Spluttering progress on energy deals

With climate change undoubtedly affecting our weather patterns, the old mantra of no central heating before October appears somewhat redundant.

I’m sure we all have relatives or work in organisations where this rule has often been quoted – and might even be applied to this day – but the huge variations in temperatures means it is impractical to apply in 2017.

It’s clearly wrong for anyone to sit shivering in a cold house/office if the mercury has dropped below seasonal averages, worried about the cost. But it’s also wrong to turn up the dial simply because the calendar has reached a certain date and that’s what always happens.

With the dreaded turning back the clocks just a couple of weeks away, thoughts inevitably turn to cold, dark nights and for many, the long winter worry of energy bills – for some, heating or eating being the dilemma.

But while the Theresa May’s now infamous conference speech last week will be best remembered in years to come as the one where she tried to set out the British Dream but ended up being something of a nightmare, there was one nugget of policy drowned out by the coughing and heckling.

The Prime Minister used her keynote address to unveil plans for a new energy initiative in which 17 million families would see their energy bills on standard variable tariffs capped.

We’ve said before in this forum, we are anything but political. But hurray for common sense. It cannot be right that customers continue to be ‘ripped off’ as she said by the big companies.

But once the throat sweets have taken effect and the conference coughing subsided, we have to hope that the Prime Minister and colleagues in the energy department and private sector continue to pursue this policy and find their voice to shout about it and see that it extends to calling for further initiatives in the renewables sector, saving people money and the planet from its own choking disaster.

*For companies concerned about their tariff and energy provider, here at Syntegra we offer our own energy platform, an automated electricity and gas  procurement tool which gives clients access to the leading energy suppliers, current wholesale market prices, risk management budget forecasting, reporting and pricing suite, providing fully calculated bids to enable you to compare prices on a like for like basis.’