why should energy consumers be paying towards the bail-out of Bulb at an estimated cost of £150/household?
They shouldn't the companyv should have folded and investors should have taken the loss. The customers moved to a debt free supplier of last resort if no commercial supplier was found.
I don't know exactly what happened to bulbs customers, did their fixed deals stand? If then my suggestion would have cancelled them reducing the cost to other households.
Hmmm – I don’t know if that explanation in Money Week is deliberately misleading or just poorly written but it seems like “I buy this fuel at £50 a unit and I charge you £100 a unit but you only pay me £97 a unit so Im actually making a loss
It makes perfect sense to me when read in conjunction with the graph on the same page.
More like “I buy this fuel at £40 a unit, it costs me another £29 to ship it to you. I pay a £5 in ESG and other costs and my operating costs are £20. You pay £100 of which £4.79 is VAT. My margin is £1.21” and this is still overly simplified.
Although reality in recent months is the wholesale prices have gone up so for many the margin has gone slightly negative. Currently I know of two large suppliers who are actively reshaping to reduce their operating costs in order to balance the books.
Bulb hasn't offered fixed tariffs so there was none to continue.
The thinking behind Bulbs special administration was that it was the less expensive option. Letting Bulb go through the supplier of last resort process would have meant the new supplier requesting a lot of money from the "slush" fund in order to cover the cost of the unhedged energy needed to support the new customers. This amount was calculated to be worse for everyone than special administration.
They shouldn't be penalised, but why should those that right ahead and had supplier go bust, or those unable to get a fixed deal ahead of time?
It's not about finding a customer most at fault and making them pay. It's about finding a fair way for all to pay for a basic necessity.
