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To: OFGEM

Sensible Energy Tariffs

Fuel poverty has been redefined but is still a national issue. Meanwhile, many domestic energy tariffs incentivise greater energy use by making units above a certain ceiling cheaper than the first units.

Fuel poverty is a social issue. What we need are energy tariffs where a certain minimum quantity of electricity or gas units are at a lower cost - like a decent living wage. Exceed that number of electricity or gas units and the cost per unit should increase.

The proposal could be made revenue-neutral. The Energy Suppliers could still support their heavy infrastructure costs. But there would be encouragement to use less energy, not more.

Why is this important?

Fuel poverty, Climate Policy, Energy Security, Resource Depletion, even the Balance of Payments Deficit and much-needed support for energy efficiency, they all argue that we need to encourage LESS energy use. But we have tariffs that generally encourage more.

Meanwhile billions of our money has been proxied into the complex UK smart meter project for homes, which the Germans decided was a very poor investment.

We could achieve something better, something fairer for society simply by inverting the way that tariffs encourage more energy consumption.

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Updates

2015-05-12 12:41:31 +0100

10 signatures reached