What should the unit prices be to cover wholesale prices?

mysteryUser

markin said:

Did all the costs stay the same apart from the energy cost?

More detail on the press release. 

Has been other changes too. 

markin

Spies said:

What does that make the unit rates?

Edit, found them,

From 1 April the equivalent per unit level of the price cap to the nearest pence for a typical customer paying by direct debit will be 28p per kWh for electricity customers and 7p per kWh for gas customers

Is that after VAT?

Spies

Yes that includes VAT.

QrizB

Thanks for the positive waves

On the whole I'm pleased with how it turned out (and I'm glad I was high, not low!) but I now need to work out why.

Looking at the Ofgem chart that mysteryUser posted, and comparing to my version of the same numbers, it seems I over-estimated the wholesale price by ~£200/yr compared to Ofgem. They muchg have better data than me - or they've fudged their numbers; when they publish the breakdown I'll know more.

Ofgem's "network costs" are about £50 higher than I estimated, as they have a better ides of the SoLR costs than I did. That narrows the gap.

As you might have guessed , I've started a new calculation for the October cap

QrizB

OK, I think I'ver got to the to the bottom of it (or, at least, as close to the bottom as I plan to get).

My forecast was based on wholesale prices:

QrizB said:

Putting it all together, the average wholesale price for the 6-month period was 6.45p/kWh for gas and 17.4p/kWh for electricity

However, Ofgem's Annex 2 contains their version of wholesale prices: about 4.9p/kWh for gas and 16.6p/kWh for electricity. All I can think is that Ofgem's market benchmark is less volatile than the my day-ahead market data.

On the plus side, it might mean that my future forecasts are also pessimistic.

Now back to my spreadsheets until the end of the month, when we'll have our first full month of data for the October cap

ispookie666

@QrizB would you like to be incharge of UK's energy policy? We do not seem to have one or it's not worth the paper it's written on!

markin

QrizB said:

OK, I think I'ver got to the to the bottom of it (or, at least, as close to the bottom as I plan to get).

My forecast was based on wholesale prices:

QrizB said:

Putting it all together, the average wholesale price for the 6-month period was 6.45p/kWh for gas and 17.4p/kWh for electricity

However, Ofgem's Annex 2 contains their version of wholesale prices: about 4.9p/kWh for gas and 16.6p/kWh for electricity. All I can think is that Ofgem's market benchmark is less volatile than the my day-ahead market data.

On the plus side, it might mean that my future forecasts are also pessimistic.

Now back to my spreadsheets until the end of the month, when we'll have our first full month of data for the October cap

A 15 day average would be ok with me, and ofgem are wanting to update it sooner if needed, did they give a update today?

EDIT:

"Ofgem has opened a consultation on a number of changes to the price cap methodology."

QrizB

Admit it, you've all missed this thread

It's the 14th of February, Valentine's Day, and we're half-way through the month so it's time to swirl the tea-leaves and see what the future holds for the October price cap.

I'm making a small change to my methodology; rather than Drax, I'm going to take my day-ahead prices from Nordpool. For gas I still can't do any better than Guy Lipman's data based on Octopus Tracker. If you do look at Nordpool, be aware their data defaults to Euro prices; you need to change to get GBP. (I don't think this will change the outcome, it's just more convenient for me.)

You'll recall (and, if not, you can read above) that Ofgem's April cap was based on wholesale prices of about 4.9p/kWh for gas and 16.6p/kWh for electricity.

So, what have we got so far?

• February to date - gas 6.20p/kWh, electricity 16.3p/kWh

Now don't get too excited.

• You'll recall that last time, it turned out my gas prediction was roughly 30% too high (prediction 6.45p, actual 4.9p) so it looks as if like-for-like gas prices are down slightly on last period.
• My electricity prediction of 16.3p also looks to be a small decrrease on last period (prediction 17.4p, actual 16.6p)

So on the basis of 2 weeks from 26, wholesale prices are slightly lower than last period; but it's a long time until Brunnhilde gets her solo.

Sea_Shell

After seeing this morning's news, I guess all bets are off, in respect of the October cap !!!!

QrizB

Sea_Shell said:

After seeing this morning's news, I guess all bets are off, in respect of the October cap !!!!

This might possibly count as one of Ofgem's exceptional circumstances, but I wouldn't put it past them to calim this was "reasonable foreseeable"!