Gas and electricity 30% cheaper in Germany and France

[SteveT]

I thought I heard this on radio 4 or have I imagined it?

Anyone out there who can confirm please?

[AcedOut]

Not sure, but we're being Royally ripped off at the moment. Petrol and enrgy prices for the consumer have still not fallen (enough). Oil is trading at around $60 a barrel at the moment - that's around half the level it was earlier in the year. I've not seen one energy company reduce prices yet. Petrol is only just starting to get down to two figures again. I'd love to see the graph of consumer petrol prices and Brent crude vs time. The gap is only ever widening...

[SteveT]

Thank you AcedOut, I haven't lost all my faculties then.

Cheapest petrol I know of is at morrisons, below a quid a litre.

[Azul]

just got a letter from eon saying that my account was 167quid in credit, but they were too lazy to change the monthly amount they steal from me. Or even refund it

[AcedOut]

Morrisons don't do super unleaded :(

I was around ?200 in credit with EON around a year ago. I checked the other day though and that's back to NIL again!

[SteveT]

I would not know how to check that I was being ripped off by my supplier, they seem to have made it impossible to check up on them.

Many years ago I could read the metre and work out what I owed, now I have not got a clue.

[Huguenot]

Good question SteveT, best addressed by accurate data!

First I give you fuel prices. UK is the third highest price per litre of unleaded in Europe, beaten only by Belgium and Norway (WTF???).

However, we can see that the tax component is 60% of the pump price. This is interesting regards price cuts due to changing price of oil - even if there was a direct correlation between crude prices and pump prices of petrol, a 50% cut on behalf of suppliers could only ever produce a 15% cut at the pumps!!

Edited to clarify that even at 60% of pump price, the UK appears to have the second lowest petrol tax regimes amongst major Euro countries.

[Huguenot]

Regarding Energy costs per country, you may be thinking of the attached data.

The important thing to note is that this data refers to changes in cost for each country, not the actual difference in cost between countries.

The suggestion is that with UK prices previously 15%-20% cheaper than average European costs, the consequence of the disproportionate prices rises in the UK has not been to make energy more expensive for the UK compared with other Euro countries, but simply to make it closer to average European prices.

I understand that the UK is still lower than Euro averages.

Before we get up in arms about this, we should compare energy costs with average household income - the UK has a greater income per head than most Euro countries, meaning that whatever happens, energy is a smaller percentage of overall household expenses in the UK than elsewhere.

Regardless, energy is going to become increasingly expensive as we gain global equality. Historically for every 65 lightbulbs of energy consumed by a US citizen, a UK citizen uses 35, and a Chinese citizen 1. It should come as no surprise that the Chinese no longer feel it's reasonable to scrabble in mud so we can live in luxury. They want 35 light bulbs-worth each as well. Gone are the days when we can expect to keep foreigners in poverty to feed our colonial greed.

That means greater demand on fixed resources and sky-high costs.

If you want lower energy bills, use less, or expect to go to war every week.