Energy news in general

oellph

really irks me how the media cover energy costs. Example from Sky News:

Cornwall Insights said: "For a typical dual fuel household, we predict the July price cap to be £1,574 per annum" - a drop from £1,690.

under a heading of ‘major drop energy prices”. 

That’s £9.66 per month lower. When most of us have seen prices more than double in the last few years. Our bills at the end of 2021 were £120 per month (dual fuel). Now it’s £270 with no change in usage. But I keep being told prices are coming down. No sign of it. 

Scot_39

Check the history of the cap - upto £4279 - and you will see why - £1574 and any drop is good news.

Note CI were forecasting it to rise again - so expect a flurry of "doom" clickbait headlines when Oct and Jan etc figures announced.

But look into the breakdown of the cap - and you will see the extras (this Apr that included £30 increase in standard policy costs, £28 debt special and £10 ppm cross subsidy for DD / credit caps) and the major shift in network charges - up c£100 from 5 years ago when cap introduced.

Given that level of extras - we arent likely to see the £1150's / £1250s of old 5 years ago - let alone the lowest c£1050 anytime soon.

oellph

To be honest, as a lay person in terms of knowledge of this stuff, the price cap is meaningless to me. i won’t believe prices and profits have lowered until I see my monthly bills drop to £200. But that isn’t going to happen is it? I doubt I’ll see any drops from £270. 

BarelySentientAI

oellph said:

To be honest, as a lay person in terms of knowledge of this stuff, the price cap is meaningless to me. i won’t believe prices and profits have lowered until I see my monthly bills drop to £200. But that isn’t going to happen is it? I doubt I’ll see any drops from £270. 

It irks you that they tell the truth, backed up with accurate numbers?

What unit price were you paying in January 2023?  Without the government discount?

What unit price are you paying now?

Unless you're still on the same fix, in which case yes, the price cap is essentially meaningless to you, then prices have factually lowered for you.

michaels

Scot_39 said:

Check the history of the cap - upto £4279 - and you will see why - £1574 and any drop is good news.

Note CI were forecasting it to rise again - so expect a flurry of "doom" clickbait headlines when Oct and Jan etc figures announced.

But look into the breakdown of the cap - and you will see the extras (this Apr that included £30 increase in standard policy costs, £28 debt special and £10 ppm cross subsidy for DD / credit caps) and the major shift in network charges - up c£100 from 5 years ago when cap introduced.

Given that level of extras - we arent likely to see the £1150's / £1250s of old 5 years ago - let alone the lowest c£1050 anytime soon.

And of course for those who could be bothered to shop around it was not £1050 - 1250 but 15-20% less than that

Scot_39

oellph said:

To be honest, as a lay person in terms of knowledge of this stuff, the price cap is meaningless to me. i won’t believe prices and profits have lowered until I see my monthly bills drop to £200. But that isn’t going to happen is it? I doubt I’ll see any drops from £270. 

Well let's make it simple.

Without the EPG £2500 cap rates - at the (last Jan) Ofgem peak at £4279 pa you could - on SVT defaults - have paid

c68p per kWh of single rate electric /c17p per kWh of gas
With EPG you paid
c35p / c10.4p  the govt paid the c33.4p c6.7p per unit difference.

(The govt also paid c17p and c2p/ 4p in Q4 and Q2 until cap itself dropped  below £2500 last Jul - see

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support/energy-price-guarantee-up-until-30-june-2023
)

OFGEM current cap regional average 
c24.5p , c6p

So that's a fall vs EPG of 30% / 45% repectively, offset for high users like yourself (£270 pm puts you way near double median cap consumption at £1690 = £140pm)  -  a little by SC changes.

Or to real market rate pricing in autumn 2022 by the Ofgem cap at that £4279 High - a drop of c65% - two thirds for both electric and gas.

And if the £1574 is correct it is likely both rates will fall again - but not necessarily by equal amounts come Jul.

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/cornwall-insight-release-final-forecast-for-july-price-cap-2/

22.68p and 5.45 p regional average per kWh respectively

Scot_39

New Q4 price update from Cornwall Insights - did I miss it in threads elesewhere

Df dd cap forecast to rise to £1761.

Thats £70 more than current, about 1.3p on sr electric to 25.77, 0.25p on gas to 6.29p cf April averages.

And against July's Q3 lower actual Ofgem cap of £1568  - a near £200 price increase, c3.1p on electric, c 0.84p on gas

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/predictions-and-insights-into-the-default-tariff-cap/

Based on 22nd May, before the Norwegian outage triggered a c13% Gas price spike over the weekend.

https://www.ft.com/content/0f4efc5c-639f-466a-b1f5-b188040313ca

Showing despite decent high EU store levels, energy still perhaps on a risky knife edge supply vs demand.

Just waiting until that Oct cap rate if happens, the media doom headlines (despite it still being cheaper than last Oct £1834) and to see how it feeds back into inflation mix after Apr drop heralded as reason for drop and forecast that Jul cap could drop headline rate again.

bristolleedsfan

Scot_39 said:

Based on 22nd May, before the Norwegian outage triggered a c13% Gas price spike over the weekend.

https://www.ft.com/content/0f4efc5c-639f-466a-b1f5-b188040313ca

For a bit of balance, UK Gas finished the day yesterday about 10% higher, today currently down 6.56%

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas

The_Green_Hornet

Octopus to repay £3bn to taxpayers for Bulb rescue

Octopus Energy will pay nearly £3bn to the government as part of a pledge to return the taxpayers' funds it received for rescuing Bulb, its collapsed competitor.

It means the Treasury will recoup almost all the cost of temporarily nationalising Bulb back in 2021.

Past forecasts had suggested that it could have been the government's biggest bailout since the financial crisis. However, lower wholesale energy costs have seen the expected final bill slashed.

Octopus to repay £3bn to taxpayers for Bulb rescue - BBC News

MeteredOut

The_Green_Hornet said:

Octopus to repay £3bn to taxpayers for Bulb rescue

Octopus Energy will pay nearly £3bn to the government as part of a pledge to return the taxpayers' funds it received for rescuing Bulb, its collapsed competitor.

It means the Treasury will recoup almost all the cost of temporarily nationalising Bulb back in 2021.

Past forecasts had suggested that it could have been the government's biggest bailout since the financial crisis. However, lower wholesale energy costs have seen the expected final bill slashed.

Octopus to repay £3bn to taxpayers for Bulb rescue - BBC News

<sarcasm>

Woohoo, can't wait for a portion of this to find its way back as a credit on our bills!

</sarcasm>