PowerSwitch

Northampton Chronicle & Echo - 27/02/10

A millionaire philanthropist from Northamptonshire has launched a new energy company which he hopes will offer people a fairer price for their gas and electricity.
Matt Stockdale, who lives in Paulerspury, has started up At Cost Energy, a non-profit organisation which will provide gas and electricity straight from the wholesale market, cutting out the middlemen.

The 40-year-old said he has already had more than 10,000 people showing interest in transferring their energy supplier to his company.

Mr Stockdale said: "It riles me when I hear about people who are worried about putting their heating on because they may not be able to afford to pay the bill. It is morally wrong.

"There will be no fat cat bonuses, no flash London offices, no huge director's bonuses and every expenses item we spend will be justified. What I want to get across is that nothing changes about your gas and electricity except the person who appears on the bill.

"Sometimes you need a business solution to fix a political problem."

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Commendable motives but ultimately unsustainable.

I've signed up

me too, could be interesting. The only thing I thought was an interesting question raised by their blurb - do we have a fundamental right to energy?

It will be interesting to see if there is a significant cost saving by going non-profit. I gather that the public utilities on the continent have generally offered higher, but perhaps more stable prices for electricity and gas, compared with the privatised, profit-motivated UK utilities?

The for-profit energy companies don't make much profit, some quarters they lose money! I can't see this (if it actually works) being any more than a few percent cheaper.

goslow wrote:do we have a fundamental right to energy?

Only if it falls from the sky directly onto our heads . . .

I'm skeptical. It's probably a scam to get peoples details or some such. I would not sign up....

goslow wrote: - do we have a fundamental right to energy?

Do we have a fundamental right to anything? Basically , no. But as Andy says, "Only if it falls from the sky directly onto our heads . . ."

"Should we have affordable access to energy, water and food?" is a different question. It depends on the sort of world we wish to live in. Should we provide a basic ration of everything essential at an affordable price and then let people add to that ration at the market rate, as they do in Cuba? Yes, I think we have to do that and it should apply to the basics of life, water food and shelter.

We tend to apply that to our own country but should we apply it world wide? Yes, I think we should because it is the right thing to do and if we don't we end up with tens of thousands of refugees on our doorstep every year.

Should we do it if it means us accepting a lower standard of living? Again, yes we should because we'll still get the refugees which would then make things worse.

Are we going to get a lower standard of living in the future? Yes I don't think we can avoid it. So should we be thinking about rationing? Yes, we have to put plans in place now.

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