Some may be state owned but they have delivered large dividends to the owners because they are run like private for-profit companies. Labour did nothing about the situation because it was like a hidden tax and we know how much they like tax. Fragmentation and competition leads to duplication of efforts and with it higher costs. Even the dividends paid out by the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust over the years would've been enough to give most recipients solar water heating. Energy saving technology like solar water heating isn't enthusiastically encouraged by interests that depend on profit from people paying for electricity. To make profits electricity needs to be scarce, they have absolutely no interest in securing lower electricity prices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs2s67W2dOg
But electricity prices were always going to rise because we had cheap hydro electricity. The population has become too large to be supported by it without new dams, and the large increases in population brought by immigration demands continual invested in new infrastructure.
timmmay: Meridian charges 11.61c/kwh Line charges 10.06c/kwh
Daily charges of 79.72c (Meridian) and 19.17c (line).
$1.78 electricity authority levy
Economy 24 plan.
Prices include GST
Regarding electricity prices, I see in Australia they are looking at privatizing their electricity, and they are promoting that it wll save people about $250 per year. They may not have seen what has happened in NZ, when we were also sold that line, but it didn't happen, as we are paying more and more for power every year with privatisation.
Ummmm....how do you conclude that privatisation is responsible for our current prices? We pretty we haven't privatised electricity here. The three main generators (circa 75% of generation capacity and most of the retail market) and the national grid are all still government owned.
I'm not, I am just saying that we were sold privatization by them saying we would get cheaper power as a result. When infact that never occurred, and the opposite happened. Prior to privatization I don't believe prices rose anywhere near as fast, and I don't recall people complaining about the price of power. With privatization you have now got more people clipping the ticket, when it used to be run by electricity boards.
At least with electricity, unlike some household costs such as rates, the user has an ammount of control over the situation and I would challenge anyone claiming not to have been able to decrease their power bill over the last five years given the (relatively inexpensive) energy efficiency options available.
stuzzo: At least with electricity, unlike some household costs such as rates, the user has an ammount of control over the situation and I would challenge anyone claiming not to have been able to decrease their power bill over the last five years given the (relatively inexpensive) energy efficiency options available.
If you decrease your usage the power companies up the line rental to make up for it.
stuzzo: At least with electricity, unlike some household costs such as rates, the user has an ammount of control over the situation and I would challenge anyone claiming not to have been able to decrease their power bill over the last five years given the (relatively inexpensive) energy efficiency options available.
If you decrease your usage the power companies up the line rental to make up for it.
To give a more on topic example my previous 3 TVs have been:
I'm not, I am just saying that we were sold privatization by them saying we would get cheaper power as a result. When infact that never occurred, and the opposite happened. Prior to privatization I don't believe prices rose anywhere near as fast, and I don't recall people complaining about the price of power. With privatization you have now got more people clipping the ticket, when it used to be run by electricity boards.
Blaming power prices on privatisation when pretty much all of the generators, retailer and line companies are SOE's (except for Contact) doesn't make much sense,
I'm not, I am just saying that we were sold privatization by them saying we would get cheaper power as a result. When infact that never occurred, and the opposite happened. Prior to privatization I don't believe prices rose anywhere near as fast, and I don't recall people complaining about the price of power. With privatization you have now got more people clipping the ticket, when it used to be run by electricity boards.
1. "Prior to privatization I don't believe prices rose anywhere near as fast" [...] "With privatization you have now got more people clipping the ticket"
But, as I tried to point out, other than for Contact Energy which has less than a quarter of the market, we haven't actually ever had privatisation - so how can this line of argument possibly be true?
2. "you have now got more people clipping the ticket"
Also, re: power boards and lines companies, my understanding is that the trend has been consolidation. So you actually have less people clipping the ticket.
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