Energy price increase

Dex58

I’m very concerned about increasing energy costs. I’m trying to keep pace with the changes but am struggling to understand certain aspects.

I’ve done some research that suggests energy bills increased 54% in April (source, parliamentary library website).

I also found a breakdown from British Gas that shows 54% (there’s that figure again) of the bill is made up of “energy wholesale costs” & I accept that those costs are rising dramatically. But that leaves 46% of costs (vat, operating costs, network costs, policy costs etc) which should remain unaffected by the increases in the wholesale energy market. So why are we told to expect 54% increases on the entire bill?

pochase

Because you are comparing two complete different things.

One is the cap increase in April of 54%, which is just a figure to compare a very specific "average" customer.

The other is the split for your energy, here the 54% the part of the bill that is paid for the energy itself.

Completely different things, only the number 54 is the same.

Also the 54% increase has already happened almost five months ago, we are now preparing for a potential 82% increase on the 1st of October. Next week Friday we will learn how much the new cap will be.

[Deleted User]

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

pochase

[Deleted User] said:

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

Are you maybe posting in a wrong thread? 

[Deleted User]

pochase said:

[Deleted User] said:

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

Are you maybe posting in a wrong thread? 

No - the OP is trying to work out why energy prices are rising and by how much. Tracker is a very simple way of seeing which direction prices are going and why the Cap has to increase significantly.

Astria

Dolor said:

pochase said:

Dolor said:

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

Are you maybe posting in a wrong thread? 

No - the OP is trying to work out why energy prices are rising and by how much. Tracker is a very simple way of seeing which direction prices are going and why the Cap has to increase significantly.

Didn't/doesn't Octopus tracker have different versions with different caps?

[Deleted User]

Astria said:

Dolor said:

pochase said:

Dolor said:

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

Are you maybe posting in a wrong thread? 

No - the OP is trying to work out why energy prices are rising and by how much. Tracker is a very simple way of seeing which direction prices are going and why the Cap has to increase significantly.

Didn't/doesn't Octopus tracker have different versions with different caps?

The Tracker and Agile Import Caps are self imposed by Octopus. The point of my post - and I wish I hadn’t bothered - was just to demonstrate how wholesale electricity and gas prices have increased over the past 12 months. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Astria said:

Dolor said:

pochase said:

Dolor said:

Let me put some flesh on the bones. Octopus Energy offers Tracker tariffs which follow market wholesale prices.

A year ago to this very day the Tracker price for gas was 3.868p/kWh, and 12.992p/kWh for electricity. Today, the gas price is 12.840p/kWh and 38.450p/kWh for electricity. (Sorry, I was watching South Africa take England apart at cricket)

NOTE: the above are not the prices that  Octopus is charging. Today’s Tracker price, for my region, is 15.582p/kWh for gas and 57.519p/kWh for electricity.

PS Did I mention standing charges?

Are you maybe posting in a wrong thread? 

No - the OP is trying to work out why energy prices are rising and by how much. Tracker is a very simple way of seeing which direction prices are going and why the Cap has to increase significantly.

Didn't/doesn't Octopus tracker have different versions with different caps?

The different versions have different caps but the daily price (uncapped, not necessarily what they charge - if it's above a cap level they just charge that rather than the full high price) is worked out the same across all versions AFAIK.  The uncapped prices very closely reflect the rising wholesale cost.

Electricity Tracker prices and the wholesale costs going back to 2019 are here https://energy.guylipman.com/sm/electracker
And gas https://energy.guylipman.com/sm/gastracker

AlanGF1969

Surely it's easy enough for the UK Governments (England, Scotland, etc.) to tax the big energy companies like BP an extra 10%, then send a chunk to every household to bring the bills down to what they were a year or so ago.
Easy to do - don't know why they aren't doing this!

AlanGF1969

I also don't understand why the electricity bills are so high either - we don't get electricity from Russia.

[Deleted User]

AlanGF1969 said:

Surely it's easy enough for the UK Governments (England, Scotland, etc.) to tax the big energy companies like BP an extra 10%, then send a chunk to every household to bring the bills down to what they were a year or so ago.
Easy to do - don't know why they aren't doing this!

They are doing that, and it wouldn't bring the bills down.  Also pretty difficult for the UK government to tax Saudi Aramco.

AlanGF1969 said:

I also don't understand why the electricity bills are so high either - we don't get electricity from Russia.

We make most of our electricity from gas.  Gas is now very expensive to buy.  Electricity is, therefore, very expensive to make.