British Gas Standing Charge 26p per day

Nile

Apologies if I'm asking a silly question, this is my first post on the Gas & Electricity board.

Can anyone tell me more about the British Gas 26p per day standing charge please?

The 26p per day standing charge applies to all payment methods.

Do all gas suppliers charge the same amount?

From the information sheet I've received, it says

Standing Charge p/day = 26.00
Unit Rate p/kWh = 4.73 (Direct Debit)
Unit Rate p/kWh = 5.05 (other payment methods)

Thanks

Nile

Nada666

They vary wildly. For domestic customers standing charges will vary between 0p per day to more than 85p per day. It depends on tariff and supplier and payment method.

You have to take your annual usage in kWhs and find out what is likely to be cheaper for your circumstance. You can not look at just standing charge.

('Fixed' costs vary between £0 and more than £300 per year. How does that happen? Makes tariffs simpler, Ofgem, doesn't it?)

One other major complication is that Ofgem have declared that you do not have to separately declare the actual standing charges - you can combine them with unit prices and standing charges and payment methods and discounts. Complete insanity.

Nile

Gulp.:o

Why is it so complicated? All these tariffs and hidden charges, it's so unfair on the customer.

Perelandra

Nada666 wrote: »

One other major complication is that Ofgem have declared that you do not have to separately declare the actual standing charges - you can combine them with unit prices and standing charges and payment methods and discounts. Complete insanity.

Do you have a link to where they've said this, please?



NB: I work for British Gas, but post here in a private capacity. Any opinion is my own, and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer.

Nada666

Perelandra wrote: »

Do you have a link to where they've said this, please?

Bark01 has suggested this - and comparison sites have started not making it clear what npower's standing charges are, for example.

Posting a separate thread to discuss it.

Bark01

Nile wrote: »

Apologies if I'm asking a silly question, this is my first post on the Gas & Electricity board.

Can anyone tell me more about the British Gas 26p per day standing charge please?

The 26p per day standing charge applies to all payment methods.

Do all gas suppliers charge the same amount?

From the information sheet I've received, it says

Standing Charge p/day = 26.00
Unit Rate p/kWh = 4.73 (Direct Debit)
Unit Rate p/kWh = 5.05 (other payment methods)

Thanks

Nile

BG's Standing Charge is universal across all payment types and new products

Unit rates will vary by product and payment method

OFGEMs rulings are that payment type discounts must be built into either the unit rate or the standing charge. So other suppliers may choose to vary the standing charge by payment type.

Different suppliers will have different fixed costs so will offer differing standing charges in relation to each other. Large portions of the standing charge are universal across suppliers, but each supplier will have there own cost to serve.

Suppliers are only allowed to offer discounts for:

Payment type - must be built into either the unit rate or the standing charge

Online Discount - a flat £'s per year value

a Dual fuel discount - a flat £'s per year value

The RMR changes governing discount structures come into play on 1st Jan 2014, but OFGEM have sated suppliers should already be making attempts to adhere to them.

Perelandra

Nada666 wrote: »

Bark01 has suggested this - and comparison sites have started not making it clear what npower's standing charges are, for example.

Posting a separate thread to discuss it.

I'm pretty sure that, once RMR complicant, all tariffs will need to have an explicit standing charge and unit rate, these cannot be lumped together.

ManAtHome

EDF Blue (fixed to 2015) is 26.25p a day standing charge, 3.578p per KWh. Their standard rate (not yet 'gone up') is 25p and 4.042p (think that'll be the DD rate).