Quote Originally Posted by islaydarkblue View Post
There is nothing wrong with the companies that produce the electricity and gas.
The system worked fine in Scotland where SSE and Scottish Power were both electricity generating and billing companies.
The main problem lies with allowing people set up electricity and gas billing companies in their own home which were hopelessly under capitalised and were purchasing electricity and gas from the wholesale markets on a daily basis.
That is fine when prices are stable but when gas and electricity prices on the wholesale spot market greatly increase in price these billing companies go bust because their customers are linked into annual contracts at a much lower rate.
Agree. I still think that there is an argument for state ownership of energy and water companies.