Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Mickie said:
Which ever energy companies, suppliers that are making huge profits. Our energy bill is going up 50%
Don’t you agree they’re making billions? Or are you wanting an argument for arguments sake.
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I was trying to establish who you were talking about and you seem to be conflating energy companies and the energy suppliers we pay for our gas and electricity. The latter aren't making billions, they're making very little per customer and maybe even a loss.
 
Surveyor said:
I was trying to establish who you were talking about and you seem to be conflating energy companies and the energy suppliers we pay for our gas and electricity. The latter aren't making billions, they're making very little per customer and maybe even a loss.
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You get my point. Don’t be overly concerned with minor details.
 
Energize said:
Because employers will pocket the difference according to your argument, employers will offer lower gross salaries because employees will get the same net salary with lower income tax.
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This is where your rather odd ideas of what would happen conflict with reality I'm afraid.

No company reduces a person's wages to "pocket the difference" when there's an income tax cut, because there is no cost difference to the company to pocket, what a bizarre thing to say. The company has no interest in what the employees net pay is, and since everyone's tax status can be different, net pay can vary between employees on the same gross wage anyway.

I was just wondering what extreme Libertarian take you were espousing now, but it seems it's just some general nonsense.
 
I had suspected energy companies had done this with the standing charge - moving some of the unit rate onto standing charge in an effort to maintain profits hence one of the reasons it had shot up:

Analysts told the BBC that local distributors and suppliers are moving charges which were once part of a consumer's unit price for energy (which now has a tight upper limit on it) over to their standing charge. They are also increasing standing charges to the maximum level for each region, which means a big jump for some places.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60878314

Appalling practice. Let's see if OFGEM do anything about it.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
What do you mean? OFGEM did this, they set the price…
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Yes, and if it's being abused, they can reset the price cap elements of units and standing charge

The energy companies should not be allowed to lump unit rates onto standing charges. The only reason to do this is to protect profits as people can try and reduce consumption but they cannot do anything to affect standing charges.
 
Allnamestaken said:
I just received an email from my provider (Eon) saying that our new direct debit will be £335 from April, they also said we were £961 in debit. They took over our previous energy provider.

As of last month we were £83 in credit and did not owe anything. They now randomly sent us this email saying we owe money along with the updated direct debit notification.

This is ******* ridiculous, we will be calling them in the morning because it makes no sense. We are also a two person household with very conservative use of our appliances and everything else generally.

There is zero way we can pay this amount and it seems they just made up a number and are now saying we owe it.

I just cant. I physically cannot afford to pay even remotely close to that kind of direct debit I don't know what to do. Its more than half my rent.
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Eon are literally the worst company for anything I have ever dealt with. They always overcharged on my bills cause they couldn't apparently count and then it took months of disputes. They then messed up when I switched supplier. I was £450 in credit. Got refund for that and then told I owed £400 in Gas a month later when the credit had all been moved and then told me I defaulted on my payment and so now that on my Credit history and they said they didn't get anything wrong when they had the monies, could have credited from that and been done.

Move from them as soon as you can. Octopus have been great for me. Anything that has been a little off, quick email and they sort it, easy to adjust the direct debit to what you want and for you to control/deal with and they are great at advice on the phone/chat if you are unsure on anything tbh.
 
Richie said:
Yes, and if it's being abused, they can reset the price cap elements of units and standing charge
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cap doesn't have a standing charge - they could have reduced unit rates on initial units so that low users had same net unit price as high users

jpaul said:
the cap doesn't specify a standing charge, or unit price just maxiimum you would pay if you used no electrcity or were the typical user,
they then choose how to allocate the standing charge, and unit price to meet that
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Richie said:
Yes, and if it's being abused, they can reset the price cap elements of units and standing charge

The energy companies should not be allowed to lump unit rates onto standing charges. The only reason to do this is to protect profits as people can try and reduce consumption but they cannot do anything to affect standing charges.
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Its not being abused, it’s working exactly how OFGEM set it up to do.

Per the BBC article OFGEM have reallocated some network costs to different areas and added some fixed costs to the standing charge that were previously recouped from the unit rate. In effect, making unit rates cheaper.

You can argue that is a regressive pricing strategy but you need to take that up with OFGEM, not your energy supplier. The supplier is always going to charge you the most they can get away with, that’s capitalism at the end of the day.
 
kinetic747 said:
Does anyone know the reason for the regional variations in the standing charge increases? It's being reported this morning that London has the lowest increase at 38% and Merseyside the highest at 102%, with lots of variation amongst the different regions in-between.:confused:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60878314
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It’s because it’s cheaper per person to service millions of people crammed into a few square miles compared to being spread throughout the countryside. It always has and always will.

It’s that simple really, the pricing strategy is regional and not national so customers that are cheaper to service, get a lower price. That said having slightly cheaper electric isn’t something to be envious about if you have to live in London to get it…
 
kinetic747 said:
Does anyone know the reason for the regional variations in the standing charge increases? It's being reported this morning that London has the lowest increase at 38% and Merseyside the highest at 102%, with lots of variation amongst the different regions in-between.:confused:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60878314
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From the article you linked:

It [Ofgem] says standing charges in some regions are increasing more than others because of a reallocation of network costs, the level of which differs between distribution networks.
 
kinetic747 said:
Does anyone know the reason for the regional variations in the standing charge increases? It's being reported this morning that London has the lowest increase at 38% and Merseyside the highest at 102%, with lots of variation amongst the different regions in-between.:confused:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60878314
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probably the poorest places where people don't have electricity gobbling appliances will have the highest standing charges.
 
.. of course it costs different amounts to deliver electricity in different regions - whether ofgem should impose some levelling-up though, is another issue,
supermarkets don't seem to have local charging - but, why not reflect cost of transport in the charges - milk, vegetables ....


the bbc piece is shoddy make-weight journalism - some idiot says differential charging is unexpected and 'journalist' doesn't challenge that or give any attribution for conjecture on 'Local distributors and suppliers are moving charges ...
 
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