An Illusion of Choice? All Power Companies are the same owners at the top?

An Illusion of Choice?

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I was having a very interesting discussion today about power companies and how we have an illusion of choice. Now, in theory it sounds correct and appears we are getting took for a ride and deceived. However, I have no real knowledge of these things so thought I'd post it on ATS so it can hopefully be picked apart and either confirmed or debunked appropriatley

Just to point out I'm in The UK so although the US and other countries do as we do a lot of the time I don't know anything about how it works outside the UK so my post is on the UK Power Companies situation.

So here's how it goes...

We all think we have a choice between Independant power suppliers for our gas and electricity in The UK. However, there are two key points which indicate that we don't have any choice at all, in fact, it appears all these companies are in fact the same one body at the top. These are the two key points...

1. Electricity is never re-routed, even when you change supplier over the phone.
2. All charges and policies stay 99% the same in each company, and change at the same time including charges.

I'll just go into brief detail over those two points..

1. Electricity is never re-routed, even when you change supplier over the phone
So, your tired of paying British Gas and having problems calling their overseas call centers and decide to switch to their rivals Scottish Power. You do all this over the phone, but, no one comes and changes your pipes, re-routes where the electricity comes from etc. etc.

2. All charges and policies stay 99% the same in each company, and change at the same time including charges.
That's true, I've often switched suppliers and have pre paid cars metres and the standing charge always goes up about the same.

I can't remember all the points that we talked about to post here but it seems there's a very good case for this, are all so called competing power companies in the UK the same at the top and really just umbrella companies under someone like The Nation Grid perhaps? Any insight on this would be great

At least you get a choice, even if it's just through smoke and mirrors.
Where I live in the US, where it is supposedly illegal to monopolize, there is no choice, other than to move. If you live at point A, you have X power company. If you live at point B you have Y power company.

i believe that power companies,no matter the name,are run by the same select few...where i live its wierd...i have PENELEC where i live in PA on the border of NY and my electricis reletively cheap...if you go just a mile across the border where it falls under NYSEG it becomes almost 3 times more expensive...i find it to be a joke that there is such a difference in price over such a little distance

reply to post by avatar22


same here..we only have Ameren power out of st louis. If you live in the country I think there is one other company but other than that people who live in town/city have to go with ameren power. All of STL is ameren too I think.

The only phone company is Verizon here. Unless you go with a cell phone which there are several companies but they all charge about 75 bucks/month more or less for service.

only one cable company--mediacom unless you go with direct TV or dish network.

We just don't have choices--and we pay dearly for not having a competitive market...Ameren raises their rates constantly but what can you do??? You either pay them or they shut er' off.

reply to post by lifttheveil


In hypnosis and NLP there is a term called a double bind and the idea is about being given a set of choices which actually don't give you a choice

You would like a tea or a coffee? The non-choice is you will have a hot drink
Do you want to choose supplier X or Y? The non-choice is you have to have a supplier.

Interestingly its been suggested that split personalities are a result of double binds presented by parental figures.

In the UK its a choice between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats except we have a Lib-Con alliance and we booted out Labour but where is the choice now between the parties, all pro-war, all pro-business, all idiots who have lost my trust.

In terms of power companies you seem correct after all nuclear power is considered a clean energy now, just ask Japan is that is true. Also a true choice would be getting off the grid but I don't see governments going for this, plus ties of politicians, lobbyists and the like to energy companies, a bet some have non-exectutive position cross-overs.

Peace

Originally posted by avatar22
At least you get a choice, even if it's just through smoke and mirrors.
Where I live in the US, where it is supposedly illegal to monopolize, there is no choice, other than to move. If you live at point A, you have X power company. If you live at point B you have Y power company.

I hear you mate, so in the states you have a monolopy where each area or region is covered by one supplier, I wonder if all or most of those are owned or connected at the top?

In the UK we're more shrewd then that, there's about 4 major suppliers who are the monolopy and their reach is globally over the whole of The UK (another thing that ties in with the conspiracy)

The problem in The UK is, we are given the illusion that all these power companies are unrelated and competing with each other, there's some heavy marketing going into it as like yours, our power companies are ruthless.

The power companies rig the market here in Blighty. If one puts up its prices they all do! Their favourite trick is to make a big deal about cutting their prices in April when people are turning off their heating for the summer and then massively increase them come November just as the cold weather returns...

reply to post by gdaub23


Similar situation up here. In the city we have a higher rate than in the town. Pretty sure that one is due to the local politicians though but equally just as frustrating. I live 1/2 an hour drive from the hydro plant in Niagara Falls, yet we pay more for electric than the people that live downstate near NYC even though a major portion of the power produced here goes that way. So much for green power as I am not sure how much cleaner you can get than hydro? It's all a scam, by the way doesn't England own National Grid? They are the major player over here other than NYSEG in NYS.

reply to post by jaynkeel


Yep they do, and it's my current understanding that they covertly control all the other so-called competing companies in The UK.