MSE News: British Gas simplifies tariffs at the cost of higher prices

insanegloss

davidgmmafan wrote: »

I'm just thinking out loud here but I do find myself wondering how it was billed prior to de-regulation - was it the same measurement or different? My grandad says everything uses to be included in the price and I must admit this does sound like a much simpler arrangement. I realise this isn't really comparing like with like as the world is different to how would've been years ago, but the point remains they could make it simpler if they wanted to.

For example I understand why the detailed calculation needs to be on the bill in case people want to work it out exactly but what's to stop them saying for a ballpark figure multiply by X. That's all most people want a rough idea.

I don't understand why you would ever want two calculations on a bill for the same thing, one rough and one exact, now that sounds like a recipe for confusion beyond what is already there!

Prior to de-regulation I have absolutely no idea what it was like, being an 80's child myself.

The fact remains, that unless pressure, temperature and the energy content of gas don't vary throughout the gas network, then the calculation would be simple.

If you did away with the calculation and just charged on the units on meter, you could (potentially, worst case) be paying around 14.6% more than you should have based on the current maximum and minimum calorific values allowed in the network (37.5 to 43MJ^m3), as any lower CV's than the maximum you would require more volume of gas to provide the same amount of energy.

I'm not exactly sure simplicity in everything is good, as demonstrated above could have significant negative impacts. Rather than actually making things simple in themselves, teaching people about it would bring more benefits in my opinion.