EDF announces biggest energy price rise yet

EDF are telling porkies. I just received my letter telling me what my increases will be. My electricity standing charge rises by a whopping 131% from 3.01p per day to 6.96 per day. I worked out overall what my increase would be and it comes to over 11% It's easy for me to work out as I have pre-payment meters and I know exactly what goes in. I just happened to see E-on in my local shopping centre today and after a quick talk with them, they have offered me a better price on electricity. Unfortunately I cannot transfer the debt on my gas meter (caused by an ex. who left without telling me he hadn't been paying the DD for months!) but they say that after a few months, they are likely to relax the rule about how much I can transfer. By then I will be able to see if they have increased prices. They agreed not to up rates in 2012, but of course could do so on 1st January, so I will have to wait and see. EDF have always raised prices by as much or usually more than the wholesale price change and have NEVER tracked it when it went down, only a partial decrease so what I was paying per unit versus what it was 2 or 3 years ago is much higher. The Government have to step in now and ensure that energy costs, which fall hardest on the most vulnerable in society pro-rata their overall income, are fair and transparently clear for consumers. Stop dilly-dallying Mr Cameron and act now before the winter hits!

A lot of the energy supply problems can be attributed to lack of government initiative - both this government and the Blair/Brown period. It was known many years ago that several of our power stations are nearing the end of their life - they now only have three years to go - yet no investment initiative has been taken to replace them nor to provide storage for gas so that we could buy it when it was cheap. I can see electricity prices escalating again in 2015 as demand exceeds supply. As a country, we have to realise that the only "endless" source of energy in nuclear, probably supported by wind and wave. It is a safe form of energy when produced from modern power stations. People have been mis-led by mishaps which were the result of some idiotic decisions to allow them to operate past ther "sell-by" date (Russia) or to build them on geographic fault lines (Japan). @Mike10613: My experience of the railways is that the service IS better because we have more comfortable, newer and cleaner trains than BR ever offered us. Telecoms are cheaper than the Post Office (then BT) ever was - BT is still the most expensive and, I think, least co-operative and I shudder to think what the costs would be if they had a monopoly now. I did disagree with the sale of council houses - they were being used by people who could well afford their own house or to rent privately and should have been reserved for the British needy. I think a lot of your rhetoric is based on the old "left" and "right" politics without considering the actual needs of the population of this country. It must be better for the tax-payer if the private sector risks its own money in preference to endless demands for more tax. We have already seen in the last 20-30 years that governments cannot run businesses and nor should they. They should set the targets and the environment that we all want and then ensure that the private sector are MADE to keep to their contracts. r.

Be fair Cam, it's not only EdF jumped on the climate bandwagon, most of the energy companies have as they can make money from recharging their "Green" obligation to the consumer (with profits), get taxpayer subsidies and keep the regulator happy with low carbon nonsense when the Regulator should be protecting the vulnerable from renewables.