October Price Cap and standing charges

diystarter7

MWT said:

diystarter7 said:

If standing charges were removed or fixed across all suppliers at let's say 10 quid, it is a fact that it would be much, much easier to compare and understand prices when comparing suppliers, EG -  all suppliers standing charge 10 quid - Elect  50p and gas 50p.  That indeed would make it much easier as there is no need to make simple things more complex for the sake of it.

It would not however reflect the reality of the actual costs, so it might be easier, but it would be wrong...

Are you saying it would be wrong because those that work away from home and often only return at weekends may be worse off?

How would it not reflect reality as you put it? It would be reality as you'd pay for the gas/elec used and standing

MWT

diystarter7 said:

MWT said:

diystarter7 said:

If standing charges were removed or fixed across all suppliers at let's say 10 quid, it is a fact that it would be much, much easier to compare and understand prices when comparing suppliers, EG -  all suppliers standing charge 10 quid - Elect  50p and gas 50p.  That indeed would make it much easier as there is no need to make simple things more complex for the sake of it.

It would not however reflect the reality of the actual costs, so it might be easier, but it would be wrong...

Are you saying it would be wrong because those that work away from home and often only return at weekends may be worse off?

How would it not reflect reality as you put it? It would be reality as you'd pay for the gas/elec used and standing

The standing charge cap is set based on the actual costs of maintaining the network, you can't set that to an arbitrary figure across the country as the costs are not the same across the country....

The cap does effectively set a standard limit for all suppliers on their variable rates, so you do already have what you want there.

Eliminating the standing charge would still require those costs to be covered somehow, and trying to layer them onto the kWh costs just leads to further inequities as those costs are not affected by the level of consumption.