Last week, British Gas failed to have another performance announcement go by without taking a fair old kicking from the UK press, provoking headline of:
British Gas are seemingly being labelled the villains again in the eye of the UK public – it is pantomime season after all!
It’s unsurprising that there are profits and that profits are up. Wholesale energy costs have stabilised massively in the marketplace in 2009, meaning that customers have seen some price reductions but nowhere near to the extent that wholesale prices have come down.
Justifiable – I think so.
For no other reason than the fact that a supplier like British Gas, or even players like it’s parent Centrica, need to make profits. They need to make profits to have a strong and stable business, that can be confident to invest in the UK energy market, from the infrastructure used to pipe and distribute gas and electricity to home owners and small business, right to the need to invest some significant sums into new generation methods, renewable, nuclear and gas (perhaps even a little clean coal).
If Centrica can demonstrate it can invest in the generation and then supply it to an end consumer, on a massive scale, with a strong return, then they’ll get backing from investors. If they can’t demonstrate this, then they probably won’t have the confident to invest.
It’s pretty simple, it’s just a shame that some consumers suffer under excruciatingly high bills.
