No Standing Charge Tariff

Scot_39

MouldyOldDough said:

Altior said:

It's absolutely ballooned and the funds don't only go directly to supporting infrastructure.

The ballooning costs of the standing charge mean that low volume users now have a huge chunk of their bill as a fixed amount that they can't influence. So a household of one pays the same as a household of ten. When the standing charge was a smaller portion of the bill, that differential was less material. 

Everyone who uses energy should contribute to maintenance of the system, but it should be aligned with overall usage in my opinion. 

Of course it should - why should someone who uses 1/4 of the average amount - not pay 1/4 of the standing charge - any more is wrong !

At the local level - given identical properties then for instace - 

It cost the same to lay their cable to the door as the other.

It will cost the same to relay the cable to their door when it needs replacing.

Now when you get to how many rows of pylons - or what size of pylons / voltage and current capacity etc - you need into an area - then yes aggregate peak demand matters.

But note thats kVA (not quite kW) and not how we are billed which is per kWh.  (The French SC are often though banded by kVA limits)

And thats why only some of the network costs are in the SC - and others are per unit.

But serriously its not simple question - and the latest word on what is fair - by Ofgem - has already been explained via the zero SC consultation - and the reference therein to the year plus of analysis on justification and then on timng of implementation - for additional fixed network costs in the electric SC.

As before the last review - and implemented in the caps between 2022 and 2024 - they in fact concluded heavy users were subsidising light users - and it was light users who were not contributing enough to fixed network costs.

Bit it is a perverse sysyem that splits the costings differently for gas and for electricity.

And arguably given the lastest £15bn+ allocated for gas network - al ot of infrastrucutre spending - in Ofgems last £25bn for £104 costs - maybe the gas split needs realigning too.

Swipe

Every now and then I wish the MSE forums had an ignore thread button.

debitcardmayhem

Swipe said:

Every now and then I wish the MSE forums had an ignore thread button.

There is a mute option, but I haven’t tried it

mmmmikey

Swipe said:

Every now and then I wish the MSE forums had an ignore thread button.

Yes it does get a bit tiresome, I wonder who is gaining what by continuing this debate and restating the same views over and over?

debitcardmayhem

Mute button 

HillStreetBlues

Swipe said:

Every now and then I wish the MSE forums had an ignore thread button.

Why would a person need that? It's not compulsory to open and read threads. 

GingerTim

HillStreetBlues said:

Swipe said:

Every now and then I wish the MSE forums had an ignore thread button.

Why would a person need that? It's not compulsory to open and read threads. 

What's the definition of madness? Clicking on yet another MSE standing charges thread and expecting something different...

MouldyOldDough

Here is my usage - why should I pay over 50% of my bill on standing charges ?

GingerTim

MouldyOldDough said:

Here is my usage - why should I pay over 50% of my bill on standing charges ?

Against my better judgement...

Let's put the question another way. Why shouldn't you, like everyone else, pay the cost of 24/7 connection to the grid?

WiserMiser

MouldyOldDough said:

Here is my usage - why should I pay over 50% of my bill on standing charges ?

If I were connected to the Tesco Baked Beans Pipeline and to the Sainsbury's Milk Pipeline, I'd expect that the standing charges might well exceed the cost of the beans and the milk...