Calls made for the price cap to be extended to protect those in communal buildings from rising bills

MSE_Emily

Hundreds of thousands of households could soon see their gas and electricity bills rise by up to 300% because they aren't protected by the energy watchdog's price cap, according to consultancy firm Ginger Energy, which has called on the regulator to act...

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Calls made for the price cap to be extended to protect those in communal buildings from rising bills

Logen

Maybe just a typo in the article, but I think this should refer to water pipes, not gas pipes:

"How do heat networks work?

Heat networks, also known as district heating, are a way of heating a block of flats, or even a neighbourhood, using a single central boiler, with gas pipes leading into each home to supply heating and hot water."

mari_loba

What to do if you live on a building that have a communal heating network? Prices for a fixed one year contract have increased 350%. The board that represent the freeholders can either accept it or wait a bit longer as the contract runs out in 3 months. The issue is that this is a residential building but the suppliers treat it as commercial. Is there any way around to avoid the massive increase? Thanks a lot.

GingerTim

mari_loba said:

What to do if you live on a building that have a communal heating network? Prices for a fixed one year contract have increased 350%. The board that represent the freeholders can either accept it or wait a bit longer as the contract runs out in 3 months. The issue is that this is a residential building but the suppliers treat it as commercial. Is there any way around to avoid the massive increase? Thanks a lot.

Ours took the deal before Christmas, on the basis that prices are only going one way at the moment. As things stand it's a commercial supply and there's no way to avoid it.

Xbigman

The price of these contracts often includes a maintenance / replacement charge. How do you cap that when one system might be in a new build block of flats and another in a large house converted to flats years ago? Those would have completely different costs.

I would also think the renewable obligations and SoLR costs won't be included so in theory a business account that's not capped should rise more quickly but drop back more quickly too.

Darren

Matthew_Bester

I can confim this has happened.

My bill for use of the communal boiler network has risen from £79.80 (1st Oct - 31st Dec) to £300.13 (Jan - 31st March). That is an increase of 276%!

The management company has already informed us about the price cap not being applied because we techincally count as a "commerical" unit despite being residential only. They also have a new, as yet unknown supplier. This was always touted as a cost effective system (which it was) but this is totally unreasonable.

Any advice for actions that can be taken or authroities that can be contacted?

Mstty

Matthew_Bester said:

I can confim this has happened.

My bill for use of the communal boiler network has risen from £79.80 (1st Oct - 31st Dec) to £300.13 (Jan - 31st March). That is an increase of 276%!

The management company has already informed us about the price cap not being applied because we techincally count as a "commerical" unit despite being residential only. They also have a new, as yet unknown supplier. This was always touted as a cost effective system (which it was) but this is totally unreasonable.

Any advice for actions that can be taken or authroities that can be contacted?

At the current price cap level (residential) heating and hot water and boiler care £300 probably isn't that far off as Jan and Feb are some of the coldest months.

However, do you see dips in the price in summer like residential energy customers or is it the same fee expected every 3 months?

MWT

Matthew_Bester said:

The management company has already informed us about the price cap not being applied because we techincally count as a "commerical" unit despite being residential only. They also have a new, as yet unknown supplier. This was always touted as a cost effective system (which it was) but this is totally unreasonable.

Any advice for actions that can be taken or authroities that can be contacted?

There isn't a whole lot you can do at the moment, and I'm not exactly sure what can be done with a price cap either as ultimately if the company providing the heating service can't do that without making a loss then they will just not bid for the contract.

You can take a look at the way the management company is organised and run and see what rights you have to influence the decisions it takes, but in the end you have a collective heating services which collectively you are all bound to pay the real cost for providing...

gbeaucour

Any news or updates on this topic?

Seems like nothing happened for 3 years: no regulation for district heating yet? (I assumed not, as my district heating prices are well above the ofgem cap)