More often part of the problem than the solution, Ofgem is turning round to accuse electricity network companies of putting customers at an "unacceptable" risk of power cuts as they try to maintain Britain's ageing pylons and wires. Having had Christmas rather spoiled by a six-hour power cut, with lunch reduced to cold turkey (pre-cooked, with no power to reheat it) and mashed potato, we would be the last to dispute this. The village is now reminiscent of a World War I battlefield – holes have sprung up all over the place as the electricity company searched for the faults (one pictured this morning after a recent fall of global warming).

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"...without having a plan agreed with Ofgem in place to rectify the matter," she says.

We are not sure what exactly that means..."

One,if there's a magical thing called a plan in place,all responsibility is avoided as WE HAVE A PLAN!
Much as previous generations believed in Holy Relics,modern bureaucrats believe in Plans.

Second,it's another power grab as Ofgem wants more authority to decide-and less accountability-and in a time of possible budget cuts,it "proves" how important Ofgem is and why it really,really needs more money.

Stephen - exactly. Power utilities are accountable to their owners and their customers. Ofgem are accountable to no-one. So the utility managers inform Ofgem of any risk to customers, and Ofgem absolveth them of responsibility.

Bit like Heathrow really - BAA clearly informed the government of its incapacity to deal with snow. That done, final responsibility lay elsewhere.

Future electricity requirements, then there's the new train service from London to the Midlands that will go so fast it will 'improve' our lives! I wonder if anyone has thought to allow for the extra power required for this, or thanks to the coalition will it have to rely on windfarms for 25% of its needs?

Re 'Haggis Eaters'

I was amused to be told, some years ago, that Scots are known as Porridge Wogs in the army.

Sheesh!....what a tale of woe.....and through it runs the leitmotif discussed here some few days ago...the call-center complex of being passed endlessly to the next button-pressing non-solution. The ignoring of the burgher/taxpayer until s/he gives up. Oh to be in England!

It shan't require any additional generating capacity as the train's skin will be made entirely of photo-voltaic cells and wind generators will be attached to all signal gantries and catenary supports. Additional power will come from the hot air generated by the TOC's PR department and, in emergency, passengers will be 'incentivised' to push the thing from London to Birmingham, or t'other way, with commensurate benign 'impact' on the nation's Health and Wellbeing index.

It's going to be great and I can't wait to shave twenty five seconds, at a cost of ten thousand million pounds per second, from the journey time between the two cities, even though I never visit one and rarely visit the other. I just wish all you knockers would stop being so negative and get behind the visionaries leading us to a wonderful, shiny, happy clappy, all inclusive, multiculti new-age future.

Beam me up Scotty.

The following is an extract from the Telegraph article:-
"Britain’s electricity network industry is in a state of flux since some large utility companies have been looking to offload the heavily regulated assets. EDF sold its electricity network to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing for an unexpectedly high £6bn earlier this year."

This seems to highlight the problem of selling off our utilities to those who have no particular interest in looking after the British people. Perhaps the government should have kept a 'golden share' to prevent it - but no doubt this would have been against the EU rules.

I think you have the measure of the beast ... we are just numbers on a spreadsheet ... to be milked for cash. They owe us nothing ... we owe them nothing.

Call me paranoid............ or is it that, I have a dark loathing of anything to do with the EU.

I sometimes think, that every edict, law and diktat issued by the EU: is used to pull this country and the fabric of this (once great) nation down.

Which leads me to beg the question, why or what is it, that they (Germans and French mainly) hate or fear about us so much?

Walk down any street on a weekend evening, we are a fearsome brawling bunch and always ready for a battle but we had/have many other noble attributes too, one is - we despise authoritarianism, in all it's shapes and forms, this they know in Westminster and in Bruxelles' gilded palaces, they still fear the British, they still fear our innovation, our wayward ways and practices, in war and peace.

The other question is, when will we stir or has the re-education/dumbing down/emasculation/homogenisation gone too far? A walk through any part of West Yorks and North West + Lancs and sometimes you wonder where Britain has gone, the Socialists have made good the work of the EU.

Can we come back?

Attention all Passengers.

Scotty no longer services your requests. He offloaded the transport section to an heir of a quadrillionaire on the Sino-Russian Border fifteen years ago, and upbeaming is now handled by our agents in Frogland. However, they are presently experiencing the increase in demand that was predicted by our past computer model, and the blue-rinse demographic - especially in the anglosphere - is causing an even greater glut than expected. This is because some customers changed their hair-colour preferences, and have not upgraded their software, or taken direction from the appropriate online officers, or admitted that they are still booming babies.

Therefore, the academie francaise rejects all transport requests that are not from frogland, and is routing you through Timbuctoo. Our agents there will be with you shortly, but customers who cannot wait should contact their social services. Local officers are authorised to arrange for dispatch at a facility that has an appropriately multicultural management, and where the dust raised by floor cleaners is cheaper than vaccines. Rest assured, antibiotics will be withheld.

I was amused to be told, some years ago, that Scots are known as Porridge Wogs in the army.

WilliamGruff

Or in my day - the Jock Cong. I ought know - we were the Viet Taff.

What is abundantly clear is that the sanctions applied to utility companies by the lacklustre and cosy Sir Humphrey quangocrat "regulator" Mafia are utterly ineffective at disciplining said outfits when they under perform or plain do wrong. There is a speculative billing epidemic and those wildly inaccurate variable rate direct debits have a strange way of targeting pensioners in my experience. Financial performance is important but in many cases it seems that profits are taken at the expense of customers and return business. I tend to think of the extremes like a victorious African revolution "nationalising" supermarkets and simply selling off the shelf and freezer contents....

The non performance sanctions should apply simultaneously up the management tree to board level and especially to director's emoluments/bonuses in addition to the net profits. Otherwise they simply thicken the salami slices of costs and add it to our bills and the PR department hoses a load of hogwash out to cover.

Underinvestment has characterised UK utilities and infrastructure provision for years - BAA was essentially bled dry before being flogged off to the Spaniards, the water companies, power generation and distribution, the railway network ... the list is seemingly never ending but characterised by incompetent and greedy management who generally don't have much experience of the actual business to hand or track record of actually performing.

Let's get this straight - the UK utilities free market isn't working - because it isn't and is unlikely ever to actually be a free market many utilities have been natural monopolies - and they prefer it that way.

We actually now possess a variety of engineered tools to break some of the monopoly suppliers. The capacity of the political classes to grasp the possibilities is unfortunately very limited indeed and we could head down the slippery slope of degenerating utilities until we conform to the Nigerian model - which I have witnessed at first hand and honestly, once the slide has started I suspect it's difficult to stop.

An uncomfortable truth that I like tormenting Guardian readers with is well, sort of an inversion of the offshore windmill model.

I guess we will just have to take control back?


As regards Scotland relying on French power, it looks like we all do... And maybe Scotland wouldn't have to, if it stopped exporting electricity to England.

System Transfers

N.Ireland to Great Britain: -452MW
France to Great Britain : 994MW
27/12/2010 20:00:00 GMT

North-South: 4794MW
Scot - Eng: 204MW
25/12/2010 23:21:00 GMT

http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electric ... mand24.htm

(I'm not too sure what the negative transfer from N Ireland means... )

Moonrakin

In other words, the same old shit that we saw here ...

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/12/churning.html

And what do we do about it?