Emergency Plumber Comments on British Gas Surge Announcement
Warrington, Cheshire (PRWEB UK) 1 March 2013
It has been reported this week that Centrica, the owner of the UK’s largest energy firm, British Gas, made profits of £2.74 billion in 2012, at a time when consumers had to use more energy than normal to cope with the cold weather. Responding to the recent increase in the cost of energy, the team at Emergency Plumber are concerned that consumers will be forced to cut corners in a bid to save money.
Centrica is running the gauntlet of anger among consumers after it announced that the British Gas residential arm of the company made profits of £606 million last year, despite a fall in customer accounts. The managing director of Centrica commented that the general trend for energy prices is still increasing but suggested that household bills won’t necessarily rise if energy use is controlled.
The profit margins seen by the UK’s biggest energy supplier are bound to raise questions about the fairness of the industry-wide price hikes which the ‘big six’ energy companies recently revealed.
Before the Centrica profit announcement was made the company commented that they had put billions of pounds worth of investment into the UK energy industry, putting an emphasis on the 40,000 people employed by British Gas in the UK.
The chief executive of Centrica, Sam Laidlaw, spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme where he said that the company’s margins actually went down. He also acknowledged that current economic conditions mean that times are hard for households in the UK, but would be not be led into a discussion about Centrica “shielding” customers from further price rises. He also commented that they would continue to invest in green energy and the UKs energy infrastructure.
British Gas announced their 6 per cent increase in gas and electricity prices in November, which was slightly lower than the rises seen by the other big five energy firms. In comparison EON gas and electricity prices rose by 9.4 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively and EDF energy prices rose by 10.8 per cent for both gas and electricity.
The team at Emergency Plumber are used to fixing a variety of problems on customer central heating systems. And they are aware that the recent price rises may have an impact on the frequency of servicing of central heating systems and boilers and the frequency of the replacement of out-dated systems, which may be detrimental to the government’s drive for greener and more efficient usage of energy.
It remains to be seen if energy prices will continue to rise, but it’s clear that the profit revelations will be difficult for many customers to stomach and will act as a wake up call for anyone who hasn’t checked their current energy tariff recently.
http://www.emergencyplumber.uk.com provides emergency plumbing services across the UK. Their emergency Gas Safe registered engineers can fix a variety of faults on domestic plumbing and central heating systems.
Attribution – Reuters – http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/27/centrica-results-idUSL6N0BR1PI20130227
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