Standing charge on energy bills

matt_drummer

sevenhills said:

Just imagine putting £50 of fuel into your car and they add another £20 for the cost of running the petrol station?

Just imagine you have to pay £150 in vehicle excise duty and £600 in insurance before you drive your car and then you have to spend £50 in fuel to drive somewhere.

bristolleedsfan

matt_drummer said:

sevenhills said:

Just imagine putting £50 of fuel into your car and they add another £20 for the cost of running the petrol station?

Just imagine you have to pay £150 in vehicle excise duty and £600 in insurance before you drive your car and then you have to spend £50 in fuel to drive somewhere.

Insurance is not a valid comparison with energy SC, not same charge/cost for all cars.

Vehicle excise duty not same charge/cost for all cars

theoretica

Buy many things and you need to pay a delivery charge...  I guess you could rejig the house to run off gas bottles and go collect refills.

To me, this reads like an argument against privatisation - no failed suppliers to pay for!

matt_drummer

bristolleedsfan said:

matt_drummer said:

sevenhills said:

Just imagine putting £50 of fuel into your car and they add another £20 for the cost of running the petrol station?

Just imagine you have to pay £150 in vehicle excise duty and £600 in insurance before you drive your car and then you have to spend £50 in fuel to drive somewhere.

Insurance is not a valid comparison with energy SC, not same charge/cost for all cars.

Vehicle excise duty not same charge/cost for all cars

The standing charge is not the same for all properties.

It's a perfectly valid comparison, there's a charge that you must pay regardless of how many miles you drive.

MattMattMattUK

sevenhills said:

Just imagine putting £50 of fuel into your car and they add another £20 for the cost of running the petrol station?

Not comparable, the petrol station is not connected directly to your house. If you go and pick up your energy as you do with petrol, you would not have a standing charge.

[Deleted User]

Consumers do not like having to pay standing charges. That said, I have yet to see anyone come up with a solution that would work.

Yes, the cost could be put on unit prices; however, is it fair that high energy users should pay more than low energy users for such things as supplier failures or consumer balance protection; green taxes etc? Should low energy users such as those with PV solar also benefit from no standing charge tariffs?

I suspect that if the standing charge cost was added to unit prices people would still cry foul. The truth is that none of us like high energy costs.

MattMattMattUK

Dolor said:

Consumers do not like having to pay standing charges. That said, I have yet to see anyone come up with a solution that would work.

Yes, the cost could be put on unit prices; however, is it fair that high energy users should pay more than low energy users for such things as supplier failures or consumer balance protection; green taxes etc? Should low energy users such as those with PV solar also benefit from no standing charge tariffs?

I suspect that if the standing charge cost was added to unit prices people would still cry foul. The truth is that none of us like high energy costs.

The problem is a lot of people do not like paying at all, they think that everything should be paid for by "someone else", it is one of the fundamental issues that is damaging our society, too few people think that they should pay for things they use, or contribute to society. 

Chrysalis

sandyides said:

Anyone else like me appalled by the escalation of the daily standing charges being applied to energy bills? So even if you don't use any energy at all, you'll still have an increasing bill.
There was a time, not so long ago, when there were no standing charges. Can we revert to that please?
Is it worth a petition?

Already is one with almost 400k signatures, here you go, shame its not on the gov website though, with this many signatures.

https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-reduce-profit-headroom-and-tax-percentages-from-ofgem-price-cap-formula-jacob-rees-mogg-ofgem-jeremy-hunt-adjustpricecap-ofgem

Chrysalis

powerful_Rogue said:

I don't shoplift, so should my groceries be cheaper as I shouldn't have to pay for those that do and the additional security shops have to employ.

I think the SC is a small price to pay to be connected to the grid. Average of £14 per month. A telephone landline costs around £20+ per month.

Are you in a time capsule?

SVR SC for gas+electric is now going to be close to £30 a month for some people.

Average of £25 nationally according to BG.

For a lot of people thats not insignificant for just been connected to the grid.

For reference I pay £15 for my mobile phone, but I get unlimited calls, and a lot of inclusive data for that, I dont pay for every second of usage on top of that, so not sure what you was trying to say there.

MattMattMattUK

Chrysalis said:

sandyides said:

Anyone else like me appalled by the escalation of the daily standing charges being applied to energy bills? So even if you don't use any energy at all, you'll still have an increasing bill.
There was a time, not so long ago, when there were no standing charges. Can we revert to that please?
Is it worth a petition?

Already is one with almost 400k signatures, here you go, shame its not on the gov website though, with this many signatures.

https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-reduce-profit-headroom-and-tax-percentages-from-ofgem-price-cap-formula-jacob-rees-mogg-ofgem-jeremy-hunt-adjustpricecap-ofgem

That is an awful petition that is economically illiterate, it would mean capping supplier profit at 0.4%, as a business, with risk factored in, it is not worth running a business at that level, one could get ten times the return on the FTSE 100 which is very low ris, five times that amount by just buying gilts which have zero risk.