What should the unit prices be to cover wholesale prices?

alsa1

With these projections, there should be advice to start keeping some extra money aside to deal with the cap lifting. Gas use shouldn’t be too much of factor after April, but our electricity use is pretty high despite trying to be more efficient so have started to save a bit more.

It’s going to quite a shock to many who won’t realise just how much they are projected to go to, there really could be a situation where a few million households might simply not be able to afford these new bills.

macman

Of the better-run suppliers who have hedged their wholesale buying, how far forward do these deals typically run? If they don't carry into next summer, then maybe even some of the better-financed suppliers may start to be at risk of failure?

Sea_Shell

alsa1 said:

With these projections, there should be advice to start keeping some extra money aside to deal with the cap lifting. Gas use shouldn’t be too much of factor after April, but our electricity use is pretty high despite trying to be more efficient so have started to save a bit more.

It’s going to quite a shock to many who won’t realise just how much they are projected to go to, there really could be a situation where a few million households might simply not be able to afford these new bills.

I agree!

This impending crisis should be in people's faces, like Covid figures have been for 18 months!!

You only have to read the new threads, almost daily, from people who are only just realising the situation as their current fixes are ending, going What The ****!!!

April will be so much worse, albeit with the worst of winter behind us.

How many more fixes will expire between now and then?   Not to mention any further collapses of supplier.

QrizB

macman said:

Of the better-run suppliers who have hedged their wholesale buying, how far forward do these deals typically run?

You can buy wholesale natural gas today for delivery in Summer 2022

https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5188710

Thr current price for Summer 2022 is 72.5p/therm, around 2.5p/kWh. Thst excludes VAT and all the network etc. costs you get added to retail energy.

wittynamegoeshere

Attempting to educate the public can very easily turn into causing a panic, e.g. petrol queues, stocking up on food.

If too much panic was caused then it may encourage people to take on some of the overpriced fixed deals that are currently on offer, most of which are very unlikely to make sense financially.

At least 75% of my next year's use will be before the cap is updated, therefore I'm comfortable that the variable capped price is still the best place to be.

Anyone not using electricity for heating should be able to reduce their consumption with basic energy saving measures, e.g. LED bulbs, switching stuff off etc.

In some cases it may make sense to update appliances, sometimes keeping old ones can be a false economy.  E.g. our heat pump tumble dryer is amazing, I think it uses about one unit to dry a huge load.  This is probably less than it would cost to dry using a hanging rack as we previously did, due to the extra load this puts on the heating as drying clothes actively cools the air.  The lack of damp and black mould is the biggest advantage though.

QrizB

wittynamegoeshere said:

In some cases it may make sense to update appliances, sometimes keeping old ones can be a false economy.  E.g. our heat pump tumble dryer is amazing, I think it uses about one unit to dry a huge load.  This is probably less than it would cost to dry using a hanging rack as we previously did, due to the extra load this puts on the heating as drying clothes actively cools the air.  The lack of damp and black mould is the biggest advantage though.

Before we had a tumble dryer, we used a hanging rack with a dehumidifier. This counteracts the added load on the heating (when the water condenses you get the energy back) and stops it getting damp too. It worked a treat and, with the dehumidifier only using 250W, we could run it for 4 hrs (and dry a load of laundry) on one unit of electricity.

A bit like your heat pump dryer, but improvised

MWT

wittynamegoeshere said:

In some cases it may make sense to update appliances, sometimes keeping old ones can be a false economy.  E.g. our heat pump tumble dryer is amazing, I think it uses about one unit to dry a huge load.

I was about to invest in a heat-pump dryer, but while I was navigating through the decision on which one (comparing easy of cleaning the heat exchanger etc.) I did some monitoring of the energy our current 10 year old condenser dryer was using and it turns out it does most loads using between 0.8-1.2kWh.

With such a low energy use already, it is going to stay in use until it eventually breaks in a way that isn't cheap to fix.

Sea_Shell

Hard to panic buy gas and electric 😉


Although information should educate, not scaremonger!

Information is power....but you can't run your fridge on it!!😉

wittynamegoeshere

MWT said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

In some cases it may make sense to update appliances, sometimes keeping old ones can be a false economy.  E.g. our heat pump tumble dryer is amazing, I think it uses about one unit to dry a huge load.

 I did some monitoring of the energy our current 10 year old condenser dryer was using and it turns out it does most loads using between 0.8-1.2kWh.

You must be checking pretty small loads.  Ours takes 9kg, I swear it's bigger inside than outside.

MWT

wittynamegoeshere said:

MWT said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

In some cases it may make sense to update appliances, sometimes keeping old ones can be a false economy.  E.g. our heat pump tumble dryer is amazing, I think it uses about one unit to dry a huge load.

 I did some monitoring of the energy our current 10 year old condenser dryer was using and it turns out it does most loads using between 0.8-1.2kWh.

You must be checking pretty small loads.  Ours takes 9kg, I swear it's bigger inside than outside.

I'm checking the loads we are drying, the load would not change just because we changed the dryer...

Bottom line is we don't spend enough with the current dryer to save enough to make a pre-emptive replacement sensible...