no saving for me

tonynw

i have just worked out my bill from the 2nd to the 25th of July and with the lower rates for both gas and electricity going down and because the daily connection rate is going up the same bill under the new rates would only be 82p less. wow that sure is some saving.  

matt_drummer

tonynw said:

i have just worked out my bill from the 2nd to the 25th of July and with the lower rates for both gas and electricity going down and because the daily connection rate is going up the same bill under the new rates would only be 82p less. wow that sure is some saving.  

From the sounds of it then your bills must be pretty low to start with?

What we should do with standing charges is remove things like the warm home discount and the protection for customer balances when suppliers go bust.

The standing charges would be lower and everybody would be happy.

I would be as I don't receive the warm home discount and I never go with suppliers who are likely to go bust.

I suspect some people would not be so happy if they didn't receive their warm home discount or if they lost their credit balance when their supplier went bust.

All this stuff has to be paid for.

How would you propose to fund these things or are you happy for them to be scrapped to lower your standing charges?

[Deleted User]

At least one CEO (Utilita) has accepted that social tariffs are not the answer and support cannot just be focussed on those on benefits. He believes that there should be energy support allowances paid to 10s of millions from taxation. As this would involve some form of means testing, I cannot see it gaining much traction within Government.

QrizB

tonynw said:

... the same bill under the new rates would only be 82p less. wow that sure is some saving.  

But it is a saving, all the same. 82p for 24 days is a pound a month pro-rata, during the part of the year where energy use is lowest and the effect of increased SC is highest.

[Deleted User] said:

He believes that there should be energy support allowances paid to 10s of millions from taxation. As this would involve some form of means testing, I cannot see it gaining much traction within Government.

We've already got a universal system of means-tested benefits; UC and PC. Just add the fuel allowance onto UC/PC and adjust the thresholds accordingly.

The government has plenty of bean-counters, they could come up with a revised system on a couple of days.

ArbitraryRandom

matt_drummer said:

All this stuff has to be paid for.

How would you propose to fund these things or are you happy for them to be scrapped to lower your standing charges?

I agree with the previous two posters; there's a reasonable argument that the current arrangements are regressive and targeted support (in the form of or replacing eg. the warm home discount) should be funded via income tax - meaning those who are eligible to receive it would be unlikely to pay towards the fund or would pay relative to their income. 

Largs

I'll just pass on my thoughts on this.  You say you are saving 82p and "wow, that is some saving".  I doubt you would have posted at all if your bills had gone up by 82p.  We are all in the same boat and we just need to get on with it.  Things will get better I am sure of this.  

Largs

Dolor said:

At least one CEO (Utilita) has accepted that social tariffs are not the answer and support cannot just be focussed on those on benefits. He believes that there should be energy support allowances paid to 10s of millions from taxation. As this would involve some form of means testing, I cannot see it gaining much traction within Government.

What this means is give money to pensioners because I am a pensioner.  Utilia here is mud normally, but because it suits my agenda, don't just give to benefit claimants, but give it to pensioners, because I am a pensioner.

Ive yet to meet a poor pensioner.  Glad there is no traction within Governemnt on this.

[Deleted User]

Largs said:

Dolor said:

At least one CEO (Utilita) has accepted that social tariffs are not the answer and support cannot just be focussed on those on benefits. He believes that there should be energy support allowances paid to 10s of millions from taxation. As this would involve some form of means testing, I cannot see it gaining much traction within Government.

What this means is give money to pensioners because I am a pensioner.  Utilia here is mud normally, but because it suits my agenda, don't just give to benefit claimants, but give it to pensioners, because I am a pensioner.

Ive yet to meet a poor pensioner.  Glad there is no traction within Governemnt on this.

And therein lies the problem. When it comes to solving a problem/unfairness,  we are all guilty of letting self interest come to the fore. In that regard, I plead guilty. One alternative is a social tariff which the Government pays from taxation (unlikely in my view) or the cost gets added to standing charges.

That said, there is little comment on this forum about the other key driver to high prices which is marginal pricing. Marginal pricing works a bit like this: 

Every 30 minutes, electricity suppliers submit bids to purchase power for that period. Bids range from low to high until the expected demand is met. Let us say that the wind is blowing and the lowest wind farm bid comes in at £10/MWh but some gas-powered electricity is still needed at £50/MWh. Under marginal pricing, all the generators get paid £50/MWh irrespective of their original bid. (I appreciate that this is an over simplified explanation).

Scot_39

Largs said:

Ive yet to meet a poor pensioner.  Glad there is no traction within Governemnt on this.

Then open your eyes.

Last official stats c2019 over 3m pensioners had total earnings below the pension credit and savings below the qualifying threshold too, so would qualify.

And only  just over 60% were claiming it - more than a million weren't.

3m in 12m = 25% of over 65s (12m from 20/21).

The last HMRC breakdown I read showed only c5M pensioners - those over 65 - were paying income tax - that's 7m earning below the £12570.  Some of the 5m still working as too poor to retire, rent to pay etc.

That incone of course includes the taxable state pension.

7m in 12m = 58%.

Compare that with min wage - now over £20k pa.


Not every pensioner is poor, but the majority are not rich. 

Just as uk ave worker earns c30K - and not every worker earns 60k like a train driver, 84k like an mp or 100,000s like a film star or premier league footballer.

wrf12345

All you have to do is increase the unit cost by roughly ten percent and get rid of the standing charges, the revenue remains the same and only those using above average will pay more, it is not rocket science and would make a massive difference to people on prepayment meters whose money is continually gobbled up by the s/c's even when minimising their usage. Both Ofgem and the energy companies are trying to coerce the govn into digging into tax payer's money rather than reforming the system to a much fairer outcome. This is actually a huge political issue, if one of the new political parties comes along and says it will abolish standing charges and council tax (another fixed cost you can't avoid unless on a low income and willing to beg the local council office) - at no cost to tax payers as councils are at about 10-20 percent efficiency - then it could actually win an election, IMO. so annoyed and tired are people at being ripped off by incompetent and greedy ^^^^^^^^^'s...

[Deleted User]

wrf12345 said:

All you have to do is increase the unit cost by roughly ten percent and get rid of the standing charges, the revenue remains the same and only those using above average will pay more, it is not rocket science and would make a massive difference to people on prepayment meters whose money is continually gobbled up by the s/c's even when minimising their usage. Both Ofgem and the energy companies are trying to coerce the govn into digging into tax payer's money rather than reforming the system to a much fairer outcome. This is actually a huge political issue, if one of the new political parties comes along and says it will abolish standing charges and council tax (another fixed cost you can't avoid unless on a low income and willing to beg the local council office) - at no cost to tax payers as councils are at about 10-20 percent efficiency - then it could actually win an election, IMO. so annoyed and tired are people at being ripped off by incompetent and greedy ^^^^^^^^^'s...

That is one way of doing it; however, I think that your maths might be slightly out.

My reading of the cap for electricity is that it is based on an annual consumption of 2900kWh/year. From October, the capped prices are 27p/kWh with a standing charge of 53p/day.

Someone correct me if I am wrong. Removing the standing charge would result in a saving of £193.45 per year. The unit cost of 2900kWh at 27p/kWh is £783 a year. If the £193.45 was added to the unit cost the revised unit cost would be 33.6p/kWh.

The percentage increase is therefore (6.6p/27p) x 100 = a 24% increase in the unit price.