Martin Lewis: Energy price freeze rumours - what it means for you, will it work?

Steady64

So I gather that this is going to be funded from the public purse, only to be repaid at a later date by whatever means. The energy companies will not suffer a loss in income but consumers will still suffer from high energy prices for years to come. Why is the UK Government reluctant to tax the energy companies to ease the public financial burden when the rest of the EU are intending to reduce consumers costs in this way. If all countries stick together the risk of the energy companies reducing their investment in the UK and using the funds elsewhere is negated.

Tilona

@White_Goldfish

I did say in my original post that there were no exit fees but what I want to know is if a cooling period does apply and I cancel the new tariff, which is started paying on the 28th, I will then be refunded? And would I be going back to my original tariff or their standard variable tariff. I have looked high and low for this information and can't seem to find anything 😔 

Denise44_

Good afternoon,

We live in a council flat, and are both over 70 years of age.We kinda understand the Energy pricecap,

Our electricity bill, is just that, for electricity used for lighting and household appliances, over which we have full control. We do not use gas.

We have always paid separately to the Council for our Communal Heating and Hot water at a set Weekly rate per year.

The council recentley installed a new Combi heating and hotwater system in our flat which uses Gas.

Although we now pay for our own "Use", the Council still calculate and charge us a weekly fee.

Any "Overuse" or "Underuse" is charged/refunded in a lump sum to our rent account at the end of their financial year which is 31st March.

Since the heating and hotwater boiler was put in in 2019, a weekly amount is still paid for Heating & Hotwater using the Councils calculations.

And still, any "Overuse" or "Underuse" is charged/refunded in a lump sum at the end of their financial year.

For the last 2 bills, 31/3/20 and 31/3/21 we received a refunds.

This years bill to 31/3/22 states we have Overused and not only do we owe them £240.00 they have DOUBLED the amount we now have to pay each week.

My Query is:

Will the PRICECAP be applied to the energy charges the Council are charging us?

Should they have DOUBLED our weekly fee for heating/hot water?

Where we can control the use of our Electric, we are worried that the Heating & Hotwater costs the Council charge us, could Sky Rocket.

Any advice you can offer, would be greatfully received.

mebu60

Steady64 said:

So I gather that this is going to be funded from the public purse, only to be repaid at a later date by whatever means. The energy companies will not suffer a loss in income but consumers will still suffer from high energy prices for years to come. Why is the UK Government reluctant to tax the energy companies to ease the public financial burden when the rest of the EU are intending to reduce consumers costs in this way. If all countries stick together the risk of the energy companies reducing their investment in the UK and using the funds elsewhere is negated.

"The energy companies"

Have you read the posts from SparkyGrad at 08:16 today and John_L_M at 11:43? 

[Deleted User]

trendylfj said:

Does anyone know how the price cap works for single users.  We do not have gas in our village so I am an electric only user (oil for heating) but anytime anyone talk about the price cap they quote what it will be for "average dual users"! Never about single users

@trendylfj - despite what the news seems to make it sound like, there are actually different caps for gas, single rate electricity, and multi rate electricity (like Economy 7), in each of the different regions of England, Wales and Scotland, and depending on direct debit, pre-payment or cash/cheque.  What they do in the news is make a big average of all the different numbers to come up with a simple headline.

For example, people say that the October price cap was due to be £3,549.  The actual number for a pre-payment, single rate electricity customer in Southern Scotland is £1,688.89, and the gas cap for the same customer is £1,846.24 - that actually makes £3,535.13

Until there is good information, hopefully tomorrow, we can only guess what all these other numbers in the background will be.  Does the £2500 split equally? 60/40?  The same in each region (which it isn't now)?  The same for each payment type (which it isn't now)?

[Deleted User]

Denise44_ said:

Good afternoon,

We live in a council flat, and are both over 70 years of age.We kinda understand the Energy pricecap,

Our electricity bill, is just that, for electricity used for lighting and household appliances, over which we have full control. We do not use gas.

We have always paid separately to the Council for our Communal Heating and Hot water at a set Weekly rate per year.

The council recentley installed a new Combi heating and hotwater system in our flat which uses Gas.

Although we now pay for our own "Use", the Council still calculate and charge us a weekly fee.

Any "Overuse" or "Underuse" is charged/refunded in a lump sum to our rent account at the end of their financial year which is 31st March.

Since the heating and hotwater boiler was put in in 2019, a weekly amount is still paid for Heating & Hotwater using the Councils calculations.

And still, any "Overuse" or "Underuse" is charged/refunded in a lump sum at the end of their financial year.

For the last 2 bills, 31/3/20 and 31/3/21 we received a refunds.

This years bill to 31/3/22 states we have Overused and not only do we owe them £240.00 they have DOUBLED the amount we now have to pay each week.

My Query is:

Will the PRICECAP be applied to the energy charges the Council are charging us?

Should they have DOUBLED our weekly fee for heating/hot water?

Where we can control the use of our Electric, we are worried that the Heating & Hotwater costs the Council charge us, could Sky Rocket.

Any advice you can offer, would be greatfully received.

There is no price cap on heat or hot water from a communal energy system.  And, up to this point, there have been no rumours that one is about to be introduced.

You say that there is a new 'combi' system.  Is this just for your flat (like the boiler in a 'normal' house), or is it a new communal system?

Bmember

Hi,

I have questions about Energy prices and monopoly by Big Companies:

1. Price Cap is based on current wholesale price, as you know the big companies don't buy Gas on the Spot but they have hedged their supplies for many years in the future thus making record-breaking profits - why government not challenging this and why are they not asking big companies to reduce their prices based on their hedge supplies instead letting them make big profits on Spot Prices which they are clearly not paying - what is The Competition and Markets Authority doing as this is clearly an abuse of dominant position in the market by big companies?
2. We always had a Price Cap but we use to get a better deal than a price Cap until all small companies started to go bust, why did small companies going bust has stopped big companies to give a better deals to customers which are cheaper than the price cap?
3. The government encouraged us to go and find better deals which were mostly available with small companies and once they had gone bust government did not own up to their responsibility as they let these small companies propped up without any regulation.
4. The mess we are in right now is somewhat created by big companies as when small companies went bust it took ages for them to move customers and during that period we were not allowed to fix any prices.

TwistedWitch

I am steaming mad over this. Don't get me wrong, I do not want anyone to freeze this or any other winter, BUT I fixed back at the end of March. I have been paying over the 'price cap' for six months now, which I didn't mind because I assumed I would benefit in the end. In fact I was feeling rather smug that I wasn't going to be in the same dreadful boat as everyone else when the October cap was announced. But today Liz Truss has finally acted and for most people I am sure it's a huge relief, but it has left me with the choice of paying 6.5p per KWH more for electricity than the freezed price cap and 2.5p per unit for gas, or giving those greedy beggars at EDF £300 to free me from this tarriff.

TwistedWitch

Tilona said:

We are with Octopus and have taken out a fixed deal on the 28th of August as we were worried about the rise of the price cap. We were on the Avro variable rate before. The fixed rate will triple our monthly payments. With the news today we now don't know what to do. We appreciate that nobody does until Thursday but can anyone tell me if a cooling off period applies when one changes tariff with the same provider? And if we were to cancel the fixed tariff would we go back to our previous tariff or would they put us on a new (different) variable tariff and would that actually make us better off? Or would it be more sensible to stay fixed for now? No exit fees apply by the way. We have looked through all the terms but can't find any info. We have also emailed them to raise these questions but don't expect to hear back anytime soon.

These are our old and new charges:

Gas
Old variable tariff per unit 6.93
standing charge 25.92

New fixed - per unit 18.74
standing charge  27.22

Electricity 
Old variable tariff per unit 26.05
standing charge  45.96 

New fixed - per unit 66.92
standing charge 48.26

Thank you! 

I'm no expert so you would need to check with your supplier, but as I understand it you have 14 days to pull out of your contract with no penalty. You are still within that period. I would have done this in a heartbeat had it been me, but sadly I fixed back in April and I am locked into my higher prices for 2 years or I get the privilege of paying the shysters at EDF a £300 exit fee.

John_L_M

Tilona said:

@White_Goldfish

I did say in my original post that there were no exit fees but what I want to know is if a cooling period does apply and I cancel the new tariff, which is started paying on the 28th, I will then be refunded? And would I be going back to my original tariff or their standard variable tariff. I have looked high and low for this information and can't seem to find anything 😔 

From Martins analysis today:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/09/energy-bills-price-freeze-cost-of-living-government-liz-truss-/

"15. Those on fixes, can either stay on them, or can leave and switch to the new state subsidised tariffs with no exit penalties."

Musn't grumble... better than nothing I suppose...