but pay for the differential between the price per kilowatt hour of wind turbine and solar panel-produced energy with that of coal and gas-fired plants. This is an increase of 40 per cent, according to the Royal College of Engineers’ paper on Comparative Costs of Energy. The more wind turbines built, the higher our bills. It should be clear that such an increase in energy costs cannot sustain our living standards nor the competitiveness of our businesses.
The wind turbine and solar power industries exist only because of subsidies. They cannot produce energy at an affordable cost to attract buyers without these subsidies. We taxpayers are likely to be contractually required to pay this inflated cost for two decades as a result of the agreements made by our politicians, and tied to the compliance of the major energy companies which have agreed to support failed technologies they know cannot deliver affordable energy.
The recent IPCC report on global warming has stated that there has been no warming for almost 20 years, that it cannot predict any further global warming, and that its computer models appear to have low predictive ability regarding the effect of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming.
Surely a practical government will not continue to inflict upon us substantial increases in costs for heat and light on the basis of a hypothesis which is not holding up. The Energy Bill, now in the House of Lords, which if agreed will shut down more gas and coal-fired plants, is motivated by ideology and fashion over the real life of our population.
By all means pursue renewable energy technologies, but the costs of wind and solar technologies are unsustainable.
Mary Anne Donovan
Somerby, Leics
Sir, Your paper (Money, Oct 12 ) reports that SSE has increased energy prices by 8.2 per cent. I wish they were this generous to me.
I received notification that my “SuperDeal” tariff would include an increase of 16.2 per cent in stored heat energy. Storage electric heating is the only form available to me, and comprises over 90 per cent of my winter bill, so my annual cost increase will be far greater than SSE would have us believe. Like many retired folk my income will in no way compensate for this.
Martin Figg
Weymouth, Dorset
1 Comment