There is an article in the Sunday Times with the alluring title The great Channel divide ā French will only see a Ā£32 rise in energy costs
For the government of President Emmanuel Macron, keeping a lid on energy prices has proved a successful way of controlling inflation ā which, at 6.1 per cent, though high by recent French standards, is considerably below the UKās and among the lowest in the EU.
EDF is obliged by the regulator to sell electricity at a discount, even at a loss, to smaller suppliers
to compensate for its dominant position in the market.
and so
This, inevitably, has plunged EDF into the red, and the government, which owns 84 per cent of the company, is paying ā¬9.7 billion to buy the rest, in an attempt to shore up its finances. In a bizarre twist, however, EDF last week sued the state for ā¬8.3 billion ā the cost āestimated to dateā of having to subsidise its rivals. The cost for the year as a whole could reach ā¬15 billion.
And it goes on to tell us the obvious that this will end up as French government debt.
Which can be paid down, at least in part with profits theyāll make going forward. Some of the EDF losses have been due to a shut down at a sizeable number of nuclear plants so they have been having to buy electricity on the wholesale market.
I donāt think the UK government needs to nationalise energy companies, although they basically have with Bulb, but retaining a large stake in a critical industry for future generations would have been a good idea.
Imagine if the UK had a sovereign wealth fund with 20% of the BP shares in it. Reinvesting the 50% of the dividends and using the other 50% to fund chosen projects. Christ the national lottery turned team GB from also rams into perennial medalists imagine what could be done with social care, the NHS or infrastructure.
Does having arms length not politically controlled stakes in profitable stable industries sound familiar - China, France, Germany, Norway ā¦
And donāt get me started on the sponsorship that Severn Trent Water splashed (pun intended) all over the commonwealth games. Why?!? If youāre in a Severn Trent monopoly you canāt buy from anyone else & if youāre not why the hell do we need to know about them?
The more that people can generate and store energy on their property the better. Having big centralized energy creators is good in many* ways, but a decentralised backup (or primary) source for residents is an addition to energy security
Iām not sure I made that suggestion of nationlization. Anyway, what would be nationlized? North Sea stuff? Iām not sure why that would have to be reconciled. Care to elaborate?
For me, the key is energy redundancy so build energy anywhere applicable for residents and industry.
Solar, nuclear, wind, tide, batteries in/for as many houses as we can etc.
Thanks @woodyblade ā¦ thatās the answer to the question on Ā£ ā¦ I expected the numbers to be massive but I did not know how massive. The article doesnāt say how long such a construction project would take (or have I missed that info?).
Oh no, but itās a common one for the solution. Nationalise energy.
The issue in my mind is whereās the line? Would the government put a cap on how much energy you can produce? Would they take your excess energy for free? Would they take over all your energy production?
Energy production is is no different if itās an individual of company except in scale. And as a me of the big takes at the moment is for the government to take over energyā¦ I wonder how far they would go.
Itās not like itās not ok the table. If not this government labour may do it. And if we all have solar on our roof where they line is on private energy production is important
If the government had half a brain it would set a policy that allowed people to pay off the cost of solar with the excess leccie then keep the panels and sell the leccie back after thatās done. The government could be a buyer of panels and get the dished oot everywhere. Same with batteries.
Imo the best idea is to build from ground up. Central power cuts off? Backup at grass roots. Then we can start thinking about bigger stuff to power industry.
This kind of idea I donāt like, as ultimately you end up not owning your own roof, making it difficult to sell. people leasing solar now have this issue on occasion.
I do agree there needs to be more incentive to be able to install your own solar.
another issue we donāt see a the moment but might in the future is changing of the rules that allow suppliers to take your energy without paying you. This happens in places in the US. itās basically theft imo. and thereās no guarantee that wont change here.
weāre really not doing much to incentivise it all