First 'Big 6' Domestic Energy Rise in 2 Years

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) is putting up its domestic gas tariffs by 9.4% at the start of December.

The company, one of the UK's biggest energy suppliers, said the rise would affect 3.6 million customers.

The company blamed the increasing wholesale cost of buying gas which it said had gone up by 25% since March this year. The company said it was sorry that the higher bills would come in during this winter.

"The last few months have been marked by rising wholesale gas prices and, having absorbed losses in our gas supply business for some time, we can not delay an increase in retail prices any longer," said Alistair Phillips-Davies, of SSE.

"I am sorry it will take effect during the winter period." Those affected include 380,000 customers in Scotland and 440,000 customers in Wales.

Price effect
The company said that people were being more careful with their energy consumption, so it calculated the price rise would be £4.64 a month for the typical customer, or £56 a year.
However, taking regulator Ofgem's standard consumption measure, the effect would be a £5.60 a month rise, or £67 a year.

This is the first time for two years that standard prices among the "big six" energy suppliers have risen, and follows some price falls during last year.

After 1 December, SSE customers with a dual-fuel tariff would still be paying bills that were £33 cheaper than when prices were at their peak in January 2009, said Ann Robinson, of Uswitch, but she said the timing was a concern for customers.

With winter about to kick in, this is a body blow for consumers. What nobody wants to see is a repeat of 2008, when suppliers last put prices up and bills rocketed by £381 or 42% as a result," she said.

There could be more bills rises to come.

Earlier this month, Ofgem said that gas and electricity bills would both have to rise by £3 a year, as £32bn was needed to improve the UK's distribution infrastructure. Ofgem said energy firms needed to spend that sum over the next 10 years to "keep the lights on" and meet the government's green energy targets.

Other suppliers

Customers of the other major energy providers will have to wait to see if the rest of the industry also puts up prices.

"While we hope that other companies do not follow suit, history has shown us they adopt a pack mentality on pricing," said Audrey Gallacher, of watchdog Consumer Focus.
The watchdog has argued that companies should have reduced prices when wholesale costs were lower. It claimed that SSE's gas prices had fallen by 2% since wholesale costs peaked in 2008, while the wholesale gas price had declined by more than 40%.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "While, on behalf of consumers, we are disappointed in the decision taken by SSE to increase their gas prices, this is a decision for the company which must compete for customers in the marketplace.

"Consumers should therefore continue to assess regularly whether they are getting the best energy deal for them and to take steps to switch supplier and tariff if not."

(article courtesy of BBC)

Domestic customers should check their own energy and see if they are getting a good deal by checking http://www.getmecheapbills.com

Utility Supply and Metering Work

One of the areas in which Phoenix Energy specialise is the provision of utility supply to new build, refurbished and converted buildings.

We organise everything from the initial applications, organising quotations and payments, organising site visits and the scheduling of work to meet our clients requirements. Finally we organise meter appointments and register the meters to the appropriate company, indevidual or organisation. Phoenix Energy have organised over 800 metered supplies at dozens of site, predominately across the North East but also in Yorkshire, London and Manweb areas.

Working with the utility infrastructire providers can be very tiring and stressfull and we take away alot of hassles from architects, site managers, foremen, contractors and site owners - allowing them to do what they are good at (and are paid for!) building houses and making money.

I have used photos from 2 of our sites to illustrate what we do. The first site shows a small developement of 5 houses in Teeside - this job had stopped because of the recession but my client finished off the building of these houses - we organised all the utility and metering work.


Before. After

The second set of photos shows an onging development of barn conversions into 10 luxury houses in Co Durham. This site is ongoing and now the utilities are provided to the site, the plots will be indevidually sold and completed as self-builds, but with utility provision.

Site Distance from main road

One of the main problems, logistically and in terms of cost was the distance of the development from the utility networks, approx 500 m. All utilities supplies had to be placed in field to left of access road.

before work work ongoing

Street lighting New electricity transformer

Landlord supply for site 63mm gas main

The main road and the distance from the road can be seen in the above photo.

water supply added to trench before backfilling.

first house first house completed - (the gas and water service piping can be seen in the foreground)

The Phoenix Energy consultancy work on the above 2 projects assists the developers in the completion of their property developements. This compensates for the cost of the work many times over as any problems or delays with the utilites can have major effects on the construction timetables, leading to massive cost overruns.

We can be contact for this type of work on 0800 458 6460 or direct to John Lewins on 07974 387 218.

Green Energy - Somes Obscure and Interesting Facts

At Phoenix Energy we believe very strongly in ethical values and sustainable energy. We have a range of green products from major suppliers to meet the needs of our environmentally conscious customers. We supply renewable energy to business customers using energy from EDF and for our domestic customers our website http://www.getmecheapbills.com has renewaable energy from all of the leading suppliers and also an excellent deal from OVO energy.

There are some interesting and thought provoking links below. (taken from Greenpeace)


Wind could meet 12% of global power demand by 2020, and up to 22% by 2030.

Subsidies to fossil fuels worldwide outweigh renewable energy support by a ratio of 12:1.

On November 9th, 2009, Spain generated more than half its electricity demand with wind power.

A project is underway 2 deliver one sixth of Europe's electricity fm solar plants in the Sahara by 2050.

Price Waterhouse Cooper says Europe and North Africa could run on 100% renewable energy by 2050.

China built (roughly) one windmill an hour in 2009.

Wind overtook coal as the third-largest producer of power in Spain in 2009.

The annual market for renewable technology will rise fm appx US$100 billion today, to $600 bn+ by 2030.

Europe DECOMMISSIONED more coal, fuel oil and nuclear capacity than it installed in 2009.

Solar energy is now working at night on a commercial scale. A plant in Spain has seven hours of heat storage.

The global financial crisis didn't stifle the US wind power market: it grew by 39% in 2009.

China become the largest investor in clean energy in 2009, investing $16 billion more than the US.

Concentrated Solar Power plants focus the suns rays with mirrors at temperatures which melt steel.

The world's largest wind farm is in Texas.

Geothermal power provides 10% of New Zealand's electricity needs.

Iceland's power supply went from 75% imported coal to more than 80% local geothermal and hydro in 30 years.

In the space of just 5 years, Portugal's electric grid leapt from 15% to 45% renewables.

Concentrated Solar Power could employ 200,000 people by 2020, 2.1 million by 2050.