Standing charge

inbuilt

Article in the Guardian: if you search the title, 'We’re pricing the poor out of food in the UK – that’s why I’m launching my own price index'

inbuilt

Article in the Times, Money Mentor: CPI vs RPI inflation: what’s the difference? 

savers_united

It's been mentioned many many times before on here the reasons for the increase to the SC and why it has been added to the electric and not gas.

If you don't like the increase then you have a few options available, generate all your own electricity and go off grid, or buy in bottled gas and instead just pay for what you use, the delivery and somewhere to store the bottles.

Unless the Gov't where prepared to meet the cost of the failed suppliers and gift everyone the £200 instead of loan it then someone has to repay it, and the only fair way is on the SC, anything else just means that higher users end up paying a bigger proportion of those costs on top of the extra cost of using more energy. A double hit which most would feel is unfair. 

Ultrasonic

I live in the south west where the annual increase in electricity standing charge is £94.54, or £7.88 per month. For most it is the unit price increases that will be far more significant, and the government £150 (for council tax band A-D) and £200 loan-not-loan do cover the standing charge element. 

inbuilt

savers_united said:

It's been mentioned many many times before on here the reasons for the increase to the SC and why it has been added to the electric and not gas.

If you don't like the increase then you have a few options available, generate all your own electricity and go off grid, or buy in bottled gas and instead just pay for what you use, the delivery and somewhere to store the bottles.

Unless the Gov't where prepared to meet the cost of the failed suppliers and gift everyone the £200 instead of loan it then someone has to repay it, and the only fair way is on the SC, anything else just means that higher users end up paying a bigger proportion of those costs on top of the extra cost of using more energy. A double hit which most would feel is unfair. 

Seems a shame the government didn't support the smaller companies that went bankrupt, as the price cap was the governments design. It seems the biggest companies get the help as they are too big to fail, like what happened when the government bailed out the banking sector. 

When there is a 101% increase in standing charge I think they need to be transparent and say where the extra money is going and why it is needed. You would think it would only be able to increase by inflation otherwise.
Currently it is very difficult to go off grid but I suppose this may change now with the capability of electric cars being like a power wall storage system.

Ultrasonic

inbuilt said:

When there is a 101% increase in standing charge I think they need to be transparent and say where the extra money is going and why it is needed. You would think it would only be able to increase by inflation otherwise.

The details are on OFGEM's site if you really want to know. It's not secret.

MWT

inbuilt said:

Seems a shame the government didn't support the smaller companies that went bankrupt, as the price cap was the governments design. It seems the biggest companies get the help as they are too big to fail, like what happened when the government bailed out the banking sector.

This isn't even close to that situation.

There were a very small number of the failed suppliers that could be said to have been unlucky when the wholesale provider they had hedged with failed taking their hedges with them.

A good number of the others failed simply because they were undercapitalised and their business model depended on continued growth and low spot market prices, so government support would have been very misplaced.

It remains to be seen if the one decision to support a company, Bulb, was actually worth doing either.

I suspect in the long run it is going to turn out to have been far more expensive than initially thought, but I'm not sure what the alternative would have been...

abzred

My standing charge is doubled today. SoEnergy flex

Pointless trying to skimp on using gas , as even if I turn the gas pipe outside.

 gas bills will be same as last year. on standing charges alone.  criminal.

savers_united

If your on the SVT capped tariff then your gas SC should have only increased by a penny or 2. 

Ultrasonic

abzred said:

Pointless trying to skimp on using gas , as even if I turn the gas pipe outside.

 gas bills will be same as last year. on standing charges alone.  criminal.

Really don't think like this - use less and your bill will be less, and the savings will be bigger than before the price increases too.

Nobody likes the standing charge increases but you'd have to be using a tiny amount of energy for actual use to not make up the majority of your bill.