Energy news in general

jamei305

1st April price cap to be announced tomorrow.

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jamei305 said:

1st April price cap to be announced tomorrow.

At 11:00 AM

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-price-cap-advisory-note

uss_tish

Ahh that explains why then BG have been attempting to tie me into a 22 month fixed rate offer which is 3 times my existing rate. I have to switch before tomorrow (3rd) even though my current rate ends end of Feb 😉. Coincidence?

spot1034

There are reports that the government's package of measures is also to be announced tomorrow, although you'd have to wonder if they'll be well enough organised to stick to this. There might be a connection with this announcement being brought forward from when we were expecting it next Monday. Possibly the Chancellor will make a statement to parliament shortly after the Ofgem announcement?

GingerTim

Latest report is that the government will offer loans to the energy companies which will knock c. £200 off an average bill. Which is something, but if @QrizB's estimates are correct that will be dwarfed by the price cap rise...

Curiousgirl1

Maybe, but the new cap comes in in April which is when most peoples energy usage tends to start reducing so the impact may not be as bad. It’s a bit misleading to say it’s going up by £xx per year when in fact it’s going to change again in 6 months time. The biggest worry to me is the changes that will come in October, just at the start of Winter. That will have a much bigger impact 

uss_tish

@spot1034 let's hope the govt. package is worthwhile. Would be interesting to see if they shamelessly use it as an opportunity to deflect attention from ‘patygate’ to woo and win back public confidence in the govt. ?

Xbigman

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10466373/Boris-Johnson-unveil-energy-bill-rebates-6billion-loans.html

£200 per customer is the usual dumbed down way of referring to average users. It will be worth more to high users and less to low users. Then there's the question of how. The big rises are on gas prices but £200 off your gas bill will be completely unfair to electric only households so its likely to be £200 off electric prices. And its a loan, so you have to pay it back via artificially higher prices later on.
And the DM link above includes a comment this could go on for 5 years.


Darren

Xbigman

Here's another thought. What energy company is going to offer anything under the cap anytime soon? If we all drift onto variable prices over the coming year how will energy companies hedge that? 

Is this in fact the new normal we are seeing and not a spike at all. 


Darren

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It is only £6 billion of our tax money, why do we need pay it back to ourselves? They just wrote off more than that over PPE.

Looks like it might be back to the SVT for me if they are going to chip the gas down to 7p