Electric and gas standing charges

pochase

Seems unfair to me that somebody in a small village pays the same standing charge as somebody in a big city...

You can make cases for a lot of different scenarios.

Everybody pays the same standing charge independent from where they live or how much energy they use.

The standing charge covers the cost before you start using any energy.

Gerry1

pochase said:

Everybody pays the same standing charge independent from where they live or how much energy they use.

Not so: standing charges vary regionally.  For example, EDF single rate electricity has a standing charge of 32.15p in London but 51.62p in the South West.

bristolleedsfan

pochase said:

Seems unfair to me that somebody in a small village pays the same standing charge as somebody in a big city...

You can make cases for a lot of different scenarios.

The costs that were moved from unit rate to SC did not appear to affect London region which only increased 9p ish per day exactly the same amount as current SOLR costs 9p ish per day about £34 per year x 2 years.
£30 mentioned in screenshot did not apply to London, what is good for London consumers should be good for consumers who live in other regions or visa versa

Xbigman

The increase in the standing charge is annoying but the £400 payment we all have coming is worth a lot more to a low user than an average or high user. The same goes for the £150 council tax money.
My costs have gone from £504 per year to about £1000 (including an increase in October). The government has given me £550 to help me out. Can we have an energy crisis every year please? (that was tongue in cheek for those who might get stressed by these things).


Darren

GingerTim

EssexHebridean said:

metrobus said:

So come October are the standard charges going to continue increasing? Or will it just be Kwh charge only.

Since the Ofcom replies in the links above stated the reason for the huge recent rises in SC I wonder if they will invent more 
or just increase the cost of the units you actually use.

Low users are currently subsidising the high users to a large degree.

Seems unfair that someone in a 1 room bedsit pays exactly the same SC as a family of 7 in a 5 bedroom house.

Obviously high users will disagree.

I'm a low user and I disagree...

Ditto (1250kwh per year here)

Mstty

Xbigman said:

The increase in the standing charge is annoying but the £400 payment we all have coming is worth a lot more to a low user than an average or high user. The same goes for the £150 council tax money.
My costs have gone from £504 per year to about £1000 (including an increase in October). The government has given me £550 to help me out. Can we have an energy crisis every year please? (that was tongue in cheek for those who might get stressed by these things).


Darren

A bit of perspective is good. We went from £75 a month with Symbio £900 a year to £2130 with eon next on the April cap rates which we luckily fixed on. With the £400 it makes a real difference to us this year that makes up nearly 20% of our yearly energy bill. For lower users like yourself who also get the £150.....55% so not a bad year at all👍

MWT

bristolleedsfan said:

The costs that were moved from unit rate to SC did not appear to affect London region which only increased 9p ish per day exactly the same amount as current SOLR costs 9p ish per day about £34 per year x 2 years.
£30 mentioned in screenshot did not apply to London, what is good for London consumers should be good for consumers who live in other regions or visa versa

I can't seem to find a definitive description of exactly what was moved, have you seen one anywhere?

I can reverse my way to it from the spreadsheets, but it is a lot of work so if there is a proper description it would be useful...

QrizB

metrobus said:

Low users are currently subsidising the high users to a large degree.

This might be an unpopular opinion but I'm pretty sure the reverse is true, and high users are currently subsidising low users.

Looking at electricity, the current capped annual cost for a 3100kWh/yr user (page 3 of this pdf) is around £995+VAT. Of that £995+VAT, the cost of the energy is £515+VAT (3100kWh at Ofgem's average wholesale price of 16.6p/kWh), so £480+VAT is made up from the non-energy costs.

Pretty much all the non-energy costs are the same for every customer - they're the provision of the infrastructure, metering, billing, the costs of the WHD and ECO schemes, and so on.

I don't think anyone on a domestic tariff is paying £480+VAT in standing charges for electricity - that would be around £1.10/day. Standing charges are more like 45p/day, £160/yr+VAT. This means £320/yr+VAT of the non-energy costs aren't recovered via standing charges but are instead included in the unit rate.

Put another way, about 10p/kWh - more than a third - of the current capped electricity price could be thought of as a subsidy from high users to low users.

MWT said:

bristolleedsfan said:

The costs that were moved from unit rate to SC did not appear to affect London region which only increased 9p ish per day exactly the same amount as current SOLR costs 9p ish per day about £34 per year x 2 years.
£30 mentioned in screenshot did not apply to London, what is good for London consumers should be good for consumers who live in other regions or visa versa

I can't seem to find a definitive description of exactly what was moved, have you seen one anywhere?

I can reverse my way to it from the spreadsheets, but it is a lot of work so if there is a proper description it would be useful...

This is a link to the Guardian article that is referenced:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/mar/06/why-is-my-standing-charge-up-by-80-energy-firms-pile-on-the-agony

Sasdly there aren't many clues there.

bristolleedsfan

MWT said:

bristolleedsfan said:

The costs that were moved from unit rate to SC did not appear to affect London region which only increased 9p ish per day exactly the same amount as current SOLR costs 9p ish per day about £34 per year x 2 years.
£30 mentioned in screenshot did not apply to London, what is good for London consumers should be good for consumers who live in other regions or visa versa

I can't seem to find a definitive description of exactly what was moved, have you seen one anywhere?

All I have seen are references to costs that were previously paid for by unit rate got moved to SC 

https://twitter.com/OctopusEnergy/status/1527259378700767233

MWT

bristolleedsfan said:

All I have seen are references to costs that were previously paid for by unit rate got moved to SC 

The Greg link was useful.

This has come from something called the 'Targeted Charging Review'.

A lot of material to dig through though to figure out why the regional differences in impact were so large.