Energy prices £250 cheaper a year - my electric only £8.83 cheaper??

Helen_

I got an email from octopus claiming energy prices will be £250 cheaper a year however in the attachment it says my electric will only be £8.83 cheaper??

My standing charge is going up to a massive 69.149p from 55.070p.

My unit rate is going down a bit to 22.580p from 27.360p. 

Mark_d

The headline £250 is based on an average consumption.  If you are a low user then your savings would be less

TheElectricCow

The £250 figure is only an average, so naturally there will be many households where any changes are either above or below that figure based on their usage and location. As those headline figures are often of little use for comparison it's best not to pay them too much attention and ideally work out for yourself any actual changes in cost (or if you're not familiar enough with your usage for that, the supplier estimate from Octopus will be the next best thing).

hamski

Massive difference in price for electric standing charges depending on where you live ,whys that?

Chris_b2z

That's correct. The message that Ofgem want you to take from this is that you should use more electricity to avoid being penalised.

la531983

And threads like this yet again go to show a good chunk of the population dont understand how the price cap works.

NorfolkCanary

Use more than average, pay more than average, simples....
Ah, the education of people in this country, makes you long for the restriction of 'social' media.

hamski

But I pay nearly as much standing charge as I do for electricity so it’s use less pay more

K_S

Helen_ said:

I got an email from octopus claiming energy prices will be £250 cheaper a year however in the attachment it says my electric will only be £8.83 cheaper??

My standing charge is going up to a massive 69.149p from 55.070p.

My unit rate is going down a bit to 22.580p from 27.360p. 

@helen_ Based on the numbers you’ve provided, you only use about 1,260 units of electricity a year, which is well below what’s considered to be ‘low usage’ of 1,800 units a year.

Your savings of £60 from the lower unit rate are mostly eaten up by the extra £51 you’ll pay due to the higher standing charge, giving you a net saving of £9 or so.

If you consumed the ‘medium usage’ figure of 2,700 units that OFGEM use, your total electric bill would drop by around £78.

I suspect the £250 figure mentioned in the Octopus blurb refers to a dual-fuel (gas+electricity) bill for a medium usage consumer, hence the difference with what you’re predicted to save.

Martin has been campaigning against high and rising standing charges for a while now and OFGEM has conducted a review on this over the past few months. They will issue a final response soon so hopefully that will result in a more reasonable outcome than the current one.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/11/energy-standing-charges-ofgem-review/

NorfolkCanary

K_S said:

Martin has been campaigning against high and rising standing charges for a while now and OFGEM has conducted a review on this over the past few months. They will issue a final response soon so hopefully that will result in a more reasonable outcome than the current one.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/11/energy-standing-charges-ofgem-review/

Martin campaigns against a lot of things, and I'd suggest for some degree of self promotion and to keep the 'brand alive', without substantial forethought of who / what pays instead.

In this case the cost of maintaining the existing network increase YoY due to material costs, wage increases, inflation, safety standards, end of lifecycle costs. How is this supposed to be funded going forwards? Increased unit costs? Out of the suppliers miniscule profit margins?
If the former, a running leap springs to mind. If the latter we can expect another round of failures in the years to come

Helen_

K_S said:

Helen_ said:

I got an email from octopus claiming energy prices will be £250 cheaper a year however in the attachment it says my electric will only be £8.83 cheaper??

My standing charge is going up to a massive 69.149p from 55.070p.

My unit rate is going down a bit to 22.580p from 27.360p. 

@helen_ Based on the numbers you’ve provided, you only use about 1,260 units of electricity a year, which is well below what’s considered to be ‘low usage’ of 1,800 units a year.

Your savings of £60 from the lower unit rate are mostly eaten up by the extra £51 you’ll pay due to the higher standing charge, giving you a net saving of £9 or so.

If you consumed the ‘medium usage’ figure of 2,700 units that OFGEM use, your total electric bill would drop by around £78.

I suspect the £250 figure mentioned in the Octopus blurb refers to a dual-fuel (gas+electricity) bill for a medium usage consumer, hence the difference with what you’re predicted to save.

Martin has been campaigning against high and rising standing charges for a while now and OFGEM has conducted a review on this over the past few months. They will issue a final response soon so hopefully that will result in a more reasonable outcome than the current one.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/11/energy-standing-charges-ofgem-review/

Thank you for your helpful reply.

I am very careful how much electric I use for example I don't use a dishwasher or a tumble dryer. I hope Martin's campaign is successful as it seems very unfair that despite being a low user because of the big increase in my standing charge my cost of electric is hardly coming down at all. Paying nearly 70p standing charge a day is ridiculous. How much is everyone elses standing charge increasing too? Mine seems so high.