the elephant in the room?

Section62

Ultrasonic said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

Ultrasonic said:

More link a mouse than an elephant in the context of most people's bills.

The standing charge is 27% of my electricity bill but then I'm not most people.

The majority of the bill is still not the standing charge, as it also is for me as a low energy user.

Krakkkers said:

It was 57% of my last bill.

I suspect it isn't for your total annual bill.

The standing charge has been 100% of my gas bill since early April.  I wonder if anyone can beat that percentage?

pochase

pochase said:

wrf12345 said:

According to posters on this site circa a £100 of the electric s/c is to reimburse energy companies for taking on customers of bust retail energy co's as due to the mismatch of the cap to energy prices they were losing money for a few months until the cap went up in April, so that should disappear shortly. The good news is that with the average bill at around £5000, getting rid of the rest of the s/c will only add 2 percent to the unit cost and only increase the bills of those using above average energy, so it should be gone by April of next year at the latest. And, of course, the free £400 from the govn does actually exceed the total s/c paid by all for this year. 

You are correct with the disappearing of the SOLR cost, Auxilione shows a reduced standing charge from April 2023.

I personally thought I had read somewhere that it was two years, but I cannot find any source here. 28.1 million households x 365 x 20p is £2.051 billion. Add to that the business accounts. Anybody an idea how much the SOLR cost was?

What is concerning is that there is now talk about the cost for Bulb administration. Seems the government wants to recover that again from the energy users. So another year of high standing charges?

To answer my own quest. From an Ofgem letter

 Given the scale of SoLR levy costs being recovered this year (April-March 2022/23) 

macman

The gov't could cut 2.5% off the VAT on energy without any loss to the exchequer at all. When bills double, so does the VAT take.

The_Green_Hornet

The boss of Ovo Energy has suggested scrapping the standing charge as part of his 10 point plan to solve the cost of living crisis.

https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2022/september/ten-point-plan

wrf12345

Ovo on the radio now, suggesting two tier so plus zero s/c that would be brill for low users. Turned the gas off since March, have not decided if I will turn it back on in Nov yet even though I am fixed with BG until March so not as bad as many. At least the focus is now on helping the lower end of the market rather than continually treating them with contempt. They do need to put an intelligent politician in charge of it and get rid of Ofgem, Michael Gove??

MattMattMattUK

wrf12345 said:

Ovo on the radio now, suggesting two tier so plus zero s/c that would be brill for low users. Turned the gas off since March, have not decided if I will turn it back on in Nov yet even though I am fixed with BG until March so not as bad as many. At least the focus is now on helping the lower end of the market rather than continually treating them with contempt. They do need to put an intelligent politician in charge of it and get rid of Ofgem, Michael Gove??

The standing charge is not "treating them with contempt", it is fair that everyone pays towards the cost of the grid that they are connected to. Also the lowest users are generally those with modern well insulated homes and solar panels, the next lowest group are generally professionals who work in an office. The highest use groups are the disabled and pensioners, followed by families of diminishing size, with the few exceptions for those with absolutely huge homes, swimming pools etc. who are now installing a lot of solar power and heat pumps so will soon be in the low user category. 

So we are back to the same position, you want your energy provision to be subsidised, you want average and high users to subsidise you. 

MarcoM

MattMattMattUK said:

wrf12345 said:

Ovo on the radio now, suggesting two tieWe r so plus zero s/c that would be brill for low users. Turned the gas off since March, have not decided if I will turn it back on in Nov yet even though I am fixed with BG until March so not as bad as many. At least the focus is now on helping the lower end of the market rather than continually treating them with contempt. They do need to put an intelligent politician in charge of it and get rid of Ofgem, Michael Gove??

The standing charge is not "treating them with contempt", it is fair that everyone pays towards the cost of the grid that they are connected to. Also the lowest users are generally those with modern well insulated homes and solar panels, the next lowest group are generally professionals who work in an office. The highest use groups are the disabled and pensioners, followed by families of diminishing size, with the few exceptions for those with absolutely huge homes, swimming pools etc. who are now installing a lot of solar power and heat pumps so will soon be in the low user category. 

So we are back to the same position, you want your energy provision to be subsidised, you want average and high users to subsidise you. 

We know the average full time worker on average salary or just less and payee will get sod all, and it won't make a difference it labour or the tories are in power.

Ultrasonic

MarcoM said:

MattMattMattUK said:

wrf12345 said:

Ovo on the radio now, suggesting two tieWe r so plus zero s/c that would be brill for low users. Turned the gas off since March, have not decided if I will turn it back on in Nov yet even though I am fixed with BG until March so not as bad as many. At least the focus is now on helping the lower end of the market rather than continually treating them with contempt. They do need to put an intelligent politician in charge of it and get rid of Ofgem, Michael Gove??

The standing charge is not "treating them with contempt", it is fair that everyone pays towards the cost of the grid that they are connected to. Also the lowest users are generally those with modern well insulated homes and solar panels, the next lowest group are generally professionals who work in an office. The highest use groups are the disabled and pensioners, followed by families of diminishing size, with the few exceptions for those with absolutely huge homes, swimming pools etc. who are now installing a lot of solar power and heat pumps so will soon be in the low user category. 

So we are back to the same position, you want your energy provision to be subsidised, you want average and high users to subsidise you. 

We know the average full time worker on average salary or just less and payee will get sod all, and it won't make a difference it labour or the tories are in power.

Everyone is already getting £400, and many previously received £150. We don't 'know' what else may happen.

MWT

MattMattMattUK said:

The standing charge is not "treating them with contempt", it is fair that everyone pays towards the cost of the grid that they are connected to.

Agreed, and with the new cap the electricity standing charge will cost less than 1kWh per day, and the gas standing charge less than 2kWh, so there is still a huge incentive to reduce use if possible. It is a complete red-herring to suggest that the standing charge is a disincentive to reducing use in any way.

... and the monumental presumption that high use = high earnings, along with the desire expressed by many on here to have their share of the network costs paid by someone else never seems to go away...

QrizB

MattMattMattUK said:

Also the lowest users are generally those with modern well insulated homes and solar panels

You can add holiday homes and second homes to that list of low users. I would suggest that people who own two+ homes are not generally hard up.