Electricity Price Hike

[Happier diner]

 

21 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

Thanks Tim.

Have they already offered you a new top-spec 4 x 4 or something?

You appear to have overlooked the small fact that our "little energy supplier" has managed to get itself into @ half a billion pounds worth of debt that it is expecting the taxpayer to clear?

 

13 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

But they can't/couldn't even recover the costs of running the business (despite or in spite of it being "little"), never mind turning in a surplus to be used for future development.

Barry Murphy is correct, the current economic climate doesn't justify the tariff increases of past failures to address the core issue.... tackling costs.

Sins of the fathers?

Yes they could probably cut costs but its a drop in the Ocean. Profit f*&^ed it all up and the legacy is still there.

COMINs decision to not allow the MUA to put prices up a year ago has just added another £40M or so to the debt. 

[Non-Believer]

12 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

Sins of the fathers?

Yes they could probably cut costs but its a drop in the Ocean. Profit f*&^ed it all up and the legacy is still there.

COMINs decision to not allow the MUA to put prices up a year ago has just added another £40M or so to the debt. 

Post MEA they continued their fat and lazy on the premise that the bill and taxpayers would be continually milked to bail them out. There were no significant economies even after that lot came to light and solutions (taxes and hikes) were put in place to ameliorate.

Forget ye not that the "Sewage Tax" on the Domestic Rates also forms a component of of their revenue, allegedly some to be used for "investment". We've had ten years of paying that now and what "investment" on large scale do we have to show for it? Wind, Solar or Tidal?

[mad_manx]

Looks like its going to be over 50p per unit by 2024 as per a friend. Solar home generation  will start making a lot of sense at that point..

Edited March 8, 2023 by mad_manx

[woolley]

54 minutes ago, mad_manx said:

Looks like its going to be over 50p per unit by 2024 as per a friend. Solar home generation  will start making a lot of sense at that point..

If it comes down in the UK around autumn time as mooted, then we will have to follow. We can't have our unit price at 50p or anything like if it's falling back below 30p across. That simply won't wash.

[Two-lane]

1 hour ago, mad_manx said:

Solar home generation  will start making a lot of sense at that point..

But not to the people who cannot home generate. They get loaded with the fixed costs of the system - unless the standing charge goes through the roof...

[genericUserName]

18 hours ago, 0bserver said:

Tell me you don't understand the island's economy without telling me you don't understand the island's economy.

I feel that you are missing the point. If the OECD plan goes ahead the island can still offer the lowest levels of corporation tax.

If all of the zero rated UK offshore got together today and agreed on, say, 3% base - then they would all still be dramatically cheaper than the rest of the world.

Personally I believe that the number of employees locally should also be a factor. So a company with significant profits and a tiny number of employees locally would pay a higher rate overall than a company with smaller profits and more employees locally.

I am not arguing against low taxes. Only that the burden of taxation has swung too much in favour of business.

Edited March 8, 2023 by genericUserName

[Ham_N_Eggs]

1 hour ago, mad_manx said:

Looks like its going to be over 50p per unit by 2024 as per a friend. Solar home generation  will start making a lot of sense at that point..

 

51 minutes ago, woolley said:

If it comes down in the UK around autumn time as mooted, then we will have to follow. We can't have our unit price at 50p or anything like if it's falling back below 30p across. That simply won't wash.

Like I said the other day have Manx Utilities ever reduced the price of electricity? 

Even when gas prices have dropped previously they just kept the additional money as profit or to service the ridiculous debt they were saddled with. 

Government owned entities should not exist to make profit from the citizens of the country that owns them.

The lack of regulation is a big problem. 

[Catrisk]

3 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Barry Murphy is correct, the current economic climate doesn't justify the tariff increases of past failures to address the core issue.... tackling costs.

But don’t forget they got offered a loan for £25M by Treasury that they didn’t draw down on. So where is Treasury with that loan now? Sorry it was all smoke and mirrors. They never had any intention of loaning the £25M but they had to do some public gesture to shut the proles up who were panicking about winter bills. Now they’re massively in debt subsidizing prices from last year and the weather is getting better suddenly all talk of the £25M loan facility has disappeared. 

[0bserver]

If you think the new MUA rates are punishing now, just wait until the cost of Daft Daphne and the Climate Chums are unleashed on the unsuspecting bill payer's. 

That £400m isn't going to repay itself. 

 

[woolley]

10 minutes ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

 

Like I said the other day have Manx Utilities ever reduced the price of electricity? 

Even when gas prices have dropped previously they just kept the additional money as profit or to service the ridiculous debt they were saddled with. 

Government owned entities should not exist to make profit from the citizens of the country that owns them.

The lack of regulation is a big problem. 

It was 16p per unit here until last April which was reasonable compared to across. Perhaps the price has not been reduced before, but that's pretty general there too. Aside from the odd competitive blip, the trend is always upward. However, these are extraordinary circumstances that have led to a doubling and more of prices in the UK. That will come down ultimately, and MUA will broadly have to follow. As I said, there is no way that they can charge 50p a unit if it is 30p and heading back south in the UK. Just not possible. The Island doesn't exist in a vacuum.

[Catrisk]

16 minutes ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Government owned entities should not exist to make profit from the citizens of the country that owns them.

The lack of regulation is a big problem. 

You are right public utilities should work for the benefit of the public funding them. The government was all over BBC NW last year saying how great they are that they’ve loaned money to cap electricity costs. Only they didn’t. And now they won’t. The £25M promised is probably there to be used for the next government pay increase, or maybe some broken road somewhere or unneeded electric bus. 

[b4mbi]

So we have a power company over £500m in debt increasing prices by 60%.

The same power company primarily uses natural gas to generate the power, gas that is forecast to remain at around 200p per therm for the next 5 years

We have a natural gas field in our waters, that the licence holder has agreed to cap the price per therm at a maximum of 80p

The development of the field could yield £8Bn in additional tax revenue over it's lifetime.

I wonder what we should do????  You know, in the best interests of everyone on the Island to keep energy costs low and provide funding for the renewables?

FFS, it's so bloody obvious or perhaps I'm just thick as mince?

[2bees]

Its not you, it's the NIMBY's.

[HeliX]

15 minutes ago, woolley said:

As I said, there is no way that they can charge 50p a unit if it is 30p and heading back south in the UK. Just not possible. The Island doesn't exist in a vacuum.

But if they have to recover losses and repay loans it'll come out of our pockets one way or another.

[0bserver]

8 minutes ago, HeliX said:

But if they have to recover losses and repay loans it'll come out of our pockets one way or another.

We're going to see more shady shit like this. 

Especially when the public sector pension black hole has to be fed. 

Remember, we're only like the UK when it suits them.