How dare they

Eccles04

So our wonderful Ofgem is allowing a 5% price increase from 1/1/24 despite the fact that there has been no significant increase in the wholesale gas price recently and further wind generators have been brought on line. Did you hope that Ofgem might just work for you and I? Well obviously they don't and really need replacing with an authority which is aware of how many of our hard earned shekels are being raked in by the likes of British Gas,etc.

MultiFuelBurner

Bit late to this discussion party

BJV

If that is not bad enough what about the standing charges?

Where I am we have one of the highest daily charges and for what exactly ??? 

MultiFuelBurner

BJV said:

If that is not bad enough what about the standing charges?

Where I am we have one of the highest daily charges and for what exactly ??? 

For energy direct to your doorstep?

TheElectricCow

BJV said:

If that is not bad enough what about the standing charges?

Where I am we have one of the highest daily charges and for what exactly ??? 

You can actually stop paying the standing charge if you feel it doesn’t provide anything worthwhile for you, just contact your supplier and arrange to be disconnected from the grid with the meter removed. 

sevenhills

With inflation now at 4.7% and it was 6.3% as recently as August, is 5% so bad?

We have, or are meant to have, a competitive energy market where companies compete on price. Have you considered heating your home with coal or a log burner perhaps?

ArbitraryRandom

sevenhills said:

With inflation now at 4.7% and it was 6.3% as recently as August, is 5% so bad?

We have, or are meant to have, a competitive energy market where companies compete on price. Have you considered heating your home with coal or a log burner perhaps?

If the price of coal/smokeless in your area has only gone up 5% since the end of summer then you should probably double check it's not rocks painted black  

Scot_39

Eccles04 said:

So our wonderful Ofgem is allowing a 5% price increase from 1/1/24 despite the fact that there has been no significant increase in the wholesale gas price recently and further wind generators have been brought on line. Did you hope that Ofgem might just work for you and I? Well obviously they don't and really need replacing with an authority which is aware of how many of our hard earned shekels are being raked in by the likes of British Gas,etc.

Gas vs Electric Pricing

As to the wholesale pricing - in the windows used by Ofgem - they regularly update their pricing graph.  And if you look at the recent cap announcement - gas is up c 7.7% - electric 4.6% - lower because not all electric is generated by gas.

For Ofgem wholesale charts see e.g.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/increased-wholesale-energy-costs-lead-rise-price-cap

Not sure what the exact mix of index prices is in terms of future supply contract terms is - but sure could find it by searching around in the reems of data Ofgem produce every quarter - and on their methodologies.

And looking at those graphs - at the bottom of that page - the real question I suspect we should all once again be asking is why did electric go up ?

Which leads me to perjhaps guess it is once again policy driven - issues like the CfD on older renewables (as high as £120/MWh at 2012 indexing for 2015 auction) and green levies.

Aside

I know Ofgem allow linking to articles on social media sites - do they and this sites rules allow graphs etc to be copied and posted here ? 

Wind

Right now wind generation is costing us directly in the form of CfDs - increased from £10 to £15 for Q1 24 cap iirc Ofgems comparitve price breakdowns.

So on aggregate it really potentially isn't saving anyone on the Ofgem controlled SVT rate a penny right now.

Those on likes of agile and tracker - intermittently a lot - but thats a different issue.

As well as the numorous other charges - in likes of standby and even explicit curtailment costs (when farms told to go offline as have too much power vs demand - or in many cases even simple grid capacity to transfer it from existing remote farms to consumers) - running into £100s millions annually - due to the required over generation capacity to cope with it's unreliable output.

Scot_39

BJV said:

If that is not bad enough what about the standing charges?

Where I am we have one of the highest daily charges and for what exactly ??? 

Given this a complaint thread about rising prices in Jan cap - it seems strange to comment on SC which have come down on average - albeit by a tiny 0.02p per day per fuel.  So £0.14 pa duel fuel from Jan.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-price-cap

The simple answer is to get power to your door - from generation stations often 100 miles away.

Read Ofgem documentation if want full details.

And if having read them want to contribute constructively - there is even an Ofgem consultation - open to the public - should you wish to propose a viable alternative.

Hoenir

Eccles04 said:

further wind generators have been brought on line.

Turbines only generate power when the wind blows though. Simply connecting more sources to the National Grid isn't the answer unfortunately. Far more complex. 

Qyburn

Eccles04 said:

So our wonderful Ofgem is allowing a 5% price increase from 1/1/24 despite the fact that there has been no significant increase in the wholesale gas price recently and further wind generators have been brought on line. Did you hope that Ofgem might just work for you and I? Well obviously they don't and really need replacing with an authority which is aware of how many of our hard earned shekels are being raked in by the likes of British Gas,etc.

It's still less than 1/2 the real price in January 2023, and lower than the net price after the EPG (taxpayer subsidy).