Octopus Gas increasing 75% ??

greeneggsandham

Like everyone, I've had my projected energy bills from Octopus and of course I was shocked that my suggested DD is double, but as others have said, the DD depends on a number of factors. So I've crunched the actual numbers, and it turns out that: assuming I stay on the SAME tariff (Flexible Avro Variable) and the SAME projected useage, my gas bill is expected to go up by 74.67% (from £816.24 to £1425.77) Octopus claims that they're keeping their increases £50 below the price cap, and the price cap is supposedly going up by around 54%, so how is it possible for my bill to go up by 75% ??

Electricity isn't as bad, just a 'trifling' 46% increase, but at least that's in line with the 54% estimate

Edit: Thanks to the wisdom of this forum, it seems the explanation is a) the 54% is for dual fuel, so a combo of the gas and elec increases in both standing charges and unit rates

and b) gas makes up a greater proportion of my energy bills, so although my dual fuel increase is still 64% it's a bit closer to the 54% headline rate.

Still unaffordable though.

razord

Because the price cap is an "average" user using an "average" amount of gas and electricity. Virtually nobody is average!

k_man

The 'average' user spends more on electric than gas (currently)

Rough maths:

Splitting the difference between the 46% for electric, and 76% for gas, with a bias towards electric, 54% seems about right.

greeneggsandham

razord said:

Because the price cap is an "average" user using an "average" amount of gas and electricity. Virtually nobody is average!

OK, but if I leave my own data out of it, the unit rate per kwh is increasing from 4.0005p to 7.3605p, which unless I've forgotten everything I learned in high school math, is an increase of 83%. So how does an 'average' user get away with paying an 83% higher unit rate but their overall bill only goes up by 54%? Do most people use so very little that the standing charge makes up the bulk of their bill?

The_Fat_Controller

The 54% rise is for the average DUAL FUEL user on the overall bill.

The 4 individual elements change by different percentages.

Present capped rates, then post April 1st

Gas 4.07p to 7.37p = +81% Gas SC 26.12p to 27.22p = +4%

Elec 20.8p to 28.34p = +36% Elec SC 24.88p to 45.34p = +82%

greeneggsandham

k_man said:

The 'average' user spends more on electric than gas (currently)

Rough maths:

Splitting the difference between the 46% for electric, and 76% for gas, with a bias towards electric, 54% seems about right.

According to the ofgem website, the gas (specifically) price cap is increasing 54%. So they aren't splitting the difference between gas and electricity. It does seem that my gas useage is below 'average', but it's usually almost double what I spend on electricity, so I'm thinking I may need to keep the gas heating off and use electric plug-in heaters (always thought of those as very uneconomical).

razord

greeneggsandham said:

k_man said:

The 'average' user spends more on electric than gas (currently)

Rough maths:

Splitting the difference between the 46% for electric, and 76% for gas, with a bias towards electric, 54% seems about right.

According to the ofgem website, the gas (specifically) price cap is increasing 54%. So they aren't splitting the difference between gas and electricity. It does seem that my gas useage is below 'average', but it's usually almost double what I spend on electricity, so I'm thinking I may need to keep the gas heating off and use electric plug-in heaters (always thought of those as very uneconomical).

That's definitely not the case - do you have a link?

Electric heaters will still be roughly 2.5-3 times more expensive than gas (depending on how efficient your boiler is) even after the rise.

greeneggsandham

The_Fat_Controller said:

The 54% rise is for the average DUAL FUEL user on the overall bill.

The 4 individual elements change by different percentages.

According to ofgem:

"Those on default tariffs paying by direct debit will see an increase of £693 from £1,277 to £1,971 per year (difference due to rounding)."

Is that for BOTH gas and elec combined? In which case I'm actually very average, as my combined dual fuel bill was £1302 only 25quid above average (a useful defence next time my very frugal parents accuse me of being wasteful )

molerat

greeneggsandham said:

k_man said:

The 'average' user spends more on electric than gas (currently)

Rough maths:

Splitting the difference between the 46% for electric, and 76% for gas, with a bias towards electric, 54% seems about right.

According to the ofgem website, the gas (specifically) price cap is increasing 54%. So they aren't splitting the difference between gas and electricity. It does seem that my gas useage is below 'average', but it's usually almost double what I spend on electricity, so I'm thinking I may need to keep the gas heating off and use electric plug-in heaters (always thought of those as very uneconomical).

The OFGEM website says nothing of the sort.  Unit rates and standing charges are all going up by differing % amounts giving an average of all the regions for the average customer of 54%.  Gas unit price and electric daily charge are way above the "average".

Electric unit price is increasing by 33% on average

Electric daily charge is increasing by 80%

Gas unit price is increasing by 75%

Gas daily charge is increasing by 4%

All from the OFGEM website.

greeneggsandham

razord said:

greeneggsandham said:

k_man said:

The 'average' user spends more on electric than gas (currently)

Rough maths:

Splitting the difference between the 46% for electric, and 76% for gas, with a bias towards electric, 54% seems about right.

According to the ofgem website, the gas (specifically) price cap is increasing 54%. So they aren't splitting the difference between gas and electricity. It does seem that my gas useage is below 'average', but it's usually almost double what I spend on electricity, so I'm thinking I may need to keep the gas heating off and use electric plug-in heaters (always thought of those as very uneconomical).

That's definitely not the case - do you have a link?

Electric heaters will still be roughly 2.5-3 times more expensive than gas (depending on how efficient your boiler is) even after the rise.

I may have misunderstood the ofgem website; it talks mostly about gas at the beginning and I haven't read all the small print because I have long covid brain fog

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/price-cap-increase-ps693-april

Ultrasonic

If only there was a link to the answer to this question at the top of every Energy forum page. Oh wait, there is:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/martin-lewis--why-your-energy-bills-might-be-increasing-by-more-/