unfairly elevated standing charges on gas and electric.

gretagarbo

I would be interested to know what others feel on this subject.When all this kicked off, My standing charges went up from 7.5pence a day to about 29pence and 49 pence a day  as well as the unit prices for gas and electric soaring..At the time I thought that it was a sneaky move to put the standing charges up so much ,because the utility companies knew that people would cut back on their usage to try and save money , so they unfairly elevated the standing charges , which are unavoidable. Thus ensuring they kept a nice steady income.
there are 19.3 million households in UK..lets say ,if every households standing charges went up by 50 pence overnight(which they did) the utility companies raked in 9.5 million pounds extra profits a DAY!!!! 
 I notice now that in july the prices of gas and electric  will be coming down ( by not very much 2p gas and 3p electric roughly)because of the reduced price cap . BUT GUESS WHAT..... yes .....the standing charges have NOT been reduced!!! not a single penny. I would call that profiteering.I would even call that sharp practice. Both of which OFGEM are supposed to protect us from .But when I complained to ofgem about the standing charge "raid" on our pockets they were indifferent and just sent a standard letter explaining how the pricecap works. They did not address my suspicion that we were being unfairly loaded with a standing charge to keep the company profits up.I fail to see how ofgem have not asked the utility companies to provide evidence of why it was necessary to hike these charges so much. I fear these charges will never go down to what they were.It enrages me , it is so unfair.

TheElectricCow

The capped standing charge is, in essence, dictated by Ofgem and not the energy suppliers. Of course they have seen the evidence of why the charges are necessary, they are the ones who decided upon and set them in the first place.

The suppliers do not keep the standing charge so do not profit from it, it is passed on to pay for the various costs that it’s made up of e.g. the infrastructure costs to actually get the energy from its source to your home.

gretagarbo

Hi thanks for response,when i contacted ofgem they said that they set the cap but allow the suppliers to decide how to allocate the rises on unit price and standing charge.
As regards the supplier not keeping the standing charge...I dont quite get that .They take the standing charge , pass on what is needed to pay for infrastructure and getting energy to us etc and what is left over they keep. I find it impossible to believe the infrastructure etc costs went up as drastically as they put the standing charges up to.

QrizB

Here is the official MSE post on the subject:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6435580/why-are-my-standing-charges-so-high

gretagarbo

I have read the mse links re price cap and standing charges. I understand it all a lot better now. thank you The ElectricCow and QrizB for your help,.
 Great that Martin has challenged ofgem re the standing charges.If anyone can them adjusted to a fairer level he can .

CSI_Yorkshire

Can MSE close this before it descends into yet another set of the same repeated arguments?

[Deleted User]

gretagarbo said:

I have read the mse links re price cap and standing charges. I understand it all a lot better now. thank you The ElectricCow and QrizB for your help,.
 Great that Martin has challenged ofgem re the standing charges.If anyone can them adjusted to a fairer level he can .

A fairer level will invariably lead to higher unit prices so people need to be careful what they wish for.