There is definately a cartell.

Surely if one providor was sligfhtly cheaper than the rest this would force pricescdown yet there would still be a competative market.

However there is more chance of seeing pink elephants fly before this happens

Don't quite follow your reasoning.There is a differential in price already.See Scott Byrom's latest article on the forum page.

It doesn't force prices down because there is amazingly too much apathy and inertia to change.The Providers know this and (this is where I agree with you) ,they complicitly rely on a high degree of retention and all move broadly in the same direction hiking prices way beyond their input costs.It is not in their interests for any one of the only 'big six ' to disturb this arrangement.

Also there is so much vertical integration in the market they can control the whole supply chain winning from start to finish from generation through to supply.The mainly foreign owners have reaped in huge profits.

If only the regulators would get a grip on this but they have been useless for years.If competion truly worked companies like BG and Npower ,who have consistently been the most expensive suppliers, would have long lost all their customers both on price and customer service.Yes there was a drift from BG but not enough to force them to act any differently.Their cynical manouvering of the price of BG's Click 4 is a case in point.

Couldn't agree with you more!!

Vertical integration allows the big boys to control the whole process and blames the 'forced rises' upon the wholesale market - which yes impacts it to an extent but not as much as they are making out, as if they deserve some kind of sympathy about putting prices up for made up reasons to push 4 million Brittons into fuel poverty whilst making hundreds of millions - or even billions of profits - its a hard life!

It's even worse for businesses, many are having to sacrifice their hard-earned profits just to keep the lights on.

I think everyone should boycott the big 6 and only go with independents (that are British owned!) - rare as they are - electricity4business is the only one I can think of.

Thanks emma,

There are huge barriers to entry into the supply market. The big six have enormous economies of scale in their billing and collection systems which make volume of customers the key.Not only that but because many of them have control of the generation they can sculpt their purchases to bring about favourable purchasing terms.Any new entrant would be forced purely to rely on short term purchasing,until they grew their business sufficiently.

If we go back to the principle of competition driven by price there were initially 12 'area' suppliers and a number of independants.Very quickly the big boys got hold of some these struggling independants and recaptured their customer base.Soon after, a series of consolidations occurred such as Npower absorbing three area companies to increase their economies of scale.Unfortunately,none of that benefit ever is returned to customers.Instead their reliable profit streams became so attractive that foreign utilities said, we will have some that and formed huge european utilities largely unaccountable to our Govt and regulator. Now we have situations where our market is raising prices at 15% year on year and the rest of europe way below that.

I will look into the cost from the current independants. I will gladly change if they can come anywhere near, so as to do my bit to aid real competiton.

I have just had an interesting chat / row with npower re my gas bill.

They have charged me for 1358 units at old rate for Dec.07 and 821 units in Jan/Feb 2008- a total period of 88 days-all units at higher rate.- ie no follow on rate. When I queried this I was told by some minion that as there had been a price change ( an increase she meant) they did not apply the 1143 units per quarter cut-off at higher rate before you go on to follow on rate.

She siad they were allowed to charge all units at higher rate because of the price change.!!!!

When I said this was rubbish she said B Gas and every other supplier did it.!?

I think she was saying in effect you have to go over 2286 units per quarter ie(1143 x2)before you get the follow on rate because of the price change.!

I told her she was talking rubbish and lodged a complaint with the company but are they right????

Regards

Telboy

Nothing surprises me about Npower any more. I am currently leaving them for Atlantic and can't wait to complete the process. It seems that I owe Npower (they claim) some enormous sum of money for Gas & Electricity prior to the increase, despite paying regularly by direct debit. They have yet to produce final figures so I don't know what they will be, but several hundreds of Pounds seem to be the forecast even though I was with them for only a few months and paid a very adequate monthly direct debit which I expected would leave them owing me money. I've read so many stories about Npower's administration and charging that I can't wait to escape at the least possible cost.