Standing Charge up - unit prices down (the logic?)

Milarky

Thank you.

molerat

The cost of wholesale energy has decreased so the unit charge is going down, the cost of maintaining and improving the infrastructure and some other functions has gone up so standing charges are increasing.

Scot_39

National grid forecasting £10s bn of upgrades in near future.

Energy costs like raw gas wholesale costs down.

Did you read post on SCs at top of forum and what they pay for.

Or the Ofgem price cap breakdown in press releases.

My electric SC is up by over 5p - a lot less than worst rise region - the unit rates - down c4.5p on average.

Saving on just over 1 unit per day - c400kWh per annum - covers the SC difference.

At my low annual forecast - sub £1000 - will save just over 10%.

Better in my pocket than the energy producers.

The rights vs wrongs done to death in other threads and Ofgem responses - winners vs losers etc..

Would I trust Ofgem to get the balance right for any changes to costs via SC or unit rates - for those with electric heating vs those with duel fuels - or those with solar export - definitely not.

mongoose2009

because were doing the lunacy of duplication

all the intermittent "green" energy infrastructures costs big money

a 1 GW gas power stations in one place and works 100%

a 1 GW wind farms massive and all needs wiring and only works 30% of the time and will never improve that

so you have to have 2 systems running at the same time

so when the winds not blowing you have to fire up the gas to cover

nuke is used for base load and just runs 100% all the time

so 2 systems double the cost

njkmr

And while we are all cutting down our usage they need to keep the stream of money coming in.
-hence the thing you can't influence becomes dearer.
Thank you.

MultiFuelBurner

It is amazing how many people post without educating themselves first on what makes up the standing charge.

Or even reading forum posts on the subject already posted to death.

njkmr

Or get on the soap box to act superior.

Yorkie006

Hi, a bit of a rant.
just had an email from BG about the price changes for electricity from April.
Basically they're saying that because the price per unit is going down but standing charges are going up, and because I'm a low user, my total bill will be higher as a result.

The standing charge is a joke. How is that an incentive for people to cut usage when their bills will be higher when unit prices go down? So people with higher usage will have lower bills from April but people who use less energy will pay more. 

I don't mind paying the SC as such but it needs to be set at a reasonable amount. Clearly if it's so high that it actually makes people's bill higher when unit price drops, it's not fit for purpose. It gives no reason to try and cut usage now.
I'm on standard variable tariff, btw.

wrf12345

The cost of the grid etc can just as easily come out of the unit cost as the s/c, the reason the s/c has doubled over the past few years is greed, simple as that.

MacPingu1986

mongoose2009 said:

because were doing the lunacy of duplication

all the intermittent "green" energy infrastructures costs big money

a 1 GW gas power stations in one place and works 100%

a 1 GW wind farms massive and all needs wiring and only works 30% of the time and will never improve that

so you have to have 2 systems running at the same time

so when the winds not blowing you have to fire up the gas to cover

nuke is used for base load and just runs 100% all the time

so 2 systems double the cost

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but that's not correct.

Utilization of coal or CCGTs is far from 100% even before renewables came into the grid mix. They turn on and off depending on demand because its much more expensive to run a CCGT than a wind farm. Ditto the cost of getting the coal and gas to the station to burn it required huge amounts of infrastructure.

Wind farms do not "only work 30% of the time" - their power is dependent on the wind but *no* wind farm is built on the basis that they will operate at maximum output all of the time, this is all built into the operators financial modelling for the site and they are still much cheaper to operate than fossil fuel sites.

MattMattMattUK

wrf12345 said:

The cost of the grid etc can just as easily come out of the unit cost as the s/c, the reason the s/c has doubled over the past few years is greed, simple as that.

You repeatedly post inaccurate statements like this. It is nothing to do with greed, it does not make the energy suppliers profit, it is to cover the fixed costs and the upgrades to the network. You seem to take the view that you should be subsidised by higher energy users, that is an inherently selfish and irrational position.