As a bulb customer...
They were not offering particularly cheap energy - maybe slightly cheaper than the big 6, but they were focusing on customer service (and 'green' energy). They only had one tariff and it was variable, no 'cheap' fixed rates or tie ins, and were more or less at the cap. They have come un stuck because the Government's cap meant they couldn't raise prices to plug the gap between what they are allowed to charge / what they had hedged for. The funds that HMG is now providing are those that all the other energy companies are either swallowing due to their size, or are being passed on elsewhere (shareholders, who ever was left holding the baby when the energy actually had to be delivered, etc etc). Expect steep rises in energy prices when the cap is next reviewed (see that figure of £1000 per customer, that gives an idea of the 'real' price....) - current fixed rate deals are factoring this in, and are much more expensive than current variable rates - I checked for a switch to SSE, and they want c£3k / year, vs the nearly £2k we are currently paying. If the cap doesn't go high enough then more failures will follow.
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