States urged to block JEC price rise
Tuesday 30th December 2008, 3:00PM GMT.
THE States are being urged by a former politician to act now to stop electricity prices going up by 25 per cent later this week.
Businessman Lyndon Farnham (pictured) has written to former colleagues asking for an investigation to be held to examine the proposed Jersey Electricity price rises. The JEC’s chief executive, Chris Ambler, said that they would welcome any review but insisted that the increase was justified.
The States own nearly 54 per cent of the JEC and have 86 per cent of the voting rights, even though the company is listed on a London stock market. But Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur said that the States’ shareholding should not be used to intervene in what was an operational matter.
‘If profiteering was taking place, it would be the job of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority to stamp on it,’ he said. ‘The JCRA has approved the price rise as reasonable and I don’t believe it is for us to interfere in such circumstances.’
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“If profiteering was taking place, it would be the job of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority to stamp on it,’ he said. ‘The JCRA has approved the price rise as reasonable and I don’t believe it is for us to interfere in such circumstances.’
JCRA approved the rise back when oil prices were sky high.
The oil prices have since dropped to rock bottom and the JEC are still hitting the Jersey public by 25 %
I suggest we all contact the JCRA and complain.
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Chief Minister does not want to get involved. But a 54% share of 25% increase for the States purse is quite an incentive to leave things alone. But hey thanks for looking. Yours freezingly, Brass Monkey.
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Sparky – you either have the JEC as a private OR public utility. You can’t have it both ways.
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What has the price of Nuclear Generated Power got to do with Oil Prices? The French domestic price wont increase. They av us over zee barrel of huile!!
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oil prices won’t have that much of an impact given the bulk of generation is from france.
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Would be interesting to know how outraged the States would be if they did not own 54% !!!
Surely for an island this size they can only have purchased minimal stocks at higher prices I cannot see how they have any justification for this, they must be made to give a detailed explanation.
EVERYONE should complain and delay paying their bills by at least a quarter …
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Wow! I want a job with the JEC management… imagine the size of their payrises and Bonuses this year!
Who needs GST when you’ve got JEC!
Lights off and candles on! Who needs hot water.. cold showers are good for you apparently!
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Exactly who is the competition to JEC for the JCRA to compare to and exactly how does Chris Ambler justify this ????
GST was bad enough, let alone a maverick price hike on a necessary fuel which appears to have been passed unchallenged ???
Living on an island is wonderful but I never expected that I would be held to ransome in this manner!
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How do the prices in Jersey compare with those in the U.K and the rest of Europe? I have no idea, but based on previous statistics it has got to be higher. Doesn’t Jersey get the bulk of it’s elctricity from France? Surely it should be roughly the same as it costs in Normandy – oh but now we will have the excuse of the pound euro exchange rate……how about cutting out the JEC altogether and getting all the island’s power from France? Hundreds of thousands could be saved not having to pay hundreds of thousands to the greedy executive officers – well we can dream can’t we?
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my family are living on income suppot and the inceese for the jec is rediculace i want to try to studie but can not do this cause the states wont lett us go to college and this because of the price of college course i want to give my family a better life but have been stopted in my trackets
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Well, I certainly cannot afford the 25% increase, so maybe I will sit in the States Chamber during the day and use their heating (all the hot air that arises), offer to pay my bill in installments, and hope and pray that our Chief Minister is warm and comfy in his bed where hopefully he will be able to sleep well with his conscience whilst the poorer amongst us suffer.
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Mm, the first thing is everyone who has any shares in the JEC and is in The States needs to sit this one out. Also anyone doing sub contracting work for the JEC. The price of Electricity is falling in other places, this is how wrong a public private partnership can be. Please allow the figures to be released under a freedom of information agreement let us see what the price of electricity is today and what it was 6 months ago. Freedom of information will set us free.
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If Mr Farnham is a businessman and I take it he was when he was in the States (on the board of 27 companies), then why did he not then or now invest in sustainable energy, it is because of the short sightedness of such people that we are in the mess we are now in.
Where are the windfarms and solar power in Jersey? ~ next to non existent.
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Not going to happen!!
What have our “government” done to help out local people who are struggling to pay the cost of food, heating, rent etc ? Nothing!! They had a meeting earlier this year to discuss the options to help us out. They held a vote to at least think about scrapping GST on food and the outcome was NO.
At least the UK government has taken steps to try and help people who are finding it tough but yet again we get nothing.
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Nuclear power produces huge amounts of energy without burning fossil fuels, so how is the price of oil pushing up the price of the electricity here in Jersey?
In France, where the law has restricted the energy price rise to the inflation rate (5%) in August this year (2008), should raise questions in the States and JRCA about the lack of controls over Jerseys monopolised energy market.
‘When the last fat cat leaves the Island please turn the lights off for good!’
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my partner and I pay £90 a month now for our electricity
we have no children, no radiators
HOW do they justify this?
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Its just pure greed on the behalf of the JEC. Fuel prices are dropping in the uk, but they won’t here, because the JEC has jumped on the bandwagon. Of course the states wont do anything about it because its more money for their back pockets, the same as the supermarket situation.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and now colder.
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The price of electricity generated from France is significantly lower than from the UK as around 75% of their electricity is created from Nuclear.
The question is how much profit does the JEC need as obviously they have NO competition.
The JCRA should look into what is a reasonable profit margin (allowing for need to reinvest in the network) in a zero compettitive environment and seek to target the company to cut prices.
The states should reduce their stake in the JEC as there is a conflict of interest.
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It’s all well and good saying that this is the first rise in 2 years, but I’d rather have a smaller increase each year. Instead we have a huge increase of 25%!!!!!
Come on JCRA, get a move on with opening up the electricity market…all the utility companies for that matter.
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Oil prices and nuclear prices ARE linked by demand. If oil prices rise then demand for nuclear increases thereby increasing nuclear prices and the French are only going to sell to the highest bidder.
Unfortunately (and I’m guessing here) it looks as if the JEC negotiated their deal when oil was forecast to remain well above $100 per barrel. No one saw the credit crunch or recession leading to a massive fall in oil prices and the JEC made the wrong decision at the time with information they had at the time.
It sounds like we have all come cropper to the risks involved with settling fixed prices – much like a fixing a mortgage only to see interest rates plummet. Some you win (like we have over the last 3 years) some you loose like it looks we will over the next 3 years.
The JCRA have the power to prevent price hikes by utilities. It is up to them to decide whether the price hike is justifiable based on the decisions made by JEC at the time they settled the price deal. However the States should consider whether to subsidise (rather than intervene) like they would have if oil was reaching $180 a barrel and food prices were rocketing.
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Ok so everyone is going to be affected by this – SO what are we agoing to do about it.??
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its only 25 percent, i think every should chill out and just live life!
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Cold forces OAPs to live in one room.
A heading in Wednesdays JEP.
This is Jersey, one of the richest countries in the world yet our OAPs are suffering while the JEC and the JCRA allow bills to rise by 25%
Since the cost of living went up, all utilitys up, credit crunch etc all our government can do is sit there and refuse to accept what is happening.
Mr Chief Minister, dont ignore the poorer section of Jersey in 2009.
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mark jersey should rightly so be embarrassed as 1 of the richest countries in the world cannot even look after pensioners,who if they are anything like me worked long hours 6 days a week sometimes nights(3 christmas days off in 30 years)for very little reward and worked even if sick as you coul,nt afford not to.paid social security for 49 years and get no winter weather allowance like the uk even british people living in sunny spain still get the winter fuel allowance because like us they paid for it,we actually built the foundations for future generations and now we have retired we are at home for long periods of time trying to put off using heat as it so expensive,unless you go cap in hand and beg we,ve paid our way so why is this means-tested ?jersey is a 100 light years behind the times and indeed they should be ashamed of themselves
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I already suggested this on a previous forum, but why doesn’t the JEC fire up its old oil generator, now that the price of oil is low?
This has got to be cheaper most of the time than Nuclear power whose price was agreed when oil was £100 a barrel.
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I too pay £95 per month (even during the summer when heating wasn’t needed). I haven’t had a review of my payments for quite some time and now find myself with a generous credit in my JEC account……this will now be eaten up by the 25% increase!! Maybe JEC planned this a lot longer ago than they announced!
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While I don’t like idea of the price rising (I am a home owner before asked)
You arnt just paying for the raw electricity to your home. There is the cost of maintaining/upgrading the network and everything that goes with this. Real people work for the JEC these people like all of us expect their wage to meet cost of living pensions to be paid to etc.
It is not for the JEC to decide what happens to OAPs, its the governments fault these people are in the dire situation they are.
Like I stated at the start i’m not for a rice in price. But needs must as business like this requires. Who’s going to start moaning when blackouts happen because the JEC can’t afford to run properly?
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Roger, that price increase will also affect every business on the island – watch out for all your bills to rise (including food) and then come back to us all with that comment.
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Oh – just checked uswitch – for once it looks like we get a pretty good price on our electricity
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James, a cynic might suggest that the JEC will not generate their own electricity by burning fossil fuels because they’ve painted themselves into a corner by aggressively marketing themselves as the “lowest CO2 fuel” provider. All very well if the cost of doing so doesn’t disadvantage the monopolised consumer too dearly, but the gamble with hedging against Oil/Gas costs has been lost – at least this time round.
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Now a 25% increase of the basic necessity of electricity for every island household on top of the untimely introduction of GST, which is effectively a tax on top of shipping and unit costs for every commodity, which are equal to and above UK VAT. I wonder how small Jersey retailers will survive. Their shipping costs cannot compete with bulk container loads of the supermarkets, who do not offer choice.
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Pacey – why don’t you have a look at then article posted previous to this one (about 2 weeks ago now) where it was known that the JEC have made huge net profits
then say they won’t be running properly :p
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Of course the biggest gainers from keeping prices low would not be pensioners or the poor but businesses and those who consume a lot of electricity (the wealthy for example, and those who don’t care about the environment). They would do so at the expense of the JEC shareholders – ie the people of Jersey, you and me. The correct mechanism is for the JEC to charge the true cost of electricity to all, and then for the States to redistribute this to the needy through raised pensions and taxcuts…
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“Real people work for the JEC these people like all of us expect their wage to meet cost of living pensions to be paid to etc.”
Pacey – what world do you live in – my and many other workers on this Island do not have Jersey inflation added to their wages.
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Lula
Where do you think those profits go, the shareholder/owner! The states for instance increasingly want more money out of their assets this leaves the asset needing to make more to keep more for it self.
Hedley
Notice how I said expect, like my of us do! and apart from that comment i’m not going to get in to an argument with you about whether a company should be paying its staff cost of living or not.
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Pacey – shareholders have things called dividends which is set depending on how well the company is doing and is usually a percentage of the profits after all expenses have been paid.
the company does not give all profits to the owner – it actually only gives a small percentage of profits so no they are just being greedy – why? because they can!
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