Confused, please help. Standing charge

AlwaysAway

If I have a meter that monitors kWh I use in daytime and nighttime separately, and both my daytime and nighttime prices have increased by 54%, why has my standing charge doubled?
I thought that the point of the 54% cap was to limit bill increases to a maximum of 54%. 

Am I wrong about that? 

victor2

Welcome to the forum!

More information regarding your question here.

AlwaysAway

Thank you but I’ve already seen that. I’m not really interested in why it has doubled. I’m interested in why the standing charge appears to be uncapped. I’m very confused. Why cap the kWh price to 54% but let the standing charge remain unlimited? It makes no sense to me, so Ithink I may be missing some information.
I called Eon today but they didn’t help - only said they’re allowed to double the standing charge.
Any help would be appreciated🙂

MSE_James

The whole of the Price Cap guide (not just the bit about the Standing Charge) might help you: 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-is-the-energy-price-cap/ 

The standing charge is part of the price cap, but it's important to understand the 54 per cent figure - that's merely the rise in the overall bill for an 'average' dual fuel household. 

Different components of the bill have risen at different rates, and there are regional factors too. Depending on whether your mix of energy use (gas vs electric) is different from the 'average' household, and how much you use in absolute terms, your mileage will vary.

stewie_griffin

What were your unit prices and what are they now. I'd be very surprised if they both increased by exactly 54%.

MWT

AlwaysAway said:

Thank you but I’ve already seen that. I’m not really interested in why it has doubled. I’m interested in why the standing charge appears to be uncapped. I’m very confused. Why cap the kWh price to 54% but let the standing charge remain unlimited? It makes no sense to me, so Ithink I may be missing some information.

First part to understand is that there is no such thing as a 54% cap...

If you compare the average of all the regional caps for the standing charge and kWh charges before the recent rise in the caps to the average of all the regional caps after the rise and adjust for the difference in the assumed typical use between the Ofgem cap (3100kWh) and the figures the energy companies are allowed to use (2900kWh) then the answer is 54%...

Within those figure the gas kWh rate has nearly doubled, but the gas standing charge has barely gone up at all, and the electricity kWh has increased by about 40% but the electricity standing charge has gone up more.

So nothing was capped to 54% and nothing went up by 54% it is just an average many different numbers.

The electricity standing charge is most certainly capped though.

If it helps to put more precise numbers on it, comparing the Octopus standard variable rate before and after April 1st, for a typical customer using 2900kWh electric and 12,000kWh gas, in the Eastern region, we get the following:

Total gas cost increase over a year 70%, total electricity cost increase over a year 43%, total for both increased by 55%.

AlwaysAway

@stewie_griffin
standing charge from 24.961 to 49.732 99.2%
day price 21.212 to 32.250 52.0%
night price 13.769 to 21.266 54.4%

AlwaysAway

@stewie_griffin
day kWh annually 2579
night kWh annually 13620
electric only - no gas.
bill increased by more than 55%

comeandgo

AlwaysAway said:

If I have a meter that monitors kWh I use in daytime and nighttime separately, and both my daytime and nighttime prices have increased by 54%, why has my standing charge doubled?
I thought that the point of the 54% cap was to limit bill increases to a maximum of 54%. 

Am I wrong about that? 

Yes, you are wrong.

Astria

The average bill for the average household has gone up by 54%, they never made any mention about standing charges or unit rates, which vary across the country (and by supplier).

If you are a higher or lower user than average, your bill may increase by more than 54%. Very high/low users, or those on fixed rates coming to an end may find that there bills increase by >= 100%.

MWT

AlwaysAway said:

@stewie_griffin
standing charge from 24.961 to 49.732 99.2%
day price 21.212 to 32.250 52.0%
night price 13.769 to 21.266 54.4%

Looks like you are probably in the Southern Scotland region?

This region had one of the highest increases in electricity standing charge (payment by DD, single rate metering)...

North West	73.24%
Northern	84.86%
Yorkshire	80.90%
Northern Scotland	82.72%
Southern	79.97%
Southern Scotland	99.65%
N Wales and Mersey	102.47%
London	37.90%
South East	73.31%
Eastern	57.88%
East Midlands	88.26%
Midlands	91.79%
Southern Western	101.17%
South Wales	93.64%