Six companies EDF Energy, Centrica, Npower, E.on, Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern Energy share 99% of the retail electricity market so its an oligopoly anyway with limited competition. Because of this the actions of one influence the others so when one raises prices the others follow. Reducing the number of tariffs will just make it more difficult for these companies to differentiate themselves and promote unique selling points (USP's) but this was always a con anyway. The only way to really reduce prices would be for the Government to promote competition and make it easier for new companies to enter the market and so to have 'perfect competition' so no oligopoly exists.
yes of course they will - its only the idiots in power that dont see/care about that
Of course they will, and they will blame the "Market Price" which THEY set and manipulate...
Another of Thatchers sell offs you are still paying through the nose for...
Free Markets, WHAT free markets??
No they don't have to. I have just signed up to a new deal with E-on. They now have just 5 tariffs, some fixed, some not fixed, and an offer for the over 60's. What they are relying on is " customer inertia ". Most people are too damn lazy to check out the options, let alone change their tariff. E-on now give a loyalty bonus if you have been with them for more than 3 years. This is in addition to discounts for Dual Fuel, Direct Debit, and Paperless Accounting.
Got it in one, well done!
Will you now explain this revelation to
Mr D Cameron
10 Downing Street
London SW1
He is having some trouble understanding this complex issue, people may think he is stupid or in the pockets of the energy companies!!
Bingo ! You've hit the Jackpot ! Energy Companies are bound to do exactly what you predict that they will do !
N.B. The Privatisation of the Energy Industry that was State Owned, by Margaret Thatcher's Cobservative Government back in the 1980s was just one of many privatisations of State Industries that should NEVER have been allowed to be privatised !
N.B. Taking away State Control of the Energy Industry allowed for Competition ! What failed to be realised by the vast majority of the Public @ the time was that on the short term competition would bring Energy Prices down ! Once takeovers of the smaller energy companies began, reducing the competition (heading towards a privatised monopoly), then the energy prices were bound to start rising up again & to keep on rising up, year on year, without effective State Control on energy prices anymore ! Ofgem is just a 'toothless tiger' with no effective control / regulation ability over the privatised Energy Markets !
Thanks Maggie ! Now the people in the U.K. are reaping what your Goverment sowed back in the 1980s ! 'You reap what you sow !'
They would be extraordinarily naive if they didn't. The cunning of the business world far exceeds that of the legislators; that's how they make high profits!
...won't they simply put up the cost of their cheapest tariff so that they still pull in the same amount of revenue overall?
