Sark's electricity price rises to 85p per unit

Channel
Guernsey
Sark
Saturday 28 September 2019 at 5:12pm

People in Sark are now paying more than anywhere else in the world for their electricity as prices rise to 85p per unit.

The price has gone up from 66p per unit.

In comparison people in Guernsey and Jersey pay:

The owner says of the island's only electricity provider says legal costs incurred when negotiating with the island's electricity regulator has led to major losses.

David Gordon-Brown says the only way to recoup losses is through a price hike.

The fall out with the Sark Government over electricity prices nearly saw the company cut the power off last winter. Negotiations went down to the wire and contingency plans were put in place to ensure power to the island.

Mr Gordon-Brown says he does not want to risk the situation happening again so has called for a town meeting in November.

In the first six months of this year, we lost 13.5p per unit. This is partly caused by the drop in consumption, but largely caused by over £10,000 per month of legal costs caused by having to deal with the Price Regulation legislation. Effective with the beginning of this month I have to raise the price of electricity by 13.5p to let us break even, and a further 5.5p to try to recapture some of the losses from earlier this year. So your next bill will show your electricity price at 85p. This price is clearly ridiculous and will be very painful for many, so I am going to call a "Town Hall" meeting when I get back to Sark to discuss the entire situation and let everyone have their say. Hopefully, this will take place in November and we will invite everyone, from the Policy and Finance Committee to those proposing Renewable energy to come and have their say. Everyone will have an equal chance to make their points.