Home Hotels Travel Shops Restaurants Theatre Attractions Museums Palaces Parks Photos

WhyWaitForever - London - Energy

This page contains the latest utilities news headlines and links to the energy companies in London, energy information sources and UK Paypoint locations. The energy market is very competitive. For visitors to London the standard electricity supply voltage is the same as in the rest the of United Kingdom that is 240 volts alternating current. WhyWaitForever - London - Energy Help lists the help and emergency telephone numbers for London and the surrounding area.

Public water supply in London is a monopoly activity. Tap water is not only fit to drink but is excellent and probably better than most of the bottled still varieties.

WhyWaitForever - London - Phone contains links to telephone information sources and telephone companies. You may want to review these at the same time.

Remember the new truth of business. It may be perception and not the actual reality but it seems to me that loyal long time customers in these days always get the worst deals ... check it out ... ask your supplier "what discount do I get for being with you for 5, 10, 20 or 40 years ?" ... do let WhyWaitForever know the answer you get back. We might publish here.

We are always very interested in any experiences you may have had with energy companies or even better energy insider gossip and speculation. These are very powerful global companies that we all need. Public opinion leverage through Parliament can still be a major influence.

Paying utility bills

Paypoint services are located in thousands of shops throughout the UK. Paypoint allows pre-payment keys and smartcards to be energised. Paypoint allows utility bills to be paid in these shops.

Paypoint locations: The locations and opening times of all shops with Paypoint.
Paypoint: The Paypoint organisation.

Single utility bill

Servista: Single provider, single invoice and single bill for phone, gas, electricity and more. Accounts can be monitored online. Le Monde on 31 January 2000 reported that Courtney Sheets, Founder wanted to have 100,000 customers in the UK within a year. Servista originally used CPL Industries to supply gas and used Unit Energy to supply electricity. Unit Energy is the UK subsidary of the German company Unit Energy which is a major renewable electricity company. In January 2001 Servista received funding from a consortium including TXU - Europe . Eastern Energy a TXU Europe company now supply electricity and gas to Servista customers.
Virgin Energy: Single online bill for electricity and gas. Accounts can be monitored online. Partnered (75% Virgin - 25 % LE) by London Electricity who in turn are owned by EdF which is owned by the French state. Confused (a little!) as this offering competes with the direct offering from London Electricity.

The above appear to be the leading on-line players though these and those listed below offer a variety of on-line accounts.

It is worth checking (as always) what exactly is meant by an online account. Common sense would dictate you could put in your meter reading, press the submit button, your account would be instantly updated, you are told how much time you have left before you need to pay and if you have run out of time you confirm you are happy to pay....maybe.....if it worked like this you could tackle all those tricky homework questions. "How much electricity does it take to boil an egg?".....if it worked like this you could maybe better budget and maybe use less energy inefficient appliances. We will see if we are dealing with smoke and mirrors or if we get something that is real progress.

Initial impressions are that if you access the Internet through a dial-up modem (as most residential energy buyers do) these sites can be very slow since the sites both contain many images and seem to need to continually access databases. Unfortunately the sites do not appear to have been designed with accessibility in mind. Use Bobby to check for yourselves. The old trick of turning off images and switching to text-only mode to speed things up fails since lots of vital header text is hidden in images.

On-line security appears perhaps to be an issue to be considered with more depth than has been previously. As reported in the computer press there have been concerns raised with PowerGen, Barclays, Bloomberg, Woolworths and Safeway. At WhyWaitForever we have credit and debit cards that we ONLY use for remote transactions. These are linked to closely controlled accounts with small limits for spending. We would avoid using our main credit and debit cards online.

Electricity and gas

It seems best to both shop around and change supplier frequently. A customer should sign up for a service with a notice of termination period as short as possible and with no penalty on termination.

AEP: A major US energy company who previously owned a major part of Yorkshire Electricity and now owns.
SEEBOARD: The major electricity supplier in the south east of England.
Amerada: A US owned company with an Internet only gas tariff.
British Gas: The large company which was previously the monopoly gas supplier now owned by the (rebranded) public company Centrica plc and which demerged it's infrastructure technology businesses as Lattice plc.
EdF: The monopoly French company owned by the French state who owns.
London Electricity: The major electricity supplier in London and the company that many still know as LEB which it was prior to privatisation in 1989.
SWEB: The major electricity supplier in the south west cost of England.
MidAmerican Energy Holdings: The US energy company who owns.
Northern Electric & Gas: The major electricity supplier in the north of England.
Innogy: A UK publicly owned company which was demerged from National Power in October 2000 which in turn was previously formed from the larger part of the privatisation of the CEGB and who now owns.
Independent Energy: The previously UK publicly owned company which ran into a spot of billing bother and called in the receivers on 8 September 2000.
Midlands: The dominant electricity supplier in the Midlands.
NPower: The electricity supplier set up by National Power on privitisation.
Yorkshire: The dominant electricity supplier in Yorkshire which was previously owned by AEP.
Powergen: A UK publicly owned company formed by the smaller part of the privatisation of the CEGB who merged with US energy company LG&Energy who owns.
East Midlands: The major electricity supplier in the east midlands.
Powergen: The electricity and gas supplier who had spot of bother after revealing some details about some of it's online customers.
Scottish and Southern: A UK publicly owned company who owns.
Southern Electric: The major electricity supplier in the south coast of England.
Scottish Hydro-Electric: The major electricity supplier in the north of Scotland.
SWALEC: The major electricity supplier in South Wales.
Scottish Power: A UK publicly owned company who owns.
MANWEB: The major electricity supplier in Merseyside and North Wales.
TXU: A major US energy company with headoffices in Texas who owns through their TXU - Europe subsidary the companies listed below. Many customer services functions have been outsourced to Vertex. Some online payment services are being handled by Girobank BillPay.
24seven: 50 % of the major electricity distributor in London and East Anglia.
Eastern Energy: The major electricity supplier in East Anglia and parts of London.
Norweb: The major electricity supplier in the north west of England.

The following UK organisations develop and operate generating capacity.

BNFL: The major UK nuclear fuels operator.
International Power plc: A UK publicly owned company which was demerged from National Power in October 2000 which in turn was previously formed from the larger part of the privatisation of the CEGB. The company constructs and operates power plants.

The following two organisations are responsible for the bulk distribution of electricity and gas in the UK.

National Grid: The major UK electricity distributor whose pylons despoil many country views.
Transco: The major UK gas transporter whose gasometers despoil many town views.

History repeats. The inevitable tide of mutualisation which is just beginning in the water industry will sweep over the energy industry. Together with mutualisation there will be a myriad of small energy companies each with their own little CHP generator. Areas will suffer from uneven performance. Inefficiencies will be rife. An opposition will clamour for nationalisation to tackle the old and cold in low population density areas. The financial services industry will rake in yet another £20 billion in consultants fees reversing what they advised previously when they recommended mutualisation and reversing what they advised previous to that when they advised privatisation and ......

Outside London within the countries of Europe and elsewhere liberalisation (privatisation) continues at various speeds. The EU countries in electricity for example attempt to follow EU Directive .

EdF: The giant from France.
E.ON: The giant from Germany.
Endesa: The giant from Spain.
Enel: The giant from Italy.

Oil

For heating the fuel of choice is gas. The next most popular is electricity. Oil follows a distant third. WhyWaitForever - London - Cars contains links relevent to cars and petrol for cars.

BP: The UK owned giant now "beyond petroleum" company.
Exxon: Exxon / Mobil is the largest. It has the ESSO tiger brand.
Shell: The Royal Dutch / Shell owned company.
Texaco: The US owned major company.
TotalFinaElf: The French owned recently merged company.

Combined Heat and Power, Landfill and Biomass Gas

There are increasing numbers of district heating schemes that are being planned and implemented using CHP. Local Authorities and Housing Authorities are looking more favourably on these schemes.

CHP: UK Association who promote the wider use of CHP systems.
CLP Energy: Power generation from landfill gas.
CPSL: Combined Power Systems who specialise as CHP providers.
Fibrowatt: Power generation from poultry litter and biomass.
LondonWaste: Recycling and energy from waste in north London.
Organics: Power generation from landfill gas.

Solar Energy

Very very rarely on roofs of homes and offices a few elusive solar panels can be seen. London has the sunshine. Perhaps planning permission and building regulation consents inhibit.

ISES: International Solar Energy Society.
UK SES: UK Solar Energy Society.
Solar Century: A UK company implementing solar energy systems.
Solar Design: A UK supplier and installer of energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly heat & power systems.

Wind Power and Wave Power

Probably the closest this energy source will get to London is on the dangerous sand and mud flats in the River Thames Estuary.

National Wind Power: National Wind Power owned by Innogy.
BWEA: British Wind Energy Association.
EWEA: European Wind Energy Association.
Wavegen: Power generation from seas and oceans.

Water

Public water companies enjoy monopolies in their fiefdoms. When I was growing up near the river we were made aware of the dangers of flooding including which hills we would run to. Legging it to Primrose Hill always struck me as a tad tricky. The River Thames Barrier was to protect us and see us dry into the next Millenium. Well the new Millenium is here. Let us see if the storm drains and the river defences can protect us from the more variable weather to come. In some ways I look forward to the frost fayres and massive storms that have periodically crashed into these islands around every ninety years or so since Roman times. It used to be said 90 years good 90 years bad. I must go through old newspapers some time to see what evidence there is for this.

RWE: A major German utilities company formerly known as Rheinish-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk who owns.
Thames Water: The major public water supplier in London.
Vivendi: A major French utilities company who owns.
Three Valleys: A public water supplier in North London.

Advice and Education

CREATE: Organisation for energy education in the UK.
Datamonitor: A major groups that monitors a number of sectors including energy.
Electricity.com: Global electricity news from a US perspective.
FT Energy: Analysis from the leading UK financial information source.
Gas.com: Global gas news from a US perspective.
OFGEM: UK Government Office of Gas and Electricity Markets.
OFWAT: UK Government Office of Water Services.
Electricity Association: Links to electricity companies.
US DOE EIA: US Government Energy Information, Department of Energy.