MSE News: Energy firms to trial ‘low or no Standing Charge’ tariffs from April – here’s what we know

gpman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81901029#Comment_81901029

"Yet still if you use less you pay less. So it does no such thing."

I'm afraid I disagree with you

Lower standing charges and higher unit rates will encourage lower consumption, as a reduced consumption will save more money.

So minimum usage policy contradicts the whole point of encouraging consumers to reduce usage

Refer to the first reply above, as an example. If I understand correctly, the poster was considering increasing their electricity consumption to meet the minimum threshold

Scot_39

zero standing charges arent though in the mind of many about reducing use - they were for many about reducing total costs.

which is why many energy and poverty charities stopped pushing the idea when clesr that no extra money was coming and the Ofgem shuffling decks on the titanic - moving costs from one line to other - total bill the same - was the proposal. And many of the most vulnerable - high users for health reasons - would be worse off.

Under the Ofgem models of just switching costs, if the average consumption goes down on low sc tariffs - the unit rates will have to rise to cover "fixed" cost shortfall - so again higher users on them end up cross subsidising lower users.

The use of anon zero min SC and a min usage threshold shows imo a clear belief still in that need to recover costs. But it might be more nuanced yet - maybe back to banded rates.

The exact same problem that saw them increase electric SC by £103 by July 24 cap. Low users not paying their fair in some / unfair in others share.

you either accept that many things in life have a mix of fixed and variable costs regardless of use or not.

The regulator is again reviewing other aspects of charging, but I see nothing other than politics changing the outcome.

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81900842#Comment_81900842

Does utilita pay as you go on gas exist and work like electric ( iirc wax first 2kW higher to recover costs) and if so would you save overall across both fuels ?

michaels

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81900842#Comment_81900842

Would it not almost make sense for you to go all electric then you would not need to pay for a connection to the gas supply network (which costs the same regardless of use)?

gpman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81900842#Comment_81900842

I was wondering if that was perhaps just for cooking purposes, but as you refer to insulation, then presumably it applies to space heating. Does it also include hot water?

If so, it seems remarkably low. 1000kWh pa is about what a typical pilot light consumes. I appreciate pilot lights are not typical anymore, even more so when you refer to a newish flat, but I was just trying to put into perspective what 1000kWh of gas actually represents in simple terms.

Or put another way, it reflects about 15 mins use of a 30,000 BTU conventional boiler per day, which does not sound enough to provide even a single person with enough hot water for normal daily living activities.

For a combi boiler, about 5 mins use per day (at full power), so just about enough for a daily shower.

c1995

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81901482#Comment_81901482

Correct we have a combi boiler and a gas hob. Just me and my partner so a daily shower each and some light cooking / washing up in the evening. We’ve used the central heating twice since we bought the flat 2 years ago (just the boiler engineer checking it works on the service!)

I was waiting for news about this so as of yesterday shifted our gas tariff to EDF simply tracker extra June 27. Saved us about £50 a year compared to the price cap. For electric we’re on EDF’s freephase dynamic as with our shift work we can easily shift our usage out of peak times. Overall we pay around £60 a month for gas and electric.

Previous to EDF we were on octopus agile for electric and octopus tracker for gas similarly paying around £60 a month.

c1995

Could be possible! Would have to look into this. Being in a leasehold flat with our meter in the basement I’m wondering what the process would be and if we’d have to seek approval..

gpman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81901571#Comment_81901571

Congratulations on getting your gas consumption down to such a remarkably low level especially when using gas for all your hot water, hob cooking and space heating requirements.

With such good efforts to reduce your gas consumption, and as this is a moneysaving site, it really surprises me how comparatively high your electricity consumption appears to be. If I've calculated things correctly, it would seem you are estimated to use at least the typical average users consumption of 2700 kWh pa of electricity, possibly significantly more than this, if you think you can gain by using Smart TOU tariffs like Octopus Agile / EDF FreePhase Dynamic

It would be interesting to understand your thought process/calculations when opting for this choice of electricity tariff.

tfhnota

Everyone ignores the insulting low s/c deal, what is the betting that Ofgem will conclude there is so little demand for it that it is not worth pursuing - there really needs to be a police investigation into how terribly Ofgem have treated consumers, as it is beyond sane comprehension and may be something dark behind it.

EssexHebridean

it seems fairly unlikely to me that the energy companies won’t be able to find sufficient suitable candidates for the trial.