MSE News: Energy bills to fall by 7% as new Price Cap is announced

TMSG

matt_drummer said:

With standing charges at around 50p a day and electricity at 27p per kWh what sort of person gets through each day with the cost of the standing charge exceeding their usage charge? You would have to be using less than 2kWh a day, less than 80 watts an hour on average. That cannot be true for many people?

Somebody using 2kWh of electricity a day would save 37p a day, £135 a year under this system, how many people use 2kWh a day of electricity on average? This would only benefit a tiny number of people.

I can only speak for myself, but I am using around 650-700kWh per year (no typo). We're away from home for around six to seven months and during that time the usage is minimal (around 0.3kWh in summer, a little more in winter). Even when we are home we rarely use more than 2.5kWh per day (this is a gas-heated four-bedroom house with a fridge, a freezer, a smallish TV and two PCs running ~ six to seven hours per day... but we have ruthlessly optimised energy usage. It is doable.)

We have no problem paying a reasonable standing charge but if the standing charge approaches the energy we actually use...

TMSG

QrizB said:

Here's my calculation of the regional variations (this is unofficial, any errors are mine).

Dual fuel:

And multi-rate electricity (the 42:58 weighted average price for E7):

I am trying to understand this. I am, like you in Hampshire, Southern. The SC cap for gas is £102.95 and for me that means a SC ppd of £0.282, not 29.6. Same for LX where I arrive at £0.476 SC ppd. I must be misunderstanding something...?

EDIT: Alright, I see... 5% VAT added to SC  ppd./EDIT

matt_drummer

TMSG said:

matt_drummer said:

With standing charges at around 50p a day and electricity at 27p per kWh what sort of person gets through each day with the cost of the standing charge exceeding their usage charge? You would have to be using less than 2kWh a day, less than 80 watts an hour on average. That cannot be true for many people?

Somebody using 2kWh of electricity a day would save 37p a day, £135 a year under this system, how many people use 2kWh a day of electricity on average? This would only benefit a tiny number of people.

I can only speak for myself, but I am using around 650-700kWh per year (no typo). We're away from home for around six to seven months and during that time the usage is minimal (around 0.3kWh in summer, a little more in winter). Even when we are home we rarely use more than 2.5kWh per day (this is a gas-heated four-bedroom house with a fridge, a freezer, a smallish TV and two PCs running ~ six to seven hours per day... but we have ruthlessly optimised energy usage. It is doable.)

We have no problem paying a reasonable standing charge but if the standing charge approaches the energy we actually use...

If you use 0.30 kWh per day when you are not home that is 54 kWh over six months.

What do you have turned on the only uses 300 watts a day? It's nothing and cannot possibly be your fridge and freezer.

That means you use at least 600 kWh over the other six months at your lowest usage of 650kWh.

Over 183 days that is 3.28 kWh per day.

That means your usage charges are more than your standing charge.

I still doubt many people have a standing charge that is more than their usage.

matt_drummer

dealyboy said:

I am a pensioner on a low income (just full state pension) and have a small park home with the only heating from a portable electric radiator. As a Forumite I cut costs if I can and the last two winters I have had what I now believe to have been chilblains for several months (GP has confirmed Beau's lines).

Can I ask, in all seriousness, if the standing charge for electricity was removed would you turn your heating on more?

Or would you use the same amount of electricity and be happy with the extra saving?

It's a genuine question and  I truly don't want to upset you.

I am just interested in how things can be so tight financially that you can't heat your home enough to avoid the health issues.

Do you not heat your home enough to save money generally, for other reasons or just because you don't acually have enough money?

It makes me sad that you are so cold that you have health issues.

I know that there is at least one poster here who suffers the cold and does not heat their home so that they can pay for skiing holidays.

QrizB

TMSG said:
EDIT: Alright, I see... 5% VAT added to SC  ppd./EDIT

Yes, the raw annual costs published by Ofgem exclude VAT, and those are what I put into my table.

But the fine people of MSE really want to know the daily and unit prices including VAT, so the calculation adds 5% on.

TMSG

@matt_drummer Good grief. I wrote around "0.3kWh in summer" and possibly it's a bit more. I also wrote "a little more in winter" and though I am not sure about the nth decimal we're looking at around 0.5kWh.

Whatever the super-precise numbers for when we're away, we pay (for the current cap) £181.04 pa SC and £204.53 pa LX units (to be precise, this figure is for exactly 675kWh). So yes, you are right and it appears I have no reason to be unhappy about the low SC.

matt_drummer

TMSG said:

@matt_drummer Good grief. I wrote around "0.3kWh in summer" and possibly it's a bit more. I also wrote "a little more in winter" and though I am not sure about the nth decimal we're looking at around 0.5kWh.

Whatever the super-precise numbers for when we're away, we pay (for the current cap) £181.04 pa SC and £204.53 pa LX units (to be precise, this figure is for exactly 675kWh). So yes, you are right and it appears I have no reason to be unhappy about the low SC.

Seeing as the standing charge is `only' around 50p a day then the nth decimal does count.

You were responding to a post of mine doubting that many people could spend more on the standing charge than the usage charge.

You are trying really hard and you still spend more on usage than the standing charge which demonstrates that my statement is pretty much correct.

I have spent twenty times more on the standing charge today than I have spent on consumption.

But I am relatively wealthy and I am happy to pay my standing charge.

In fact I would be happy to pay two, three or even four times more to help those most in need.

But first I would need to be confident that the support went to those who actually deserved it, not just those who resent paying the standing charge.

A bit like the EBSS, it went to all sorts of people who didn't need it, me included. It is time our leaders focussed their thoughts in the right places rather than focussing on votes.

TMSG

QrizB said:

But the fine people of MSE really want to know the daily and unit prices including VAT, so the calculation adds 5% on.

Of course. I just hadn't realised which figures are in- and excluding VAT.

Another question is why the lovely people of Ofgem can't publish SC ppd and unit rates explicitly. There are so many tables and numbers in their releases that including those two figures (which many "normal" people are probably more interested in) should not be much of a problem. That would be a bit more "customer" friendly.

matt_drummer

TMSG said:

Of course. I just hadn't realised which figures are in- and excluding VAT.

Another question is why the lovely people of Ofgem can't publish SC ppd and unit rates explicitly. There are so many tables and numbers in their releases that including those two figures (which many "normal" people are probably more interested in) should not be much of a problem. That would be a bit more "customer" friendly.

It is because there are different rates for different parts of the UK

TMSG

matt_drummer said:

TMSG said:

Of course. I just hadn't realised which figures are in- and excluding VAT.

Another question is why the lovely people of Ofgem can't publish SC ppd and unit rates explicitly. There are so many tables and numbers in their releases that including those two figures (which many "normal" people are probably more interested in) should not be much of a problem. That would be a bit more "customer" friendly.

It is because there are different rates for different parts of the UK

I know :-) I pored over those tables before I found your post above. But still, as they include those regional tables already adding just two more columns for the SC and rates wouldn't be terribly complicated and it wouldn't use more paper:-)

IMO.