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

Sea_Shell

littlemissbossy said:

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. 

It'll be a kick in the teeth if we get a long dark cold winter, as like you say, if we look at the last 12 months usage in isolation, it my give us a "rose tinted" picture of our usage.

Better to have years of data to fall back on...but who has that?

We do, but our reduced usage is also partially down to a new boiler last July too.

littlemissbossy

Sea_Shell said:

littlemissbossy said:

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. 

It'll be a kick in the teeth if we get a long dark cold winter, as like you say, if we look at the last 12 months usage in isolation, it my give us a "rose tinted" picture of our usage.

Better to have years of data to fall back on...but who has that?

We do, but our reduced usage is also partially down to a new boiler last July too.

Yes, I'm going to dig out more bills to get a bit more perspective.

MattMattMattUK

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

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? 

Interestingly only one of the eight supermarkets near me is 24 hour now and even then it only operates 24 hours for three days a week. Retail does not no, for most retail more than 80% of their business takes place on Thursday late shopping if they offer it and over the weekends, the reality is most standard retail could shut Mon-Thu or even only open at weekends and provided it was done by the majority of stores they would see little impact impact on sales, though you will probably find that the cost of the staff and having the lights on is minimal compare to the premises and supply chain costs.  More and more businesses are turning lights off overnight now, all the local supermarkets seem to once the restocking has finished for the night, most retail outlets seem to turn off all but the display window lights (which I agrees should also be turned off).

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

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

Data usage is a driver of energy usage across the board, there is probably no going back from that but the good news is that it is getting more and more efficient every year. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

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? 

Potentially, but the reality is that if the UK stopped buying any energy on the international markets it would have almost no impact on global prices, our consumption is not pushing up bills by any appreciable amount.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

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..... 

I think it is one of the key reasons why we need to keep pushing efficiency into the consumer space, but also into businesses, although many businesses are doing a huge amount to cut down, even more so than in the past. 

michaels

Woolsery said:

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.....

I liked the fact that we didn't have people dying in waiting lines in hospital car parks as would have happened without lock downs but respect your right to have a different opinion.

TheBanker

The business I work for has done a huge amount to reduce energy usage. This is claimed to be because we want to be green, but I think it's also because it costs a fortune.

All our offices now have motion sensors on the lights, so the lights turn off automatically when there's nobody there, for one example. The cleaning and security staff have been instructed to turn off any monitors which have been left on when they're working their way around the building in the evening, as another example. 

In my view, it is actually public buildings such as schools and NHS facilities which could do more. Despite the NHS being cash strapped, my GP surgery often leave their lights on overnight! 

gt94sss2

TheBanker said:

In my view, it is actually public buildings such as schools and NHS facilities which could do more. Despite the NHS being cash strapped, my GP surgery often leave their lights on overnight! 

I lived in Japan after 2011. Based on that, there is a lot more everyone can do to reduce every use, including businesses such as your employer.

The GP surgery is actually a self employed business. Switching off their lights would reduce energy and increase their profitability. It won't actually reduce the costs to the NHS.

pochase

he_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

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? 

Long time since I was in a supermarket at night, but the few times I was, there were hardly any customers. Lights were dimmed down completely, many employees filling up shelves or picking goods for delivery.

For me that was a bit they just got a few additional customers when they had to be "open" anyway to restocking. 

[Deleted User]

TheBanker said:

Despite the NHS being cash strapped, my GP surgery often leave their lights on overnight! 

I think that you will find that most GP Surgeries are independent contractors providing services to the NHS. This goes back to the days when the NHS was first set up and GPs were already charging for their services: sometimes in money, and other times in goods and services. They might just be leaving the lights on for security reasons.

Woolsery

michaels said:

Woolsery said:

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.....

I liked the fact that we didn't have people dying in waiting lines in hospital car parks as would have happened without lock downs but respect your right to have a different opinion.

I believe we have some pretty severe car park issues now. Have you phoned for an emergency  ambulance lately? I have.

Whatever action was taken there would have been consequences, so please don't try to pass this off as my opinion; it's an ongoing debate which began in 2020 when it appeared no proper cost/benefit analysis was being done. The Johns Hopkins study is only a part of it . However, we're currently running at 1400 excess deaths per week and it's summer time, so although all the data won't be there for some time I doubt it will be favourable to the argument for extended lockdowns.

And you are welcome to your opinion too.

wild666

I see my usage going up from £600 in September 2021 to £1600 in October 2022 so I will be cutting back on usage again. In the octopus winter workout I reduced my gas usage by 1400 kWh but in Sept. 2021 I reduced the gas by 2000 kWh and electric by 800 kWh. 
Even with that drop in usage if I use the same amount of electric and gas I could see my monthly DD increase to over £150 per month. There is speculation that the average usage could hit £6500 next year. 

Just after April people were saying £2500 in October but I was expecting nearer £2600 but the £3500 I wasn't expecting and the £6500 is shocking if prices creep up that much people are going to be looking at cutting down on usage and that could see average usage figures that they use for the cap will drop.
When they drop it means that the total price for average usage will drop and thus the profits of suppliers will drop. 
If users turn off everything that they used to leave in standby mode except the fridge, freezer and router then that could be a 30% drop in electric usage, maybe more. 
In gas that could be a drop of more than 30%, the suppliers will still make 2% profit on bills but the total income will be less as they are seeing less electric and gas used