To really care about the cost of energy on a national basis, in most cases. when the price was very high, industry was turning off, households were turning off not always in a good way, but that actually did lead to less pressure on the system. what about energy bills here in the uk? because as a consumer, i mean, they re awfully high, yes? well, the measures that have been put in place by the regulator, the price cap have, of course, brought the prices down from what they probably would have been otherwise, quite substantially so. but the prices are still, in a european context, they re still very high. britain still has some of the highest energy bills across europe. so, why here in the uk? because the uk is more exposed to those international prices, to some extent, it also has. just the general markets, the energy markets? yes, and there are also some other markets where the protection measures are even stronger, of course, the support that is being given is even larger. and so,
Whether that s in the other pipeline gas supply that we get, or maybe in the weather, or demand related factors. phillip lewis, the big boss of vaasaett, a real pleasure. thanks very much for your time. thank you. another guest we spoke to a year ago said europe better pray for a mild winter, or it could face blackouts. she s the managing director and head of global commodities at rbc capital markets. she also sits on the united states national petroleum council, which advises the american government on its oil and gas strategy. helima croft, a real pleasure having you back on the show. and helima, let me start with this, the big picture. are europe and north america in a better or worse position than last year. i mean, last year, we were worried about a winter of discontent. i mean, remember we were deeply concerned about russia weaponizing energy. we were concerned that europe would have to choose between heating and eating. and a funny thing happened europe got through winter we
More stable feeling, what is going on in the future, i m not really afraid that i have to close my company or lay off people. florian bockermann catching us up on just how one small brewery in germany s heartland managed to get through the energy shock. so, what do european households face this winter? well, to find out, i sat down with the big boss of vaasaett. it monitors the cost of energy bills for every european country, including here in the uk. and their numbers are trusted as the official ones for the industry, and are used when countries put together their energy policy. philip lewis, a real pleasure having you on the show. and philip, let me start with this, because i m just wondering, how extraordinary was the situation that we were looking at last year for european households? absolutely unprecedented. if you look at the amount of price rises, we saw countries typically across europe on average increasing by, or doubling, or in some cases, tripling their prices for ener
Been tested in practice. what remains to be seen is how countries will respond and support others, the solidarity that will be provided in the event that there really are maybe many countries, several countries who are in need of support from the broader system. and that s the challenge that we need to test out. and, of course, while i ve got you, i ve got to ask you the question what is your forecast, the prediction for energy bills this winter? our prediction for the future would be that the prices will stabilise where they are now, which are heavily elevated prices. they could go down, but we re predicting that they probably are more likely to increase than decrease in the short to medium, or longer term especially. and does that vary across the region, if you will? it does. it does vary a lot, with the more expensive countries being, for example, the netherlands, great britain, ireland, italy, some of the baltic countries, as well. at the lower end.
The system might not be able to cope with that. so i think that, whether they ve done enough will only be known probably in about within a year or two s time, but not really until we actually have some of that extreme weather to test it out in practice. and one of the other problems, of course, that we have to remember is that the prices are lower than they were a year ago. they re still high, very high, but they re a lot lower than they were a year ago. and those high prices that we had actually led to lower demand. there was a lot of demand that was reduced by people, by industry because of those high prices. if we lower the prices, even though they re still high, we will have more demand and more to support. all right. it s like a dog chasing its tail. it is, it is. we ve turned off the lights or we ve had less heating on because of the prices those prices come down, we re like, leave the light on, turn the heat up. exactly. i mean, in a sense, we ve been having people say for d