Energy news in general

stripling

wrf12345 said:

You definitely can't expect tax payers who fund the welfare crowd to take an increase in energy costs to, er, fund the welfare crowd...

Who is this "you"? 

Actually, while I loathe the dehumanising 'welfare crowd' line, what you miss is the circularity of it all - which I wrote to Ofgem about. Did you? 

Let's be clear, everyone is a tax payer in numerous ways - VAT being the obvious example.

2nd/ the majority of people on UC are in work thus UC becomes a subsidy to companies paying too low wages.  They are also NIC and taxpayers btw...  Shocking, I know. 

3rd/, the same people who are in debt are paying the extra costs on energy bills to cover those in debt. 

It is the latter (3) that is ridiculous and shouldn't be happening. But I find lots of Ofgem policies are quite circular and ill-thought out. I spend quite a bit of my time digging into them at the moment. 

Meanwhile if you are really interested: 

"New Ofgem figures reveal that household energy debt has soared to £4.43 billion in Q2 2025 – more than triple pre-energy crisis levels and three-quarters of a billion pounds more than this time last year" [End Fuel Poverty UK] 

"At the same time, new analysis from the Common Wealth think tank shows that around 24% of every household energy bill is taken as profit by the energy industry."

Oops! 

That's one reason why we are having to spend so much on fixing the Grid - even if there was no decarbonisation whatsoever it still needs fixing up and building out - many of the cables & substations are past their use-by date. 
When energy was privatised back in the 90s and transmission/generation etc., was split into separate bits, money went to shareholders instead of being invested in maintaining our Distribution and Transmission grids. The DNOs (who bring lower voltage electricity to our homes) were particularly bad for this.  A bit like the water companies... 

Scot_39

Decarbonisation via UKs renewables plans is directly adding to the bills.

£15 on network costs today from the £24 on network costs today, that by the way forecast to increase to £104 - by 2030/31.  £74 electric - £30 gas.

The £74 in part justified to reduce grid thermal constraints - rather than scrapping them completely - or at least stopping the proliferation of new farms and no connection capacity to match.

How many more Seagreens do we need to see leap to the top of the curtailment charts before we stop that madness.

And even  if ignore all the network and balancing costs - you know those the DESNZ admit mean the wholesale cap model is failing to produce lower bills cf fossil generation - wholesale costs were £27 highef due to non auction rates on renewables CfDs when last produced as a seperate figure for the Oct 2024 cap letter.  That's over 1p/kWh on electric unit rates.

Real costs adding to real bills. 

stripling

Meanwhile, Ofgem are asking for feedback on energy companies:  Requirement to offer lower standing charge tariffs

Deadline 22nd October 

wrf12345

"Meanwhile, Ofgem are asking for feedback on energy companies:  Requirement to offer lower standing charge tariffs Deadline 22nd October "

They basically wasted a year on this to come up with a pathetic offering that excludes very low users, having put standing charges up by a huge amount without any prolonged consultation or much thought other than appeasing the greed of the energy companies. All that says is that Ofgem needs to be closed down, not fit for the purpose. 

MeteredOut

wrf12345 said:

"Meanwhile, Ofgem are asking for feedback on energy companies:  Requirement to offer lower standing charge tariffs Deadline 22nd October "

They basically wasted a year on this to come up with a pathetic offering that excludes very low users, having put standing charges up by a huge amount without any prolonged consultation or much thought other than appeasing the greed of the energy companies. All that says is that Ofgem needs to be closed down, not fit for the purpose. 

Anyone reading posts on this board should not have been surprised with the result - it was clearly signposted that there were no way there were going to mandate zero-SC tariffs with the same unit rate as tariffs with SCs.

molerat

Ovo in trouble over financial resilience rules ?

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ovo-flags-uncertainty-over-future-110914434.html

This means there is a “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the group’s and the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”, according to the accounts.

But they aren't the only ones

Britain’s biggest household energy provider, Octopus, is also not meeting the targets, alongside another as yet unnamed company.

Scot_39

Yes the Octopus boss was being reported recently as saying their supply deal with Shell - basically makes part of the resilience tests by Ofgem largely non applicable to their business model.

Its begind a paywall - but some public libraries allow access.

https://www.ft.com/content/2cc8f18f-e4a8-4b4d-8741-6967924c658d

wrf12345

BT's fiscal advantage (on paper anyway) is probably down to their refusing to use variable direct debits and  increasing direct debits regardless that they are already in credit.

debitcardmayhem

Electric unit could be a danger …. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrqlnlp4w2o

Swipe

debitcardmayhem said:

Electric unit could be a danger …. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrqlnlp4w2o

Been there and got the T-shirt. Luckily the DNO were out like a shot and replaced it within a few hours at 3am.