MSE News: Martin Lewis: Why your energy bill might be going up by MORE than 54%

QrizB

Mr_Mann said:

I use about 76% night units so it should be cheaper ! Yet it isn't. Yes UW as you thought. How did you guess ?

I remember @EssexHebridean had a similar shock by how much his UW E7 night rate had increased. Given how few suppliers there are now, it seemed a fair chance that you were also a UW customer

CosmicYak

Sea_Shell said:

It's also quite eye-opening as to how many people, until now, have let issues with their usage, charging, billing, metering etc just drift, without ever getting to grips with it all ... until now.

It's now such a massive issue that people are now focusing all their attention on it, where they otherwise would maybe not have bothered. 

If nothing else "good" comes out of this, maybe the education around energy and how it's metered, charged and billed will be something many will have learned from, which will help them throughout the rest of their lives. 

Knowledge is power!!           (measured in kilowatts!!)

Absolutely - guilty as charged here! I'm now watching my daily usage stats from my smart meters on an almost daily basis!

  

This crisis has also made me look at how energy-inefficient my house is, and how I can make improvements like reinstating patio doors between the living room and conservatory - it seemed such a good idea to have them removed at the time, then I began to wonder why my living room wouldn't warm-up in winter! 

Zoobzi37

My cheap rate ends this week. Its a Martin Lewis BG dual fuel deal. So I'm being switched to the standard tarrif. 
My bills are going up by over 100% as a consequence. The vast majority of this is electricity.
There's absolutely no reason not to have cheap discounted electricity deals as there's no problems with electricity supply and prices. 
This is blatant cashing in. 
I am retired and have low fixed income. 
I'll have to go without things to pay for the extra. 
If only my bills were going up by 54%
Wake up Martin to the real world.

Mstty

42% rise here in April electricity only. We use 7000 kWh per year based on the last year's usage.

To put the above into context we were with Symbio at 14.05p kWh then when they went bust moved to 20.84p with Eon Next so we already had an increase of 66% in DD payments then so we have gone from £75 with Symbio to £125 with Eon Next Flex (SVT) and luckily fixed now for 2 years at 29.24p kWh with no exit fees at £177.50 per month and when you take the £150 off as luckily our house falls into Band D that should all work out and we know where we are for the next 2 years.

If Symbio were still trading and the hike had come in April straight from 14.05p kWh to 29.24kWh well that would have obviously been a 110% increase including standing charge rises (puts it all into perspective really)

Sorry for all the mathematics I'm a sucker for the figures.

Still tough to swallow with car fuel and shopping and everything else going up I suspect we will be £200-250 a month worse off this year.

ASHP for heating and water for info

MattMattMattUK

Zoobzi37 said:

My cheap rate ends this week. Its a Martin Lewis BG dual fuel deal. So I'm being switched to the standard tarrif. 
My bills are going up by over 100% as a consequence. The vast majority of this is electricity.

That is what happens for people coming off a previous low fix onto the SVR.

Zoobzi37 said:

There's absolutely no reason not to have cheap discounted electricity deals as there's no problems with electricity supply and prices. 

There are no issues with supply, but electricity prices have gone up a lot because the UK generates around 35% of it's electricity from gas and imports around 9% from abroad, there has been a global increase in energy prices caused by a range of factors.

Zoobzi37 said:

This is blatant cashing in. 

Not at all, for much of the last year energy providers have been made to sell gas and electricity below cost, which is why so many of them have gone bust. 

Zoobzi37 said:

I am retired and have low fixed income. 
I'll have to go without things to pay for the extra. 
If only my bills were going up by 54%

Most people will have to cut back on other things to fund the increased energy costs. Nearly everyone (apart from those off grid, or with their own generation capacity) are facing the increased costs, some people are facing a 54% (note the average, not fixed) rise now, after previous rises last year, the reason your percentage rise is higher now is because you were on a fixed tariff and so did not have an increase in October last year first. As an example my fix ends in May and my unit rates will double, but I I am still net better off than those who had a smaller increase as I have had longer on a lower rate.

Zoobzi37 said:

Wake up Martin to the real world.

Martin is perfectly aware of the real world, hence all his campaigning and advice, but unfortunately he is not a energy provider, does not generate electricity and is not in power, which means he has no ability to fix global energy prices. 

RULAST

Gob smacked my BULB energy up 50% from April 1st. Does Bulb have a forum area here on MSE

wild666

My usage price is only going up 29% mainly due to me turning everything I used to leave in standby off at the socket.

polymaff

Just to add insult to injury, the wholesale price of a kWh of electricity has been below 25p for a couple of weeks.  23.27p today.

Mstty

polymaff said:

Just to add insult to injury, the wholesale price of a kWh of electricity has been below 25p for a couple of weeks.  23.27p today.

Does that mean those in Octopus tariffs that follow the wholesale price (excuse me if this is wrong) may be onto a winner if it stays like this from 1st April.

pochase

polymaff said:

Just to add insult to injury, the wholesale price of a kWh of electricity has been below 25p for a couple of weeks.  23.27p today.

The wholesale price only makes up a percentage (36% in January 2020) of the whole cost.

You need to add also

1. Delivering the energy to your home

2. Looking after you which includes billing, customer service and IT systems 

3. Government environmental and social schemes 

4. VAT – 5%

5. supply business profit

In the January 2020 the wholesale price was 36% of the unit price, which will have changed quite a bit now.