Energy Bills To Rocket By 2020
By Paul Homewood
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has set up a new website to campaign against what it calls the “Energy Swindle”. As a part of it, they have included a widget to calculate how much of your energy bills in energy taxes and renewable surcharges and subsidies.
(To be fair, I should point out they include VAT, which is 5%. Strictly speaking, this cannot be counted as a “green tax”, and would have to be raised in other taxes if it was cancelled).
Based on my bills, I am paying £189 pa in green taxes this year, and the total bill is forecast to rise by another £406 pa, or 29%, by 2020. [In other words, green taxes will increase from £189 to £595]
Note, this increase does not reflect inflation, or a rise in wholesale energy costs – it is simply the extra costs imposed by government policies.
By 2030, this extra cost is predicted to have risen to £1400 pa. In other words, expect your energy bills to double as a direct result of govt policy.
Not only will this hit householders, it will also have a profound impact on industry. None of this, of course, will come as any surprise to most of us, as even the government themselves have told us that the cost of the Climate Change Act would be enormous.
Perhaps people might now start to believe them.
The full detail on the TPA website is linked below. Log on, pour yourself a whisky, sit down and prepare for a shock!
Then write to your MP.
http://energyswindle.org/about/
Update
Just to clarify, it is the total bill that is going up by 29%, not the green tax part of it.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Based on my bills, I am paying £189 pa in green taxes this year, and the total bill is forecast to rise by another £406 pa, or 29%, by 2020
189 * 2 = 370 that is 100% increase
How is going to 406 only a 29% increase? Please shed some light.
Sorry, I should have made it clearer.
It is the total bill that is going up by 29%, not just the green tax part of it!
I’ll rephrase the article.
Reblogged this on Cornwall Wind Watch and commented:
excellent work as ever by the TPA
Thanks for the link Paul, I have sent the missive to my MP one Natascha Engel. This is not my first email to Natascha Engel but it has, this time, at least; solicited acknowledgement of receipt. Previous emails have just disappeared into the ether.
Being a pragmatic soul and knowing Ms Engel’s so far demonstrated desire for political conformity I have mentally written the reply. It will contain a lot of concern about the future of which they are certain of and very little about the present, about which they are at a total loss.
I await the resultant “pdf” (politically directed flam/fob off)
Of course, to retain a sense of proportion, you might ask how much was due to green taxes and how much was due to increases in fossil fuel prices. And who should you ask? Some might suggest a web site with a pretty obvious agenda. Others might prefer the official figures just recently presented to Parliament which show that gas prices are mainly responsible. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmenergy/108/108.pdf
It’s interesting that you admit that VAT would have to be made up from other taxes, but don’t acknowledge that the same would happen if other energy taxes would be cut. The government would get the money anyhow.
BTW I notice the Energy Swindle site doesn’t mention the merit order effect whereby renewables lower the wholescale price of electricity… wouldn’t do to show the benefits as well as the costs of renewables would it?
Here’s the thing: renewables are getting cheaper all the time: fossil fuels aren’t. By the time you’ve built gas-powered electricity generating plant, it will be undercut by renewables and stand idle most of the time. That’s why the big generating companies are not investing in new conventional plant to any great extent. They know that in the medium term they will lose money on their investment.
What you are doing with your quixotic tilting at windmills is creating a flip-flop in government policy that leads to uncertainty. Because of this uncertainty the necessary investment to replace the UK’s generating capacity is not being made. This will lead to reduced energy security in a few years. If the lights go out, you will probably blame renewables, but in fact it’s you who are directly contributing to the lack of investment who will be to blame, but I bet you don’t acknowledge it.
Although referred to as “green taxes”, they are not paid to the govt. They are surcharges to pay for renewable subsidies. The same sort of subsidy that makes Germany’s electric 68% dearer than ours.
The TPA figures are specifically based on the effect of govt policies, not any changes in market prices.
The rest of your comment is just bluster and idle speculation.
PS The Parliament report you refer to comes up with almost the exact same figures as the TPA do.