OVO plan to fend off energy bill crisis: the best of a bad bunch?
Energy bills: yes, it’s the same image This Site has used several times before. Gets the point across, though – doesn’t it?
Ask what should be done to save millions of households from poverty as energy bills spiral upwards and there’s no point listening to the politicians.
Scottish Power boss Keith Anderson has proposed freezing bills already.
Now Ovo energy has published a 10-point plan to deal with the crisis in the short, medium and long term.
Headline point is a request for the government to create a “tariff deficit fund” from which households can be subsidised – and to which they would have to repay the cost in the future.
It would be progressive, and Ovo suggests limiting the number of subsidised units of energy households receive, claiming richer households typically use more.
Other ideas include:
Short-term plans
- Bring forward the £400 energy rebate
- Increase funding for debt advisory charities
- Set up a fuel Poverty Task Force to identify households most at risk
Medium-term plans
- Abolish the prepayment meter “penalty”, which sees prepayment customers paying more than those on direct debit
- Subsidise bills though a Tariff Deficit Fund, which would be repaid over several years
- Abolish the standing charge that customers pay
- Mobilise a national effort to insulate UK homes
Long-term plans
- Establish a single strategic buyer for all the UK’s energy needs.
- Bring back the Department of Energy and Climate Change
- Introduce a carbon tax
So what do you think? Are these good ideas?
You can read the full plan on: OVO Energy
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Don’t be daft ovo energy isn’t helping but to string out the debt we owe ouch until that day they taken back into government hands
The ideas are excellent and, to be fair, they are as much as a supplier could possibly do. Suppliers are being allowed to take the blame in the eyes of many of the public when it’s nothing to do with them. The government could simply cap the price of the oil and gas extracted from the North Sea and remove the issue, or tax those profits to a ‘reasonable’ level. The fact they haven’t means they’ve made a choice to allow obscene profits ahead of human life. We should NEVER forget this, EVER..
None of Ovo’s ideas are good ones because they all ensure impoverished women and men will have to endure years and years of repaying huge debts to the energy companies!
Now here’s an excellent idea fascist tories cancel their proposed latest nuclear fuel site. The billions of pounds saved of our public money being used to build this worthless site can be used to put a cap on the amount of energy those greedy private energy companies are charging. After all it is our public money fascist tories are wasting not their private little money trees!
The French government has put a cap on their energy prices of just 4% so why can’t little fascist tories do the same?
The cash for the nuclear scheme is just a fraction of what would be needed to subsidise the energy prices rise. It’s still worth cancelling the nuclear project and putting the cash into renewables, though.
It makes you wonder how as a company that they will benefit from these proposals, but it shows that they are aware of unfair practices that they themselves have been performing, yet continue doing so.
An example is the prepayment penalty which is supposed to be to compensate for payment transactions but those with a smart meter pay the company direct but still incur the penalty – why?
The standing charge on my OVO bill alone saw an increase of 57.5%. If they really did want to make a difference to my bill, then this is an excellent start. Currently the Standing Charge is 36.11p per day and over 31 days that equates to £11.19 + VAT. It’s a small amount, but it’s better than a kick in the teeth.