Energy news in general

agentcain

Mstty said:

Blissfully unaware of impending doom.

Like the passengers of the Titanic.

I think somewhere there is a post where the figures for this winter came out at £4000 for the price cap by Jan 2023. Whoever that was you may be the closest on this board on the prediction sweepstake but sadly I've long spent the pound on two days standing charge.

I don't subscribe to any more help this winter. I think energy customers need a big shock, reduce their energy usage and then some target help next year for winter if gas futures are still this high or higher.

I think energy suppliers need a big shock, preferably with their own product.

What do you expect customers do? Do you think people enjoy keeping the heat in winter or the AC on in summer with windows open? How exactly are we wasting energy and we need a shock? There's not much left to reduce. 

What can be reduced is profits. Energy is a necessity, it should never have been allowed to be exploited for uncontrollable profit, especially now that we're stuck with a handful of suppliers, most of which are simply useless middlemen who can't even do their job properly, hedge and protect us from such situations.

What_time_is_it

Civil unrest is coming on an unprecedented scale.

spot1034

agentcain said:

Mstty said:

Blissfully unaware of impending doom.

Like the passengers of the Titanic.

I think somewhere there is a post where the figures for this winter came out at £4000 for the price cap by Jan 2023. Whoever that was you may be the closest on this board on the prediction sweepstake but sadly I've long spent the pound on two days standing charge.

I don't subscribe to any more help this winter. I think energy customers need a big shock, reduce their energy usage and then some target help next year for winter if gas futures are still this high or higher.

I think energy suppliers need a big shock, preferably with their own product.

What do you expect customers do? Do you think people enjoy keeping the heat in winter or the AC on in summer with windows open? How exactly are we wasting energy and we need a shock? There's not much left to reduce. 

What can be reduced is profits. Energy is a necessity, it should never have been allowed to be exploited for uncontrollable profit, especially now that we're stuck with a handful of suppliers, most of which are simply useless middlemen who can't even do their job properly, hedge and protect us from such situations.

You always have to be careful in these discussions not to mix up producers and suppliers, although in the case of the bigger players they tend to have fingers in both parts of the pie. The 'useless middlemen' to whom you refer would be more on the supplier side, and most of the companies which simply traded energy without being involved at all in the production side have now left the market. Two years ago energy producers were suffering massive losses. If you think they should reduce their profits you would presumably have been in favour of them charging a higher price during the leaner times, rather than selling to us at a loss?

Mstty

I think we see energy waste on this board on a daily bases @agentcain.

Lots of people that have been used to cheap energy for decades suddenly coming here with 3 times the average electricity usage and 2 time the average gas usage having never looked at any settings or cut backs.

We were never frivolous with energy but even we have cut back well over 25% and maybe even 35% energy use without affecting day to day life. 

With the Government assistance we get £400 in total this year and our energy saving measures we have put in place we will save £600-£800 a year at current April price cap rates plus the £400 that's £1000-1200 off our bills this year.

My point is unless people realise and have to pay the real cost of energy they will never cut back and rely on the government to pay the difference. That's not sustainable.

k_man

Mstty said:

I think we see energy waste on this board on a daily bases @agentcain.

Lots of people that have been used to cheap energy for decades suddenly coming here with 3 times the average electricity usage and 2 time the average gas usage having never looked at any settings or cut backs.

We were never frivolous with energy but even we have cut back well over 25% and maybe even 35% energy use without affecting day to day life. 

With the Government assistance we get £400 in total this year and our energy saving measures we have put in place we will save £600-£800 a year at current April price cap rates plus the £400 that's £1000-1200 off our bills this year.

My point is unless people realise and have to pay the real cost of energy they will never cut back and rely on the government to pay the difference. That's not sustainable.

 I echo this, we see some very high usage reports, from people unaware that they are using 2, 3x the average.
Or run air con during most of the summer, at home.

 When energy was cheap, the costs meant users often  don't worry about how much they use, now prices are rising, the first reaction is often, just how they can get it cheaper (similar to petrol and diesel costs), not how can they use less.

These big increases should now really start to focus attention on reducing usage or at least reducing unnecessary/wasted usage.

Note: this clearly is not all users and households, and many people do use low energy already, and will struggle with increasing costs. Hopefully any further measures help those, rather than subsiding energy wasters.

What_time_is_it

Whilst I agree generally about lowering usage, it's not always that simple.

My mother-in-law lives on her own and currently uses 60,000 kwhs of gas per year. She won't move house and the place is literally falling apart.
I can't sleep at night worrying about how we are going to cover this. If unit prices hit 20p for winter 2023/24, which doesn't seem that unlikely to be honest, then that'll be £12k just on gas usage over one year.

Mstty

What_time_is_it said:

Whilst I agree generally about lowering usage, it's not always that simple.

My mother-in-law lives on her own and currently uses 60,000 kwhs of gas per year. She won't move house and the place is literally falling apart.
I can't sleep at night worrying about how we are going to cover this. If unit prices hit 20p for winter 2023/24, which doesn't seem that unlikely to be honest, then that'll be £12k just on gas usage over one year.

Well that is just stubbornness and wastefulness. 

What_time_is_it

Mstty said:

What_time_is_it said:

Whilst I agree generally about lowering usage, it's not always that simple.

My mother-in-law lives on her own and currently uses 60,000 kwhs of gas per year. She won't move house and the place is literally falling apart.
I can't sleep at night worrying about how we are going to cover this. If unit prices hit 20p for winter 2023/24, which doesn't seem that unlikely to be honest, then that'll be £12k just on gas usage over one year.

Well that is just stubbornness and wastefulness. 

Stubbornness and wastefulness in someone you love is very painful and very stressful.

pochase

That is true, but are you able to support her in ignoring the fact, that she is unable to afford to stay in her home, for an extended time?

I think when you wrote your first post for her we were talking about 12.5p, now it is 14.17 because we don't know the split for the £3500 from yesterday, but it should be 15p to 16p, that is almost £10000 just for gas, up from £7500 a few days ago.

Mstty

What_time_is_it said:

Mstty said:

What_time_is_it said:

Whilst I agree generally about lowering usage, it's not always that simple.

My mother-in-law lives on her own and currently uses 60,000 kwhs of gas per year. She won't move house and the place is literally falling apart.
I can't sleep at night worrying about how we are going to cover this. If unit prices hit 20p for winter 2023/24, which doesn't seem that unlikely to be honest, then that'll be £12k just on gas usage over one year.

Well that is just stubbornness and wastefulness. 

Stubbornness and wastefulness in someone you love is very painful and very stressful.

Indeed, I am currently wrestling an elderly relative away from British Gas to Green Energy UK and I am not winning.