Ofgem announces new price cap, effective October 1st

spot1034

The headline is all over the news this morning, but here are the regional breakdowns. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/get-energy-price-cap-standing-charges-and-unit-rates-region

wrf12345

see they have sneaked in yet another s/c increase for electric, albeit slightly less than a penny a day... luckily locked into Agile until March so does not affect me yet... the govn needs to act on this and abolish the s/c in favour of an increased unit rate but preferably with a fixed, much lower rate, tor the first 2kw usage and then let competition sort the higher unit rate out.

Qyburn

wrf12345 said:

 the govn needs to act on this and abolish the s/c in favour of an increased unit rate but preferably with a fixed, much lower rate, tor the first 2kw usage and then let competition sort the higher unit rate out.

That would be a massive subsidy for those with solar.

 (I'm assuming you don't actually mean 2kW which would be a pretty huge consumption, but were intending to mean 2kWh per day, or per year or something)

armistice

wrf12345 said:

see they have sneaked in yet another s/c increase for electric, albeit slightly less than a penny a day... luckily locked into Agile until March so does not affect me yet... the govn needs to act on this and abolish the s/c in favour of an increased unit rate but preferably with a fixed, much lower rate, tor the first 2kw usage and then let competition sort the higher unit rate out.

They have also today published an 'options paper' following the consultation on standing charges.
Standing charges: domestic retail options (ofgem.gov.uk)

If you feel strongly about standing charges you should read it and provide feedback -> Standing charges: domestic retail options - Ofgem - Citizen Space

Review of standing charges
Last year we started a review of standing charges. Our call for input had feedback from more than 30,000 customers, consumer groups, charities and others.
Today we have published an options paper on our ways to reduce standing charges for households, called ‘domestic standing charges’. Standing charges are set by your energy supplier and are also included in the energy price cap. Your supplier will charge you this cost each day, even if you do not use any energy on that day. The charge covers the cost to maintain the energy supply network, take meter readings, and support government social and environmental schemes, like the Warm Home Discount scheme. 
The options in the paper could reduce the standing charge by between £20 and £100 per year by transferring parts of these fixed supplier costs to the unit rate (the price paid for every unit of energy used). 
We know that if these changes are made it could affect people who cannot safely reduce the amount of energy they use. This could be because of their dependence on life-saving medical equipment or living in a low standard of housing with poor insulation.
We are asking energy suppliers to offer energy tariffs that have no or low standing charges as well as their current tariffs. This will mean that energy efficient households will be able to choose a tariff that rewards them for using less energy. It will also mean that other energy customers can also choose from more tariffs that meet their needs.

fiddlesticks0

Does anyone know how long, typically, after a price cap increase announcement do favourable fixed deals get pulled and new fixes with increased prices replace them? I'm guessing fairly soon but as the change isn't until October I'm not sure, also as this amount of increase in the cap has been projected for a while and these fixes with prices below the amount of the Oct increase have been available.
I looked to getting a fix earlier this week for the first date I can switch without paying exit fees as I thought the standard window for choosing a switch date was 28 days ahead, but the provider in question only offer a date up to two weeks in advance, so I'd be stuck for another week before I could take out that deal, if it doesn't disappear before then.

alinwales

I used to love no SC tariffs back in the day (up to around 2010 from memory). They recouped the SC amount through higher unit charge for the first n units, then standard rate after that. It meant if you used fewer than n units you'd be better off, but if you used more than n units you'd be no worse off than those on standard rates with SC. I did the maths. Resulted in a £5 gas bill over the summer months.

there should be means for those that *need* to use more energy to get some kind of rebate, however there's not going to be a solution that makes everyone happy. 

MattMattMattUK

fiddlesticks0 said:

Does anyone know how long, typically, after a price cap increase announcement do favourable fixed deals get pulled and new fixes with increased prices replace them? I'm guessing fairly soon but as the change isn't until October I'm not sure, also as this amount of increase in the cap has been projected for a while and these fixes with prices below the amount of the Oct increase have been available.
I looked to getting a fix earlier this week for the first date I can switch without paying exit fees as I thought the standard window for choosing a switch date was 28 days ahead, but the provider in question only offer a date up to two weeks in advance, so I'd be stuck for another week before I could take out that deal, if it doesn't disappear before then.

It happened about a month ago. There is a good idea of where the cap will be for quite a while before it is published, if you wanted a cheaper deal over winter you needed to have fixed in June or July.

xflare

British Gas, back in May, did briefly offer a fixed 12 month Tarriff that had a substantially reduced S/C and slightly higher unit rates.

Also, regarding concerns about energy billls and running medical equipment etc, my dad had to use an oxygen concentrator for most of the day and received a rebate that went straight into his bank every couple of months.

fiddlesticks0

MattMattMattUK said:

fiddlesticks0 said:

Does anyone know how long, typically, after a price cap increase announcement do favourable fixed deals get pulled and new fixes with increased prices replace them? I'm guessing fairly soon but as the change isn't until October I'm not sure, also as this amount of increase in the cap has been projected for a while and these fixes with prices below the amount of the Oct increase have been available.
I looked to getting a fix earlier this week for the first date I can switch without paying exit fees as I thought the standard window for choosing a switch date was 28 days ahead, but the provider in question only offer a date up to two weeks in advance, so I'd be stuck for another week before I could take out that deal, if it doesn't disappear before then.

It happened about a month ago. There is a good idea of where the cap will be for quite a while before it is published, if you wanted a cheaper deal over winter you needed to have fixed in June or July.

There are current fixes are below the 10% Oct increase however - I just want to know how long they usually stick around after the announcement - the exit fees for me are too high to leave within 49 days of my current contract end date, so June/July were not an option as I have low energy useage, so they are higher than the savings I'd make by leaving the contract early.

BarelySentientAI

fiddlesticks0 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

fiddlesticks0 said:

Does anyone know how long, typically, after a price cap increase announcement do favourable fixed deals get pulled and new fixes with increased prices replace them? I'm guessing fairly soon but as the change isn't until October I'm not sure, also as this amount of increase in the cap has been projected for a while and these fixes with prices below the amount of the Oct increase have been available.
I looked to getting a fix earlier this week for the first date I can switch without paying exit fees as I thought the standard window for choosing a switch date was 28 days ahead, but the provider in question only offer a date up to two weeks in advance, so I'd be stuck for another week before I could take out that deal, if it doesn't disappear before then.

It happened about a month ago. There is a good idea of where the cap will be for quite a while before it is published, if you wanted a cheaper deal over winter you needed to have fixed in June or July.

There are current fixes are below the 10% Oct increase however - I just want to know how long they usually stick around after the announcement - the exit fees for me are too high to leave within 49 days of my current contract end date, so June/July were not an option as I have low energy useage, so they are higher than the savings I'd make by leaving the contract early.

Changes based on Oct have happened.

Changes based on Jan predictions will still happen for 8-10 weeks.

Fixes are priced based on the whole period, not the first day.

fiddlesticks0

BarelySentientAI said:

fiddlesticks0 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

fiddlesticks0 said:

Does anyone know how long, typically, after a price cap increase announcement do favourable fixed deals get pulled and new fixes with increased prices replace them? I'm guessing fairly soon but as the change isn't until October I'm not sure, also as this amount of increase in the cap has been projected for a while and these fixes with prices below the amount of the Oct increase have been available.
I looked to getting a fix earlier this week for the first date I can switch without paying exit fees as I thought the standard window for choosing a switch date was 28 days ahead, but the provider in question only offer a date up to two weeks in advance, so I'd be stuck for another week before I could take out that deal, if it doesn't disappear before then.

It happened about a month ago. There is a good idea of where the cap will be for quite a while before it is published, if you wanted a cheaper deal over winter you needed to have fixed in June or July.

There are current fixes are below the 10% Oct increase however - I just want to know how long they usually stick around after the announcement - the exit fees for me are too high to leave within 49 days of my current contract end date, so June/July were not an option as I have low energy useage, so they are higher than the savings I'd make by leaving the contract early.

Changes based on Oct have happened.

Changes based on Jan predictions will still happen for 8-10 weeks.

Fixes are priced based on the whole period, not the first day.

Fair enough - current deals are still relatively cheap for me as I fixed this time last year before the numerous price cap falls in the past year, so I just wanted to check how long the these current fixed deals are likely to stick around for.