The energy industry based it's cost model on coal power which costs them 0.6 cents a kwh hour to generate, even prior to the current restrictions, the energy companies would charge 3 to 7 cents a kwh for it. However, environmental restrictions prevent them from adding any more coal generation plants. They can build wind power turbines and gas power plants but not coal plants. This means that their costs for power raises asymptotically to about 15 cents a kwh as more and more demand for power is placed on them. Consequently, they want us to conserve as much as possible and they want as much of the costs shifted to the consumers.

The industry has always worked by charging the consumer, if you were out in the country side and you did not have power, you would have to pay per power pole to have a power line laid in, I think it was $900 a pole about twenty years ago and there can be miles of poles needed. If you read the fine print on your contract for power, phone, cable, gas, water and sewage, it all worked the same way. Each of these industries got established by the consumer paying to be connected and their contracts still reflect that. You're only insulated from most of it as the developers for your neighborhood included it in the cost of your home.

Energy is a luxury, not a necessity. Not too many decades ago, we lived with little more than kerosene and wood for our energy and our lifestyle really wasn't that much different fundamentally, at least not in the absolute basics of life and comfort. If you can afford it, it's very possible to build a home that requires very little energy to provide you with your current standard of living. You are in fact demanding something that you simply can't afford as if it was a right. You can live off the grid if you'd like, the question is could you afford to do so and still have your modern conveniences. You don't have to buy power from the utilities, it's just far less expensive for you to do so.

All companies include research and development costs in their overall budget. Ford can't build a new car model unless it tools up for it, and that cost will be passed on to anyone who buys the car. That's the way it works.

Windmills are a losing proposition. Sooner or later, everyone will figure that out.

I agree im sick of news being full of bills going up and jobs going down

england whines more than my pet dog. yet does nothing at all

even their own government clams silly expenses and england just coughs

oh, but keep that stiff upper lip

Supply and Demand.

It doesn't matter what the cost goes towards as long as you are willing to pay it. If they can offer something at a competitive rate compared to their competitors and it means maximizing profits, that's what they'll charge. They are not required to justify it.

I don't know about you. But i'm sick of energy prices going up, But when asked the big 6 say they need the rise to not only the supposedly increase in fuel etc, but also fund new wind farms and new ways to make renewable energy!

So they charge us to upgrade their own infrastructural network? To enable them to charge us for energy by machines we paid for via investment, by YOU and ME...

So if i get my community to buy me a new bus for the an old peoples home. But i charge them a taxi rate, even though the old people pay for the Road tax, Insurance, and fuel! But i still expect to be paid full rate

That would be wrong! So why do we allow energy companies do the same thing?