Some 600 people have supported a call on social media for a protest launched at the weekend by procurement manager Myles Duquemin.
The price of electricity is due to rise by 8% on 1 July. This follows annual increases for the past few summers of 10% in 2024, 13% in 2023 and 9% in 2022.
‘I’m local. I’ve lived here all my life and my family goes back for as long as anyone can remember, and I’m the kind of person who might have to leave the island because of things like this,’ he said.
‘Since setting up this event, people have contacted me saying that they are starving and dying. Someone said that if this increase goes ahead then they will die. Cancer sufferers and survivors have told me that they’re behind on bills, they’re in debt and that increase will really hurt.’
The States’ Trading Supervisory Board approved the 8% increase but knocked it down from the 9.5% Guernsey Electricity asked for, has also pushed for the utility to find £1.8m. in efficiencies by the end of 2027.
Mr Duquemin, 27, said that the increases were ‘a complete injustice’.
‘I’m hoping that this protest will encourage Guernsey Electricity to review this increase,’ he said.
‘Directors are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds, and receiving bonuses, while families are struggling. There must be a way to absorb some of this increase.
‘I’m hoping for a good turn out. So far almost 600 people have said that they’re interested, but even if there’s half of that then I think it will make a statement.’
The protest is being planned for Saturday 14 June at 10am outside Guernsey Electricity’s offices at North Side, Vale.
Guernsey Electricity said it applied for the increase to meet rising import and generation costs, fund essential maintenance of the local network, and begin investment towards future developments as part of the island’s Electricity Strategy.
It intends to start rolling out new metering technology and a mobile app and customer portal to help customers manage their power consumption better.
The STSB also accepted that long-term import price agreements had helped keep local prices much more stable than those seen in the UK since the start of the Ukraine War, and that the company was still addressing an extended period of under-funding as tariffs had been kept ‘artificially low’ for most of the past decade.
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