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Energy bills. What are you gonna do?


karbatal

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So this issue is being discussed in another thread but this winter looks so bleak I guess it deserves a thread. Energy bills are going to be so high this winter that you’d better SELL your Madonna collection right now.

 I live in Spain. Thankfully our government convinced the EU to create a “energy singularity” in the Iberian peninsula. Spain and Portugal have so much renewal energy that it is STUPID to use the fucked up algorithm, which establishes the KW prize by the price of the most expensive energy of the cocktail. Nowadays, gas. I don’t know if that is by law in all EU countries, I’m not an expert. Spain and Portugal were allowed to put a maximum price for electricity and nowadays it’s far less expensive than other EU countries. Seeing this CATASTROPHE, the EU Comission will intervene with urgency in the system too and the Iberian system will probably be used in the whole EU. 
 

But GREEDY third countries are making profit with gas and even though Spain gets gas from Northern Africa, the price has skyrocketed. One example: I got a gas bill of 90 euro for these past two months. I was 2 weeks on holiday and I don’t cook with gas. That means it’s for showering. I paid last year in the same period 22 euro. That’s like 4 times more! If we multiply by 4 our regular winter bills (in my case is aprox 200 / 250 euro in February) that would be like 800 euro! That means that I will use this winter my air conditioning as heating system because electricity is far cheaper. 
 

What I do wonder is what will other people do if both gas and electricity are incredibly expensive? And what will happen to the economy if all money goes to energy bills.

Thoughts?

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I pay 3 times as my.uch as I used to since April, 3 times more in the summer, when dont even use that much energy.

If you have a job, and a roof over your head, hopefully you are being sensible and saving in case things get worse, seems they will.

Sad that some people/companies are taking advantage, making record profiles using lockdown/ war in Ukraine as an excuse and people/businesses who need to charge more to survive are dying.

I come here to escape reality, it's a nice change to hear people complaining that the red vinyl is not red enough, or their box set hasn't arrived and it's causing Belgian Stress but understand people need to talk about it.  For those, who are losing their jobs, roofs over their heads, it's 10 times worse, but it's stressful even for people who have a job etc.

 

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Sell a kidney?

But really, I think it's something like two thirds of people in the UK predicted to be put into fuel poverty unless something is done - not to mention thousands of businesses going to the wall. It's failed state stuff.

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3 hours ago, Kim said:

It's failed state stuff.

More a selfish State, I mean in the UK, Liz Trust is saying the energy companies should be allowed to make a profit.  The big corps will.

The U..K. voted Boris and Tories in for selfish reasons, and then start getting upset when Boris behaved like Boris.

It's worrying state of affairs around the world, the rise of cost of living, yet the sales of high end luxury goods is going up.  More people can't afford to eat, and a few can't get enough Gucci.   Global warming, wars, the rise of the far right.

We should be really sensible with money, although that might not be enough, so I guess I should go and see how much the FEL Box set is going for...

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The inequality of our society is starting to become so blatant that the average, politics-averse type person is even noticing it. In Australia last month, a large grocery retailer posted a yearly profit of $1.5 billion dollars, which combined with some business restructuring to give them $7 billion in total. But the same company has increased basic grocery prices so high in the past year too... it just feels like the rich are engorged parasites on the poor and people have had enough.

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Oil and gas companies should all be charged with excess profit taxes. Prices for gas and oil are driven by pure speculation. The fact is, there is enough gas and oil. Most producers are just greedy using the situation with Russia (that used to deliver the cheap stuff) and raising the prices like there is no tomorrow. Let's just wait, when they post profits that are significantly higher than last year, they'd better have a good explanation what they did to make so much more money. If this is merely because they raised the prices, governments should tax the shit out of those companies. 

From my perspective, private companies should not be in charge in all matters water, electricity, gas. Those are basic needs of the general public. But I remember very well, back in the 90s almost all cities in Germany sold their "Stadtwerke" to private companies because they had budget deficits and some fucking consultants told them how much better private companies could deal with all of it. Yeah, water, gas, electricity became more expansive over the years. The result is, most cities, like Berlin, buy those companies back. Of course, paying way more than what they got when they sold those companies 25 years ago. 

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15 hours ago, karbatal said:

The only good outcome of all this would be to have enough renewal so we finally can tell all gulf countries and cunt dictators to shove their fucked energy up their asses.

Hopefully we get to this situation soon....

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My friend got a prediction for a £650 bill just for January. However, it's now looking like bills will be capped at £2500 and anything more will be paid back over ten or twenty years.

But the cost of everything else is still going up. I've not known things as bleak as this since 1980.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks to renewables and the fact that Portugal and Spain took out gas from the price algorithm electricity yesterday in Spain and Portugal was for some hours 1,3 euro MW!!!!! 
 

This is the rest of Europe. If people are paying high electricity bills is PURE SPECULATION 

 

 

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I have smart thermostats on all my radiators and have lowered the "desired room temperature" setting on all of them from 20 °C to 19 °C. That might potentially reduce my energy consumption by 5 %.

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On 9/26/2022 at 9:57 AM, karbatal said:

Thanks to renewables and the fact that Portugal and Spain took out gas from the price algorithm electricity yesterday in Spain and Portugal was for some hours 1,3 euro MW!!!!! 
 

This is the rest of Europe. If people are paying high electricity bills is PURE SPECULATION 

 

 

Hopefully this shows why renewables are VITAL!

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Electricity is not a luxury product that you can do without. You need to have electricity in modern society. That's why it needs to be owned by the state, not private companies ripping everyone off.

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/05/energy-networks-garnered-10bn-in-supernormal-profits-from-consumers-in-eastern-australia

These "unprecedented times" provide the perfect cover for companies to absolutely gouge the pockets of everyday people.

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On 10/3/2022 at 6:06 PM, pieciolot said:

My monthly direct debit for electricity went from £75 to £208. What kind of insanity is this?

Mine's went from € 274 to €527. And It Will sure increase in the next months.

I'm still in shock actually. It's an absolute mess.

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