{"id":6670,"date":"2016-03-10T15:28:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T14:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670"},"modified":"2016-03-10T15:28:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T14:28:51","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-cma-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week &#8211; CMA report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-6339\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The competition and markets (CMA) report has just come out today on the UK energy market.\u00a0 Even in other countries then the UK there is a lesson here.\u00a0 If you do privatise your energy market then do expect continuing government interference.\u00a0 This also goes for railways and other things.<\/p>\n<p>The CMA have taken a very long time getting to publish what is a 1000 page report (I have no intention of reading all this, even the summary is 46 pages!).\u00a0 But the main conclusions are available and these are;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Customers are being over charged by the big six to the tune of \u00a31.7 billion a year.\u00a0 The CMA said this is because too many customers are on the most expensive default standard variable tariffs (SVTs).\u00a0 The overcharging seems to be about \u00a3300 per year.\u00a0 However rather than force the big six to reduce prices the CMA report proposes keeping a database of customers that have been on standard rates for three years.\u00a0 These details would then be released to the energy companies and comparison websites for direct marketing.\u00a0 In other words to companies who think that they are cheaper would contact us with offers.\u00a0 When I heard this it was one of those heartsink moments.\u00a0 Currently my household is bombarded with nuisance calls many &#8220;energy related&#8221;.\u00a0 At the moment the feeling is you will have to opt out of these mailshots rather than opt in. Its also worth remembering that those in low incomes have little access to the internet and when people say its easy to switch this is what they mean.\u00a0 It is online, but almost impossible otherwise- since its difficult to find out what the best deal is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Those on pre-payment meters to have their payments capped until smart meters are fully rolled out.\u00a0 Apparently then this problem of those least able to afford bills will magically disappear. (No I cannot work out why this should be so either).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Remove the four tariff rule.\u00a0 Currently a supplier is limited to offering a maximum of 4 different tariffs.\u00a0 Its worth remembering why this was removed.\u00a0 It was done so since all the big energy companies had so many different deals that working out which was best was almost incomprehensible.\u00a0 This looks like a backward step.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Allow those on economy 7 meters (basically these allow people to purchase cheap electricity at night- mostly to heat their houses using storage heaters) to switch to cheaper tariffs.\u00a0 Motherhood and apple pie &#8211; why couldn&#8217;t they do this now?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also some more technical suggestions not directly related to domestic customers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The CMA are critical of the contracts for difference.\u00a0 For a brief explanation for these see this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6539\" target=\"_blank\">post<\/a>.\u00a0 They reckon the government are not getting the best out these and this is raising costs to consumers.\u00a0 The government awarded some contracts outside the auction.\u00a0 The Secretary of State for Energy responded that the government had changed the way they did this and all was well.\u00a0 Who can say?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Locational adjustments for transmission losses.\u00a0 Obviously in absence of high temperature superconductors there are resistance losses in transmission between generation and consumption.\u00a0 This costs money.\u00a0 The CMA want generators concerned to pay 100% of these costs rather than everyone pay 45%.\u00a0 While the CMA say this cut pollution of NO<sub>x<\/sub> and SO<sub>x<\/sub> by my reckoning this will penalise renewable generation.\u00a0 Few people have picked up on this &#8211; but expect a big row if my conclusions are correct.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you can tell I&#8217;m for the most part not very impressed with this report and it looks like the CMA have caved into the big six.\u00a0 To those reading this in countries without privatised energy companies take this lesson don&#8217;t privatise them it makes things more complicated &#8211; not simpler.<\/p>\n<p>Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The competition and markets (CMA) report has just come out today on the UK energy market.\u00a0 Even in other countries then the UK there is a lesson here.\u00a0 If you do privatise your energy market then do expect continuing government &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,63,179],"class_list":["post-6670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-energy-efficiency-measures","tag-renewables-2","tag-report"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>One thing we have learnt this week - CMA report - The oil lamp - shining God&#039;s light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670\",\"name\":\"One thing we have learnt this week - CMA report - The oil lamp - shining God&#039;s light on peak oil\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n-300x240.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-10T14:28:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/b6f2831189b0d01294e9672bb540ba6f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n-300x240.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/10668295_1133346013348006_545104614_n-300x240.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=6670#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"One thing we have learnt this week &#8211; 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