They’re hoarding my money

JSHarris

We are all electric, with no other form of heating.  January numbers are generally a good proxy for weather variation.  Our January 2022 usage was 721kWh, that dropped during the milder weather in January 2023 to 661kWh, a drop of 8.3%, almost all of that most likely due to the milder weather.

What I struggle to understand is how our old supplier could justify more than doubling our DD when we were already significantly over-paying and with a large credit balance at the end of winter 2022. 

Clearly EDF knew what they were doing when they set our DD for 2023 at £68.  All that does is highlight that UW's DD in 2022 of £158 was bonkers.

Scot_39

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

May be our usage isn't typical, but it does seem reasonably easy to use last year's pattern of  usage as a good indicator of this years usage (same goes for previous years). 

It is worth remembering that the 2022/23 cold seasons were milder than normal.  Energy use linked to heating was about 20% lower than norm.

 If I can easily plot the mean usage ( the red dashed line) in order to get a fairly good idea as to what the DD needs to be set at, then suppliers should be able to do the same. 

They will typically use methodology based on more typical. seasonal temperatures.  However, they have a number of unknowns to deal with.   For example, they don't know your heating method.     It could be electric, it could be something else.   So, there are always going to be variables.

The issue here is the likely magnitude of any difference.  The numbers show the scale of the error and this cannot possibly be ascribed to a 10% or so variation from one season to another.  Easy to see from the January/February usage that seasonal variation is small.  Our 2022 Jan/Feb usage was 1,269kWh, our 2023 Jan/Feb usage was 1,141kWh.  A variation of just 10%.

For all of 2021 and the early part of 2022 our DD was set at £78/month.  By April 2022 our account was £600 in credit.  Despite being in credit at the end of the heating season, UW wanted to increase my DD to £158/month.  That would have put us further into credit through the winter of 2022/23.  I estimated my credit balance would have been well over £1,000 by April 2023 if they had done this (ignoring the government money as I didn't know was on it's way at that time).

I switched to EDF in 2022.  They set my DD at £68/month, which seems to be pretty accurate.  Hard to understand why UW felt I needed to pay more than double that a year earlier, when prices were a bit lower.

The usage allowance is one thing, pricing as we all now know, another.

Annualised bills are meant to work over the next billing cycle - not the previous.

That means use of both usage and forecast pricing. 


You do realise of course April 22 saw the biggest jump (but only thanks to the EPG rate cap coming in to cap the Ofgem rate cap from Oct).

When it jumped from £1277 to £1971 - that's £694 or 55%

So that step alone wiped out your £600 credit in calculations for following year etc.

And it was well known it would rise again - as the current market prices - were already on average way higher than the at the time 6m lagged cap.

And 6 months later Ofgem raised it -  jumping to  £3549, another over £1500 and 80% rise.

And again that was time lagged - so behind market rates.

So as well as the £400 EBSS, the Cons govt intervened again and capped Ofgem rate cap by EPG rate cap at £2500 - saving households £1049 pro rata.

So EPG cap saw prices raised a far smaller step and much lower percentage than in April 22 (2500/1971=27%, diff £529)

There was no inevitability - in the aid we have enjoyed - it was extended 3m cf Hunt market recovery plan - the original 2 year plan the biggest and crucially open ended /  uncapped commitment part of KK LT £60bn black Hole that spooked markets and crashed bond prices.

There is certainly no guarantee any aid will return - despite the loss of EBSS meaning some low users, particularly all electric face £100s more net outgoings this year.

It may not have ever been exactly as bad as some predicted - some horror predictions were talking £5500+ at one stage - as it was market cap Ofgem hit £4279 in Jan.  Again the EPG cap saved households £1779 Pro rata.

As I say annualised bills is forward looking on prices and usage - its not all backward looking - so was looking at those sort of market rates.

Many businesses and so many homes with communal heat schemes paid those uncapped prices.

Even now we see posts like I used to pay £100 monthly and its gone up to £200 or £250...

Well without EPG it could have reached £335+ at peak cf last year.

£4279/£1277 = 3.35

£2500/£1277 = 1.96

If that £100 was year before - go back to autumn 2020/Jan 21 - when cap a low of £1042 -  even EPG was 2.4x, Ofgem peak 4.1x.

Without interventionbuly govt - if truly left to markets - things would have been a lot worse for all of us.

And even now at the new £2074 - most of the saving is on gas - down 27%, electric only c10%.  

And CI forecasts that electric will increase q4 and both fuels by q1 24. So there cap (as of mid May) q4 c1980, q1 c£2040 iirc.

We may not have seen the end of price rises - for Ukraine fallout or for greening - CfD for old renewables already turned back positive on electric pricing cf last quarter etc.

And firms will tend to err on upside - hedge unknowns - as 1.9% or even 2.4% ebit (profit) allowance and as one post elsewhere £38m in interst bills (the I in EBIT) at just one supplier likely to rise with market rates as roll over finance - they really dont have the headroom to absord the risk.

JSHarris

Scot_39 said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

May be our usage isn't typical, but it does seem reasonably easy to use last year's pattern of  usage as a good indicator of this years usage (same goes for previous years). 

It is worth remembering that the 2022/23 cold seasons were milder than normal.  Energy use linked to heating was about 20% lower than norm.

 If I can easily plot the mean usage ( the red dashed line) in order to get a fairly good idea as to what the DD needs to be set at, then suppliers should be able to do the same. 

They will typically use methodology based on more typical. seasonal temperatures.  However, they have a number of unknowns to deal with.   For example, they don't know your heating method.     It could be electric, it could be something else.   So, there are always going to be variables.

The issue here is the likely magnitude of any difference.  The numbers show the scale of the error and this cannot possibly be ascribed to a 10% or so variation from one season to another.  Easy to see from the January/February usage that seasonal variation is small.  Our 2022 Jan/Feb usage was 1,269kWh, our 2023 Jan/Feb usage was 1,141kWh.  A variation of just 10%.

For all of 2021 and the early part of 2022 our DD was set at £78/month.  By April 2022 our account was £600 in credit.  Despite being in credit at the end of the heating season, UW wanted to increase my DD to £158/month.  That would have put us further into credit through the winter of 2022/23.  I estimated my credit balance would have been well over £1,000 by April 2023 if they had done this (ignoring the government money as I didn't know was on it's way at that time).

I switched to EDF in 2022.  They set my DD at £68/month, which seems to be pretty accurate.  Hard to understand why UW felt I needed to pay more than double that a year earlier, when prices were a bit lower.

The usage allowance is one thing, pricing as we all now know, another.

Annualised bills are meant to work over the next billing cycle - not the previous.

That means use of both usage and forecast pricing. 


You do realise of course April 22 saw the biggest jump (but only thanks to the EPG rate cap coming in to cap the Ofgem rate cap from Oct).

When it jumped from £1277 to £1971 - that's £694 or 55%

So that step alone wiped out your £600 credit in calculations for following year etc.

And it was well known it would rise again - as the current market prices - were already on average way higher than the at the time 6m lagged cap.

And 6 months later Ofgem raised it -  jumping to  £3549, another over £1500 and 80% rise.

And again that was time lagged - so behind market rates.

So as well as the £400 EBSS, the Cons govt intervened again and capped Ofgem rate cap by EPG rate cap at £2500 - saving households £1049 pro rata.

So EPG cap saw prices raised a far smaller step and much lower percentage than in April 22 (2500/1971=27%, diff £529)

There was no inevitability - in the aid we have enjoyed - it was extended 3m cf Hunt market recovery plan - the original 2 year plan the biggest and crucially open ended /  uncapped commitment part of KK LT £60bn black Hole that spooked markets and crashed bond prices.

There is certainly no guarantee any aid will return - despite the loss of EBSS meaning some low users, particularly all electric face £100s more net outgoings this year.

It may not have ever been exactly as bad as some predicted - some horror predictions were talking £5500+ at one stage - as it was market cap Ofgem hit £4279 in Jan.  Again the EPG cap saved households £1779 Pro rata.

As I say annualised bills is forward looking on prices and usage - its not all backward looking - so was looking at those sort of market rates.

Many businesses and so many homes with communal heat schemes paid those uncapped prices.

Even now we see posts like I used to pay £100 monthly and its gone up to £200 or £250...

Well without EPG it could have reached £335+ at peak cf last year.

£4279/£1277 = 3.35

£2500/£1277 = 1.96

If that £100 was year before - go back to autumn 2020/Jan 21 - when cap a low of £1042 -  even EPG was 2.4x, Ofgem peak 4.1x.

Without interventionbuly govt - if truly left to markets - things would have been a lot worse for all of us.

And even now at the new £2074 - most of the saving is on gas - down 27%, electric only c10%.  

And CI forecasts that electric will increase q4 and both fuels by q1 24. So there cap (as of mid May) q4 c1980, q1 c£2040 iirc.

We may not have seen the end of price rises - for Ukraine fallout or for greening - CfD for old renewables already turned back positive on electric pricing cf last quarter etc.

And firms will tend to err on upside - hedge unknowns - as 1.9% or even 2.4% ebit (profit) allowance and as one post elsewhere £38m in interst bills (the I in EBIT) at just one supplier likely to rise with market rates as roll over finance - they really dont have the headroom to absord the risk.

Yes I "do realise of course" all of the facts, thanks, but it's always nice to be reminded of the obvious. 

Through late 2020 and all of 2021 I paid £78/month by DD.  By April 2022 I was just under £600 in credit.  I've stated this earlier.  There's no way on earth that ~£600 credit would have been "wiped out" by the price increases, that's clear from the arithmetic.  

For all the time I was paying £78/month our actual bill was a lot lower (came to £567 in 2021).  My DD in 2021 should have been about £47, so UW set it way too high even then (which is how we amassed such a lot of credit).  Had I agreed to the bonkers £158/month DD in April 2022 then we'd have been in credit (ignoring the government money we didn't know about back then) by well over £1,000 at the end of the following winter (April 2023).

Even now, with much higher prices,  we don't use £1,000 of electricity in a year.  Makes no sense that UW wanted me to pay £1,896 to cover a true bill that came to about £821. 

This year I think our total bill (guessing at what prices will do between now and the year end) will be similar, my spreadsheet guess is that it will be about £819 for 2023, so perhaps very slightly less than for 2022.

Curiously that £819 number is a very close fit to the DD that EDF have suggested, which is £68/month (£816/year).  Does suggest that EDF have a far more sensible way to calculated monthly DD amounts than UW.  Or, perhaps, it shows that UW gear their DDs to grab more money from customers.

CSI_Yorkshire

JSHarris said:

Scot_39 said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

May be our usage isn't typical, but it does seem reasonably easy to use last year's pattern of  usage as a good indicator of this years usage (same goes for previous years). 

It is worth remembering that the 2022/23 cold seasons were milder than normal.  Energy use linked to heating was about 20% lower than norm.

 If I can easily plot the mean usage ( the red dashed line) in order to get a fairly good idea as to what the DD needs to be set at, then suppliers should be able to do the same. 

They will typically use methodology based on more typical. seasonal temperatures.  However, they have a number of unknowns to deal with.   For example, they don't know your heating method.     It could be electric, it could be something else.   So, there are always going to be variables.

The issue here is the likely magnitude of any difference.  The numbers show the scale of the error and this cannot possibly be ascribed to a 10% or so variation from one season to another.  Easy to see from the January/February usage that seasonal variation is small.  Our 2022 Jan/Feb usage was 1,269kWh, our 2023 Jan/Feb usage was 1,141kWh.  A variation of just 10%.

For all of 2021 and the early part of 2022 our DD was set at £78/month.  By April 2022 our account was £600 in credit.  Despite being in credit at the end of the heating season, UW wanted to increase my DD to £158/month.  That would have put us further into credit through the winter of 2022/23.  I estimated my credit balance would have been well over £1,000 by April 2023 if they had done this (ignoring the government money as I didn't know was on it's way at that time).

I switched to EDF in 2022.  They set my DD at £68/month, which seems to be pretty accurate.  Hard to understand why UW felt I needed to pay more than double that a year earlier, when prices were a bit lower.

The usage allowance is one thing, pricing as we all now know, another.

Annualised bills are meant to work over the next billing cycle - not the previous.

That means use of both usage and forecast pricing. 


You do realise of course April 22 saw the biggest jump (but only thanks to the EPG rate cap coming in to cap the Ofgem rate cap from Oct).

When it jumped from £1277 to £1971 - that's £694 or 55%

So that step alone wiped out your £600 credit in calculations for following year etc.

And it was well known it would rise again - as the current market prices - were already on average way higher than the at the time 6m lagged cap.

And 6 months later Ofgem raised it -  jumping to  £3549, another over £1500 and 80% rise.

And again that was time lagged - so behind market rates.

So as well as the £400 EBSS, the Cons govt intervened again and capped Ofgem rate cap by EPG rate cap at £2500 - saving households £1049 pro rata.

So EPG cap saw prices raised a far smaller step and much lower percentage than in April 22 (2500/1971=27%, diff £529)

There was no inevitability - in the aid we have enjoyed - it was extended 3m cf Hunt market recovery plan - the original 2 year plan the biggest and crucially open ended /  uncapped commitment part of KK LT £60bn black Hole that spooked markets and crashed bond prices.

There is certainly no guarantee any aid will return - despite the loss of EBSS meaning some low users, particularly all electric face £100s more net outgoings this year.

It may not have ever been exactly as bad as some predicted - some horror predictions were talking £5500+ at one stage - as it was market cap Ofgem hit £4279 in Jan.  Again the EPG cap saved households £1779 Pro rata.

As I say annualised bills is forward looking on prices and usage - its not all backward looking - so was looking at those sort of market rates.

Many businesses and so many homes with communal heat schemes paid those uncapped prices.

Even now we see posts like I used to pay £100 monthly and its gone up to £200 or £250...

Well without EPG it could have reached £335+ at peak cf last year.

£4279/£1277 = 3.35

£2500/£1277 = 1.96

If that £100 was year before - go back to autumn 2020/Jan 21 - when cap a low of £1042 -  even EPG was 2.4x, Ofgem peak 4.1x.

Without interventionbuly govt - if truly left to markets - things would have been a lot worse for all of us.

And even now at the new £2074 - most of the saving is on gas - down 27%, electric only c10%.  

And CI forecasts that electric will increase q4 and both fuels by q1 24. So there cap (as of mid May) q4 c1980, q1 c£2040 iirc.

We may not have seen the end of price rises - for Ukraine fallout or for greening - CfD for old renewables already turned back positive on electric pricing cf last quarter etc.

And firms will tend to err on upside - hedge unknowns - as 1.9% or even 2.4% ebit (profit) allowance and as one post elsewhere £38m in interst bills (the I in EBIT) at just one supplier likely to rise with market rates as roll over finance - they really dont have the headroom to absord the risk.

 Does suggest that EDF have a far more sensible way to calculated monthly DD amounts than UW.  Or, perhaps, it shows that UW gear their DDs to grab more money from customers.

It's pretty uncommon for people to suggest that EdF are doing anything sensible!

There must be different calculations, different assumptions, or a different risk appetite (whether that's risk in the finance sense or risk of being found bending the limits I couldn't possibly comment).

JSHarris

CSI_Yorkshire said:

JSHarris said:

Scot_39 said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

May be our usage isn't typical, but it does seem reasonably easy to use last year's pattern of  usage as a good indicator of this years usage (same goes for previous years). 

It is worth remembering that the 2022/23 cold seasons were milder than normal.  Energy use linked to heating was about 20% lower than norm.

 If I can easily plot the mean usage ( the red dashed line) in order to get a fairly good idea as to what the DD needs to be set at, then suppliers should be able to do the same. 

They will typically use methodology based on more typical. seasonal temperatures.  However, they have a number of unknowns to deal with.   For example, they don't know your heating method.     It could be electric, it could be something else.   So, there are always going to be variables.

The issue here is the likely magnitude of any difference.  The numbers show the scale of the error and this cannot possibly be ascribed to a 10% or so variation from one season to another.  Easy to see from the January/February usage that seasonal variation is small.  Our 2022 Jan/Feb usage was 1,269kWh, our 2023 Jan/Feb usage was 1,141kWh.  A variation of just 10%.

For all of 2021 and the early part of 2022 our DD was set at £78/month.  By April 2022 our account was £600 in credit.  Despite being in credit at the end of the heating season, UW wanted to increase my DD to £158/month.  That would have put us further into credit through the winter of 2022/23.  I estimated my credit balance would have been well over £1,000 by April 2023 if they had done this (ignoring the government money as I didn't know was on it's way at that time).

I switched to EDF in 2022.  They set my DD at £68/month, which seems to be pretty accurate.  Hard to understand why UW felt I needed to pay more than double that a year earlier, when prices were a bit lower.

The usage allowance is one thing, pricing as we all now know, another.

Annualised bills are meant to work over the next billing cycle - not the previous.

That means use of both usage and forecast pricing. 


You do realise of course April 22 saw the biggest jump (but only thanks to the EPG rate cap coming in to cap the Ofgem rate cap from Oct).

When it jumped from £1277 to £1971 - that's £694 or 55%

So that step alone wiped out your £600 credit in calculations for following year etc.

And it was well known it would rise again - as the current market prices - were already on average way higher than the at the time 6m lagged cap.

And 6 months later Ofgem raised it -  jumping to  £3549, another over £1500 and 80% rise.

And again that was time lagged - so behind market rates.

So as well as the £400 EBSS, the Cons govt intervened again and capped Ofgem rate cap by EPG rate cap at £2500 - saving households £1049 pro rata.

So EPG cap saw prices raised a far smaller step and much lower percentage than in April 22 (2500/1971=27%, diff £529)

There was no inevitability - in the aid we have enjoyed - it was extended 3m cf Hunt market recovery plan - the original 2 year plan the biggest and crucially open ended /  uncapped commitment part of KK LT £60bn black Hole that spooked markets and crashed bond prices.

There is certainly no guarantee any aid will return - despite the loss of EBSS meaning some low users, particularly all electric face £100s more net outgoings this year.

It may not have ever been exactly as bad as some predicted - some horror predictions were talking £5500+ at one stage - as it was market cap Ofgem hit £4279 in Jan.  Again the EPG cap saved households £1779 Pro rata.

As I say annualised bills is forward looking on prices and usage - its not all backward looking - so was looking at those sort of market rates.

Many businesses and so many homes with communal heat schemes paid those uncapped prices.

Even now we see posts like I used to pay £100 monthly and its gone up to £200 or £250...

Well without EPG it could have reached £335+ at peak cf last year.

£4279/£1277 = 3.35

£2500/£1277 = 1.96

If that £100 was year before - go back to autumn 2020/Jan 21 - when cap a low of £1042 -  even EPG was 2.4x, Ofgem peak 4.1x.

Without interventionbuly govt - if truly left to markets - things would have been a lot worse for all of us.

And even now at the new £2074 - most of the saving is on gas - down 27%, electric only c10%.  

And CI forecasts that electric will increase q4 and both fuels by q1 24. So there cap (as of mid May) q4 c1980, q1 c£2040 iirc.

We may not have seen the end of price rises - for Ukraine fallout or for greening - CfD for old renewables already turned back positive on electric pricing cf last quarter etc.

And firms will tend to err on upside - hedge unknowns - as 1.9% or even 2.4% ebit (profit) allowance and as one post elsewhere £38m in interst bills (the I in EBIT) at just one supplier likely to rise with market rates as roll over finance - they really dont have the headroom to absord the risk.

 Does suggest that EDF have a far more sensible way to calculated monthly DD amounts than UW.  Or, perhaps, it shows that UW gear their DDs to grab more money from customers.

It's pretty uncommon for people to suggest that EdF are doing anything sensible!

There must be different calculations, different assumptions, or a different risk appetite (whether that's risk in the finance sense or risk of being found bending the limits I couldn't possibly comment).

Wish there was a way to add a smiley!

Whatever algorithm UW used to set DD amounts seems generally to overestimate the total bill for the year by a great deal, more than double the amount for for 2022, but also way over in 2021 as well.

Whether EDF's DD amount turns out to be close to reality I won't know for sure until the end of the year, but it's looking sensible.  Most notable benefit from my perspective has been that I've had no need to do battle with a call centre person intent on protecting me from myself.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Wish there was a way to add a smiley!

if I click on the sunglasses smiley icon I get this, B,

but, if I right click on it and Copy Image, then go to the wee post card icon and paste, I get this.

Spoonie_Turtle

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

Wish there was a way to add a smiley!

if I click on the sunglasses smiley icon I get this, B,

but, if I right click on it and Copy Image, then go to the wee post card icon and paste, I get this.

You should get it posting automatically if you type : sunglasses : all together without a space between -
No idea why you just got a B.

To get suggested emoticons, type a : and see what comes up when you follow it with different letters.

CSI_Yorkshire

Spoonie_Turtle said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

Wish there was a way to add a smiley!

if I click on the sunglasses smiley icon I get this, B,

but, if I right click on it and Copy Image, then go to the wee post card icon and paste, I get this.

You should get it posting automatically if you type : sunglasses : all together without a space between -
No idea why you just got a B

Or "B )" without the space

Spoonie_Turtle

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

Wish there was a way to add a smiley!

if I click on the sunglasses smiley icon I get this, B,

but, if I right click on it and Copy Image, then go to the wee post card icon and paste, I get this.

You should get it posting automatically if you type : sunglasses : all together without a space between -
No idea why you just got a B

Or "B )" without the space

Aha!  I knew there must be a simpler way but couldn't remember what it was!  Thanks.

Scot_39

JSHarris said:

Scot_39 said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

May be our usage isn't typical, but it does seem reasonably easy to use last year's pattern of  usage as a good indicator of this years usage (same goes for previous years). 

It is worth remembering that the 2022/23 cold seasons were milder than normal.  Energy use linked to heating was about 20% lower than norm.

 If I can easily plot the mean usage ( the red dashed line) in order to get a fairly good idea as to what the DD needs to be set at, then suppliers should be able to do the same. 

They will typically use methodology based on more typical. seasonal temperatures.  However, they have a number of unknowns to deal with.   For example, they don't know your heating method.     It could be electric, it could be something else.   So, there are always going to be variables.

The issue here is the likely magnitude of any difference.  The numbers show the scale of the error and this cannot possibly be ascribed to a 10% or so variation from one season to another.  Easy to see from the January/February usage that seasonal variation is small.  Our 2022 Jan/Feb usage was 1,269kWh, our 2023 Jan/Feb usage was 1,141kWh.  A variation of just 10%.

For all of 2021 and the early part of 2022 our DD was set at £78/month.  By April 2022 our account was £600 in credit.  Despite being in credit at the end of the heating season, UW wanted to increase my DD to £158/month.  That would have put us further into credit through the winter of 2022/23.  I estimated my credit balance would have been well over £1,000 by April 2023 if they had done this (ignoring the government money as I didn't know was on it's way at that time).

I switched to EDF in 2022.  They set my DD at £68/month, which seems to be pretty accurate.  Hard to understand why UW felt I needed to pay more than double that a year earlier, when prices were a bit lower.

The usage allowance is one thing, pricing as we all now know, another.

Annualised bills are meant to work over the next billing cycle - not the previous.

That means use of both usage and forecast pricing. 


You do realise of course April 22 saw the biggest jump (but only thanks to the EPG rate cap coming in to cap the Ofgem rate cap from Oct).

When it jumped from £1277 to £1971 - that's £694 or 55%

So that step alone wiped out your £600 credit in calculations for following year etc.

And it was well known it would rise again - as the current market prices - were already on average way higher than the at the time 6m lagged cap.

And 6 months later Ofgem raised it -  jumping to  £3549, another over £1500 and 80% rise.

And again that was time lagged - so behind market rates.

So as well as the £400 EBSS, the Cons govt intervened again and capped Ofgem rate cap by EPG rate cap at £2500 - saving households £1049 pro rata.

So EPG cap saw prices raised a far smaller step and much lower percentage than in April 22 (2500/1971=27%, diff £529)

There was no inevitability - in the aid we have enjoyed - it was extended 3m cf Hunt market recovery plan - the original 2 year plan the biggest and crucially open ended /  uncapped commitment part of KK LT £60bn black Hole that spooked markets and crashed bond prices.

There is certainly no guarantee any aid will return - despite the loss of EBSS meaning some low users, particularly all electric face £100s more net outgoings this year.

It may not have ever been exactly as bad as some predicted - some horror predictions were talking £5500+ at one stage - as it was market cap Ofgem hit £4279 in Jan.  Again the EPG cap saved households £1779 Pro rata.

As I say annualised bills is forward looking on prices and usage - its not all backward looking - so was looking at those sort of market rates.

Many businesses and so many homes with communal heat schemes paid those uncapped prices.

Even now we see posts like I used to pay £100 monthly and its gone up to £200 or £250...

Well without EPG it could have reached £335+ at peak cf last year.

£4279/£1277 = 3.35

£2500/£1277 = 1.96

If that £100 was year before - go back to autumn 2020/Jan 21 - when cap a low of £1042 -  even EPG was 2.4x, Ofgem peak 4.1x.

Without interventionbuly govt - if truly left to markets - things would have been a lot worse for all of us.

And even now at the new £2074 - most of the saving is on gas - down 27%, electric only c10%.  

And CI forecasts that electric will increase q4 and both fuels by q1 24. So there cap (as of mid May) q4 c1980, q1 c£2040 iirc.

We may not have seen the end of price rises - for Ukraine fallout or for greening - CfD for old renewables already turned back positive on electric pricing cf last quarter etc.

And firms will tend to err on upside - hedge unknowns - as 1.9% or even 2.4% ebit (profit) allowance and as one post elsewhere £38m in interst bills (the I in EBIT) at just one supplier likely to rise with market rates as roll over finance - they really dont have the headroom to absord the risk.

Yes I "do realise of course" all of the facts, thanks, but it's always nice to be reminded of the obvious. 

Through late 2020 and all of 2021 I paid £78/month by DD.  By April 2022 I was just under £600 in credit.  I've stated this earlier.  There's no way on earth that ~£600 credit would have been "wiped out" by the price increases, that's clear from the arithmetic.  

For all the time I was paying £78/month our actual bill was a lot lower (came to £567 in 2021).  My DD in 2021 should have been about £47, so UW set it way too high even then (which is how we amassed such a lot of credit).  Had I agreed to the bonkers £158/month DD in April 2022 then we'd have been in credit (ignoring the government money we didn't know about back then) by well over £1,000 at the end of the following winter (April 2023).

Even now, with much higher prices,  we don't use £1,000 of electricity in a year.  Makes no sense that UW wanted me to pay £1,896 to cover a true bill that came to about £821. 

This year I think our total bill (guessing at what prices will do between now and the year end) will be similar, my spreadsheet guess is that it will be about £819 for 2023, so perhaps very slightly less than for 2022.

Curiously that £819 number is a very close fit to the DD that EDF have suggested, which is £68/month (£816/year).  Does suggest that EDF have a far more sensible way to calculated monthly DD amounts than UW.  Or, perhaps, it shows that UW gear their DDs to grab more money from customers.

Sorry just went by the ratio 78 to 158 which seemed understandable given price ratios.

For typical users the rises would have added far more than 600,so perhaps should have said that size of credit £600 level rather than your £600.