Plans for all major energy suppliers to offer at least one low Standing Charge tariff from Jan 2026

molerat

This is just the usual OFGEM being seen to do something without actually doing anything.  They can't do anything about the level of "not increasing tax" tax being shifted onto the energy user so just shuffle the deckchairs about.

Bendo

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Standing charge should be based on size of property and usage, so if you are sitting in a 4 bedroom semi with gas and lekky running through the building then you should be paying for all that in a higher standing charge, while those sitting in say a 1 bedroom flat with just lekky should be the lowest standing charge.......but at present the whole system is so broken that those sitting in a 1 bedroom flat can be paying some of the highest standing charges just for lekky, and this needs to be fixed because usually it is the poor that are the ones sitting in the 1 bedroom freezing through the winter months.......it's wrong at every level and i do not understand why it has been allowed to continue in this manner.

I didn't realise the size of a premises had an impact on the cost to supply utilities upto the meter.

Spoonie_Turtle

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Standing charge should be based on size of property and usage, so if you are sitting in a 4 bedroom semi with gas and lekky running through the building then you should be paying for all that in a higher standing charge, while those sitting in say a 1 bedroom flat with just lekky should be the lowest standing charge.......but at present the whole system is so broken that those sitting in a 1 bedroom flat can be paying some of the highest standing charges just for lekky, and this needs to be fixed because usually it is the poor that are the ones sitting in the 1 bedroom freezing through the winter months.......it's wrong at every level and i do not understand why it has been allowed to continue in this manner.

Actually electric-only properties do already have something of a standing charge discount, commonly known as 'not having to pay a gas standing charge'.

There is not a single region with an electric SC so high that it's more expensive than the lowest gas+elec SCs combined.

(And usually those in larger properties with more wiring/gas piping do incur greater costs when some part of the wiring or piping needs fixing, than someone in a smaller property would.)

Scot_39

frosch411 said:

It's a real shame yet unsurprising.
OFGEM seems unwilling to make significant changes in favour of companies still being able to profiteer 

Which profiteering companies is that ?

The wholesale price of energy has fallen ahead of the current cap period - that line in Oct cap £15 ex vat.

The suppliers we pay for that enerrgy - struggling to survive in a low margin business with £4.15 bn in debt.  So much debt we have £50 extra in the cap to keep the market running.

Yet the average DF DD cap has gone up £35 - thats a net increaase - nothing to do with suppliers or generators - but govts.

So whats causing the increase next week then - the £51 (£35 - -£16) - well for those willing to look - Ofgem kindly gives us breakdowns 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-08/summary-of-changes-to-energy-price-cap-1-october-to-31-december-2025.pdf

- an extra £17 on policy costs to pay for the WHD extension.

- an estimated extra £15 on electricity network costs for net zero policy of the total £24 on DF.

- an extra £2 on levelisation - an artificial forced offset appied to prepay 

(The prepay cap £48 cheaper on regional averages - £1707 vs £1755 DD vs £1890 SC - despite an estimate higher £26 operating cost line - £296 PP vs £270 on DD)

With that new £17 (up 9%) - policy costs in the last 18 months are up £58 - a 37% increase. 

They announce things as a trickle - but these build up over time - £1 per month for this , £1 for that - all sounds great. And as well as the WFD £1pm their is stil the £1pm  for Sizewell nuclear - announced but not yet finalised the costs / added.

So we are now in a situation where so called policy costs are £215 - thats c13% - £1 in every £8 of the pre VAT total for DF DD cap.

Add Policy, £50 of debt compensation - debt also part policy, VAT and levelisation - now add up to over 20% on our DF DD cap. £1 in every £5

Whilst renewables Cfds add to wholesale costs, new grid infrastructure - and of course another killer the forecast £8bn by 2030 balancing costs (over £250 per grid connection - I hope industry takes a bigger share than we do - well those who might remain after others have shut because of our high energy costs) adds to our network costs

You want cheaper bills - I suggest you might want to start focusing your anger elsewhere.

Because compared to suppliers operating profit and headroom (wiped out in large part by debt costs - hence the £50 added to our bills to help them and address the debts)  - the govt is taking far more out of our bills than the suppliers are.

And if they were willing - they could cut the cap by £100s overnight for us all.

And with £bns more in balancing and curtailment looming - forecast in last week or so at £100 pa by GE c2029/30 - there more pain to come.

So if ML and energy charitys want to genuinely help the poor - there are plenty of costs - nothing to do with the current cost of our energy - or the cheapest (if ignore secondary potential environmental costs) way of providing it and coming to our bills for them to address.

Standing charges was always a deflection - from bigger issues.

The wholesale bid pricing system

Policy costs - some clearly arguably taxation via energy bills not taxes.

Net zero costs

[It might though have worked in as far as 2.7m homes now get c 1/2 paid by extending the WHD.  But those in receipt of that £150 also suffer from the £51 rise, the new ones are £99 better off - not £150. The 3.4m homes lready on it - have like the rest of us - seen the £51 added (well those on SVT - with it waiting for those on fixes)]

Scot_39

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Standing charge should be based on size of property and usage, so if you are sitting in a 4 bedroom semi with gas and lekky running through the building then you should be paying for all that in a higher standing charge, while those sitting in say a 1 bedroom flat with just lekky should be the lowest standing charge.......but at present the whole system is so broken that those sitting in a 1 bedroom flat can be paying some of the highest standing charges just for lekky, and this needs to be fixed because usually it is the poor that are the ones sitting in the 1 bedroom freezing through the winter months.......it's wrong at every level and i do not understand why it has been allowed to continue in this manner.

So the one pays the gas c£130 and the electric c£200 - and the person in the flat pays just the electric c£200

Scot_39

molerat said:

This is just the usual OFGEM being seen to do something without actually doing anything.  They can't do anything about the level of "not increasing tax" tax being shifted onto the energy user so just shuffle the deckchairs about.

The whole thing should have been killed by the clar statement in their first report - that without extra taxpayers money they were just moving between lines on the bill.

As you say - shuffling deckchairs - I like to add "on the titanic" - as folk sink under the presuure of their ever higher bills.

EssexHebridean

The supermarket analogy comes up every time this is raised. 

Try comparing the energy SCs with a situation where your chosen supermarket has a chap with a moped on permanent standby at the store waiting for you to need groceries. As soon as you say "I need bread!" bingo - there it is. 10 minutes later "I need milk" - as if by magic - a 4 pinter of full fat appears on your doorstep. Now - for those that think the supermarket analogy is a fair one - explain to us whether you genuinely believe that this sort of service would be supplied by a supermarket for free? THAT is comparable with the way energy supply works. 

WibbleBaaaaaa

Scot_39 said:

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Standing charge should be based on size of property and usage, so if you are sitting in a 4 bedroom semi with gas and lekky running through the building then you should be paying for all that in a higher standing charge, while those sitting in say a 1 bedroom flat with just lekky should be the lowest standing charge.......but at present the whole system is so broken that those sitting in a 1 bedroom flat can be paying some of the highest standing charges just for lekky, and this needs to be fixed because usually it is the poor that are the ones sitting in the 1 bedroom freezing through the winter months.......it's wrong at every level and i do not understand why it has been allowed to continue in this manner.

So the one pays the gas c£130 and the electric c£200 - and the person in the flat pays just the electric c£200

You missed the point totally, which around here is no surprise, so again for the crowd in the balcany, it does not matter if you have only lekky or gas, or both, what matters is that larger properties should be paying a bigger standing charge period for their lekky or gas sc because their larger property requires more piping and cabling, so as i said, the 4 bedroom house should NOT have a lower lekky standing charge than the 1 bedroom flat lekky standing charge, no matter where it is in the UK, the smaller properties should always cost less in lekky or gas standing charge than the bigger properties.

So that 4 bedroom house should in fact be paying at least 70p sc and upwards for their lekky, and the 1 bedroom should be paying 20p sc or less for their lekky, no matter where they are in the UK.........job done, people pay what they actually should be paying for their bigger properties and the materials it uses to transmit lekky and gas around said bigger properties, rather than at present where people sitting in small properties are paying more in lekky sc than people who live in largers properties, and all because of locations, and that is just wrong as the smaller properties with higher SC are basically funding the lower charges for bigger homes......and that is wrong on every level, and this is what Ofgem needs to change, lekky and gas standing charges based on property size, and not location.

GingerTim

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Scot_39 said:

WibbleBaaaaaa said:

Standing charge should be based on size of property and usage, so if you are sitting in a 4 bedroom semi with gas and lekky running through the building then you should be paying for all that in a higher standing charge, while those sitting in say a 1 bedroom flat with just lekky should be the lowest standing charge.......but at present the whole system is so broken that those sitting in a 1 bedroom flat can be paying some of the highest standing charges just for lekky, and this needs to be fixed because usually it is the poor that are the ones sitting in the 1 bedroom freezing through the winter months.......it's wrong at every level and i do not understand why it has been allowed to continue in this manner.

So the one pays the gas c£130 and the electric c£200 - and the person in the flat pays just the electric c£200

You missed the point totally, which around here is no surprise, so again for the crowd in the balcany, it does not matter if you have only lekky or gas, or both, what matters is that larger properties should be paying a bigger standing charge period for their lekky or gas sc because their larger property requires more piping and cabling, so as i said, the 4 bedroom house should NOT have a lower lekky standing charge than the 1 bedroom flat lekky standing charge, no matter where it is in the UK, the smaller properties should always cost less in lekky or gas standing charge than the bigger properties.

So that 4 bedroom house should in fact be paying at least 70p sc and upwards for their lekky, and the 1 bedroom should be paying 20p sc or less for their lekky, no matter where they are in the UK.........job done, people pay what they actually should be paying for their bigger properties and the materials it uses to transmit lekky and gas around said bigger properties, rather than at present where people sitting in small properties are paying more in lekky sc than people who live in largers properties, and all because of locations, and that is just wrong as the smaller properties with higher SC are basically funding the lower charges for bigger homes......and that is wrong on every level, and this is what Ofgem needs to change, lekky and gas standing charges based on property size, and not location.

Any wiring after the energy meter (i.e. the connection to the grid, which the standing charge pays for) is the householder's responsibility, and completely irrelevant in relation to the standing charge. Larger homes are already 'paying for their bigger properties' by using more energy. You are essentially asking them to pay twice over for no good reason.

(I say this as a one-bed property owner who the above would benefit).

wrf12345

Much easier to have no standing charges and a higher unit rate (approx ten percent up) then higher users will pay more and it would sort of reflect in usage in small properties with few people in them against five bedders full of people, though the really rich will have a large solar power plant on their roof and an income from Grid payback. Only way you will ever get such simplicity and fairness is if the government intervenes and slaps Ofgem down. You can make a similar case against council tax as it does not reflect the incomes of the people in the property nor the blatant way that councils waste money.