Thursday, February 9, 2012

the sell-off of the state-owned power companies will see power prices rise - but is that a bad thing?

Obviously if you're an average wage earner dreading what this winter's heating bill will be, you'll think so; but the fact is a lot of people could use energy more efficiently than they do: for example, poor home insulation, old appliances that use more energy than new replacements would, leaving appliances on standby when they could be switched off.

More significantly, the attractiveness of generating your own power through solar panels will increase. At present you are often looking at 7 years or more before the savings in power bills pay the cost of installing the panels.  But if power prices rise, this payback period will shorten, and after that you're ahead.

Less power used by consumers will mean more is available for industry and transport.

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