Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
It's not a windfall tax though is it. This is the very thing that Chris alluded to weeks ago.
The cost of generating electricity varies in regards to the means of production. However, the price passed onto the consumer is always pegged at the most expensive.
This is just a move to redress that, and the correct think to do.
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The term comes probably from a quote from RWE but the headline writer seems to have dropped "De facto" from the description.
Quote:
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RWE UK country chair Tom Glover said the measure was a “de facto ‘windfall tax’ on low-carbon generators that, if not designed and implemented correctly, could have severe negative consequences for investment in the renewable and wider energy market”.
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https://www.ft.com/content/f0e1496b-...c-a2c6befffa87
"British low-carbon generators face de facto windfall tax"
---------- Post added at 11:23 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
For me, however, the single most dreadful line in the entire piece is the blatant hint at blackmail from SSE, which wants its hydro plants exempted. If they are not, SSE argues, then it might not be financially worth their while to switch them on at moments of peak demand, and there are then risks to the national grid and energy security. Translation: let us keep gouging the public or we might decide to sit back and watch the lights go off.
Despite my years of right-leaning politics, if I were a government minister in the room when that was put on the table, I’d have been presenting them with my plan to bring their business under emergency state control. And let it be known that that’s what I’d done, with all the amusing knock-on effects for their share price.
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I think from the RWE quote, they're concerned less about the principle and more about the government's competence in executing it.