And now the forecasters are saying the price cap could hit £6000

RobM99

fergie_ said:

Too many people think wrongly that they are the average user - the reality is that they can easily be using double or four times the OFGEM definition. They read and hear the 'cap' is going to be £3000, but think "I'm already paying £2800, that's not too bad'. When in reality their next annual bill could be £5.6k.

Totally this, it's like hearing the 'price cap' for a tank of fuel is (say) £75. It's not if you have a massive fuel tank!
Emphasis must be on - price per unit + standing charges. 

alw1971

RobM99 said:

fergie_ said:

Too many people think wrongly that they are the average user - the reality is that they can easily be using double or four times the OFGEM definition. They read and hear the 'cap' is going to be £3000, but think "I'm already paying £2800, that's not too bad'. When in reality their next annual bill could be £5.6k.

Totally this, it's like hearing the 'price cap' for a tank of fuel is (say) £75. It's not if you have a massive fuel tank!
Emphasis must be on - price per unit + standing charges. 

Exactly this, was trying to explain the price cap to my elderly mum and dad yesterday and they just think price cap is what they will pay. If you reduce what you use these price caps are not helpful especially to those who don't understand them 

pearl123

Last winter, I was already wearing indoors double thermals and multi layers. Plus, a wooly had. My heating was mostly set at 16.5-17 degrees. 70% of the time the temp dial 14.5 degrees.  

They need to reduce the standing charges. The longer it takes for this government to address the energy issue the more angry I become.
I've lived in an unheated house and it's not something I want to return to. 

Woolsery

deano2099 said:

Woolsery said:

Helicopter money created from thin air, but that comes back to bite everyone later as inflation, because it wasn't earned by gainful economic activity. There's no free lunch.

That's true, but it has to be balanced against the option of "doing nothing". With something like COVID, or this energy crisis, "doing nothing" does not allow you to keep the economy in a steady state by default. Those crisis events are acting on the economy in their own way. Without the COVID support we would have had huge numbers of companies closing down, massive redundancies, leading to both those companies and their employees stopping paying tax, people defaulting on mortgages and other debts, and a massive strain on the existing welfare system. It's certainly possible that it would have cost us more, even in the short term, and would have had similar long term impacts.

I wouldn't advocate doing nothing, but studies of the lockdowns concluded they brought almost no benefits and countries like Sweden managed without, so whatever response is chosen to any black swan event needs to be a sound choice. I'm still puzzling where the idea of lockdowns came from, given they weren't in any pandemic planning prior to 2020. Even the WHO didn't recommend them for more than a short period.

However this isn't on topic, so I'll pause here.....

Section62

pearl123 said:

They need to reduce the standing charges. The longer it takes for this government to address the energy issue the more angry I become.

It is summer.  We won't know what the new price cap will be until the end of the week.  It won't take effect until 1 October. Parliament is in recess until early September. Help in the form of additional payments has already been announced, and it has been clearly signalled that further help/measures are likely.

I don't understand why people are getting so wound up about something which hasn't happened yet, and has already been partially mitigated.

And how does reducing standing charges help when it makes up a relatively small proportion of most people's bills?

Would you be happy if the government was going to give every household enough money to pay their whole standing charge for the next 12 months?

sienew

Astria said:

Funkydrummer44 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Funkydrummer44 said:

It shouldn't be up to the British public to pay for the war in Ukraine.  This is the role of the government who need to step up and do something to reduce anxiety instead of letting the people suffer.

Ah, so your support for a beleaguered nation under attack from a malevolent superpower ends the moment your energy bills become difficult to afford.  I see.  What do you propose?  Just leave Ukraine to it and get back to buying Russian gas?

Who do you think should "pay for the war"?  Our government doesn't have its own money - it spends ours.  What do you think they should be doing to reduce anxiety, in the face of a global energy price rise?

I didn't see bills rise when the government threw billions at covid and furlough, did you?

Yes, fuel went up, apparently due to other factors, but the government raked in more money from it. Cost of living has gone up, apparently again due to other factors, but they've profited from that as well, and energy costs have gone up, again of which they take a percentage. Strange that after handing out billions of pounds that everything increases in price and the gov't are able to get more money in isn't it? So they've not increased taxes, which would be bad considering voting is around the corner, but all other prices have increased that they take a cut from, coincidence ?

This is right and wrong at the same time. Inflation has caused govt income to increase but at the same time inflation will have made govt expenditure go up. Add in cost of living support and the countries balance sheet is worse off, not better.

sienew

pearl123 said:

Last winter, I was already wearing indoors double thermals and multi layers. Plus, a wooly had. My heating was mostly set at 16.5-17 degrees. 70% of the time the temp dial 14.5 degrees.  

They need to reduce the standing charges. The longer it takes for this government to address the energy issue the more angry I become.
I've lived in an unheated house and it's not something I want to return to. 

Your standing charge will be more than covered by the basic £400 govt support package that everyone gets.

TheBanker

Personally I think more help will come from the government when we know what the October increase will be. And potentially even more help when we know the January increase. I expect this to be more targeted than the £400 credit though.

But alongside that, people do need to take reasonable steps to reduce their individual consumption. I realise many already do, and I don't mean people should sit at home in the dark shivering. I mean everyone should make a real effort not to heat empty houses/rooms in their house, and not to let heat escape through poorly fitted doors etc. The current situation cannot be addressed by government alone.

Bill credits and one-off payments will only ever be a short term solution, but I think this is a long term problem. We need to deal with the immediate issue of winter, but in the longer term we need better ways of funding efficiency measures e.g insulation. Some object to the government subsidising someone's home improvements, but it would be a long term solution that would reduce the need for future government intervention. And everyone will benefit - if my home is well insulated, I use less fuel. This means there's less demand on the grid which should (according to basic economics) lead to lower prices for everyone else. It also reduces the risk of blackouts occurring due to total power demand exceeding supply. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I see a lot of advice and questions directed at the individual but very little about other places using energy.

Do supermarkets need to be open 24 hours a day? Do retail shops need to be open 7 days a week? Do buildings need to be lit up at night when they are empty? 

I mentioned data centres on another thread, vast amounts of energy used so we can stream and view content online.

Whilst I understand there is a lot of individuals and cuts we can make certainly add up, if there is apparently excessive demand pushing up prices shouldn't we be asking where cuts can be made across the board? 

I appreciate these are bigger questions but it feels as if the general individual will have even less time to ask them if they are busy making spreadsheets of their energy usage..... 

littlemissbossy

I was checking my energy bills yesterday, since last autumn we have been trying to cut down our usage:-

Aug 20-Aug 21 gas was 12192 kwh and electricity was 2739 kwh
Aug 21-Aug 22 gas was 8658 kwh and electricity was 2452 kwh

I felt quite chuffed with that but then remembered we had quite a mild winter.