Standing Charge 10% Increase

coupleuk

MikeJXE said:

coupleuk said:

Octopus have announced a 10% Price Increase to the Daily Standing Charge (and knocked a whopping 1p off the unit rate).

These Standing Charges are a disgrace - when wholesale rates tumble, the Standing Charge goes up.

How does that help people reduce their electric bill? - where is the incentive?

Forget unit rates, the biggest ripoff in the energy market is the Standing Charge.

Amazed this website does not fight the issue.

That puts my standing charge up £28 a year 

And my energy use down over £50 a year and I'm a low user 

Wholesale energy rates have nosedived, so a 1p per unit drop is laughable.

Do Standing Charges go up another 10% next quarter, and the quarter after that ?

But as long as unit rates come down 1p we should all be grateful?

matt_drummer

coupleuk said:

matt_drummer said:

coupleuk said:

The same as it should be with Car Tax.

Car tax is not like this, vehicle excise duty is the same if you do zero miles or one million miles a year, just like the energy standing charges.

If I drive 1,000 miles a year with car tax at £145 then it's 14p per mile before I leave home or add fuel.

A 10,000 mile user will pay less than 1.5p per mile before fuel.

Why should I subsidise a heavier polluter, pay extra toward road repairs etc etc

Add 2p per litre and everyone pays their way - we'd get rid of a few pen pusher Gov jobs too once excise duty goes.

Yes, the same as the standing charge on energy.

You said you wanted energy to be treated like car tax, it already is!

Vehicle excise duty is a tax on car ownership, not on use, the tax on use comes from fuel duty and value added tax.


Energy standing charges are the fixed costs of making the provision to supply energy to your home and to protect any credit balance you have with your supplier if they were to go bust owing you money.

matt_drummer

matt_drummer said:

Why should I subsidise a heavier polluter, pay extra toward road repairs etc etc

You don't subsidise anybody, you pay a tax for having a car.

Drive a more efficient car for less miles and you will pay less fuel duty and vat than somebody who drives more in a less efficient car.

bristolleedsfan

matt_drummer said:

coupleuk said:

matt_drummer said:

coupleuk said:

Far easier to cut back and get the benefit when coat is unit based.

It is exactly like that, if you use zero units, your usage bill will be exactly zero!

Duh no it's not.

If I use zero units I still pay a 56p per day charge.

These companies will supply you with electricity, fix any faults to ensure you still have electricity and protect any credit balance you have with your supplier so that if they went bust you won't lose your money.

A few years ago they did the same thing for IRO 150% less SC cost.

Bust supplier costs which were split evenly between G+E down from about £61 per year to about £19 per year.

matt_drummer

coupleuk said:

Wholesale energy rates have nosedived, so a 1p per unit drop is laughable.

Do Standing Charges go up another 10% next quarter, and the quarter after that ?

But as long as unit rates come down 1p we should all be grateful?

It's what it costs.

It's the same everywhere in this country.

If t was possible to supply you for less somebody would be doing it.

If you are worried about costs, use as little as possible.

matt_drummer

bristolleedsfan said:

A few years ago they did the same thing for IRO 150% less SC cost.

Bust supplier costs which were split evenly between G+E down from about £61 per year to about £19 per year.

Stuff's gone up in price, it has everywhere, it's just how life is at the moment.

It doesn't make it a rip off, I'm sure it's no higher than it needs to be to maintain supply.

cozey

I'm an octopus customer - the standing charge for me has gone up from around 50 pence a day to 60 pence a day - that's a 20% increase. Regardless of whether that money goes to Octopus or to their suppliers, it still represents a substantial increase given that the standing charge was around 10 pence a day before the current energy crisis kicked off. It's hard not to believe that were being taken advantage of.

Please don't bother to reply telling me to reduce my energy usage to compensate 🙄

MikeJXE

cozey said:

I'm an octopus customer - the standing charge for me has gone up from around 50 pence a day to 60 pence a day - that's a 20% increase. Regardless of whether that money goes to Octopus or to their suppliers, it still represents a substantial increase given that the standing charge was around 10 pence a day before the current energy crisis kicked off. It's hard not to believe that were being taken advantage of.

Please don't bother to reply telling me to reduce my energy usage to compensate 🙄

I have just received my new rate from Octopus and have worked out my yearly costs

Electric has gone up £13.20 and gas down 19p overall. 

It could have been very much worse 

bristolleedsfan

Highest April regional SC increase that I have seen mentioned is IRO 30% - 46.952p per day to 60.177p per day,

Scot_39

coupleuk said:

Octopus have announced a 10% Price Increase to the Daily Standing Charge (and knocked a whopping 1p off the unit rate).

These Standing Charges are a disgrace - when wholesale rates tumble, the Standing Charge goes up.

How does that help people reduce their electric bill? - where is the incentive?

Forget unit rates, the biggest ripoff in the energy market is the Standing Charge.

Amazed this website does not fight the issue.

Ofgem set the standing charge - not the energy firms - not the government.

And due to the EPG - the increase in standing charge is essentially offset in the average unit price at the TDCV levels.

(EPG based on TDCV 2900 electric, 12000 kWh gas - so simplistically if took annually - the ave 7p rise offset for 2900/365 =  8kWh electric, and 1p by 12000/365 = 33kWh gas.  Not saying that's what happened - they may have used some more intelligent basis - like seasonal adjusted quarterly or some such - but just as an example)

Which does mean low users are losing a little - and higher users are effectively benefiting - albeit slightly.  But the amounts are almost trivial - compared to the EPG discounts.

And remember we are all still getting the 16.6p electric and 2.2 gas iirc ? +vat EPG discounts for another 3 months. 

Which is far more significant - so console myself that covers the 7p extra on SC cost even if only use 7p SC/17.4 EPG discount = c0.4 kWh of electric.