Soldato
Yeah, British gas have one atm, would put my bill up from ~£265 to £298/month, but if we see a similar increase to April's in October then that difference would be nothing compared to the £500+ we would be paying otherwise!
Yeah, British gas have one atm, would put my bill up from ~£265 to £298/month, but if we see a similar increase to April's in October then that difference would be nothing compared to the £500+ we would be paying otherwise!
Yeah for sure worth looking at. I think a 2 year deal is probably worth it for anything under a circa 40% increase and easy get out clause.
Soldato
£75 per fuel exit fee which is putting me off, and I just cant fathom prices going up that much, surely? 35p electric, 10p gas?
Soldato
12 months ago if you'd suggested prices were going to double you'd have been ridiculed, anything could happen.
Soldato
So, once recouped, they will reduce the standing charges by the same margin i.e 50-70% decrease?
Soldato
Yes, very true... Will probably make the call tomorrow!
Associate
- Joined
- 1 Nov 2010
- Posts
- 234
I think they've withdrawn it now, it was showing as available yesterday but now it says:
No tariffs available
Sorry, there are no suitable tariffs available on this site for you right now. You may find other tariffs by shopping around.
Soldato
Was that the fixed v15? It appears you are indeed correct, not showing any tariffs for me now :S
Soldato
All this talk of a gas crisis and it’s electricity going through the roof, particularly with the standing charge
The UK has 32 Gas fired power stations.
Regarding the standing charge this has jumped up due to the number of utility providers that have gone bust in the last 6 months.
I was with Avro and was switched to Octopus, Octopus has had to honour the credit I had with Avro. Avro went but at the end of summer and most people are in credit at this point. I was in credit by £200 so for the sake of an example lets assume all 600000 Avro customers had £200 credit. That means Octopus have had to credit £60 million through no fault of our own. That's one supplier failing, that's why your standing charge has risen.
Soldato
2nd behind Bulb with 1.7 million.
It's also worth pointing out that on top of the solr's having to honour the credit balances they also have another (in Octopus case) 600000 more customers who they are having to supply at a substantial loss for every kWh supplied and they have no choice in the matter, when the price cap shifts in April they'll still be making a loss just not quite as big as it is now. It brings into perspective just how bad the situation is.
Associate
- Joined
- 1 Nov 2010
- Posts
- 234
Not 100% sure, was looking at options yesterday as I'm currently on their variable rate, I have this in my spreadsheet as the name of the tariff 'Complete Protection Feb 2024 (Fixed) Home Services Cover'. This worked out at £20 a month more than the variable rates will be for capped in April so was considering it.
Looks like EDF have a 2 year fixed for a little more, not sure if it's worth fixing or trying to ride it out on now. EDF one has a £200 early exit fee so would be painful to leave.
Octopus only have a 1 year fixed so probably not worth the premium over sitting on a capped variable.
Annoyingly, I could have fixed at the end of november at 23.189p for electric and 6.468p for gas.
Soldato
I obviously have a blind spot here but can someone explain why suppliers going bust need a bailout by increasing the Standing Charge for everyone?
If they are bust, what exactly is the money for?
If they are bust, what exactly is the money for?
Associate
Their debts?
Soldato
Ok... What debts exactly and why are the being pushed onto the other companies?
Individual account debts (as in Mr Smith's account is £50 in debit) are passed to the new company and Mr Smith still owes the new company the £50.
If BP went under, would the consumer expect to pay more for fuel at Esso to offset BP's debts (aside from profiteering by other companies I mean).
I'm genuinely asking as I've never heard of consumers bailing out bust companies before (not saying it hasn't happened, just saying I am not aware)
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2013
- Posts
- 9,264
Sounds like the people in credit (which is worrying that they went bust with that many people in credit).
It’s because the energy market is a faux market. To encourage people to sign up to new small suppliers, they put in place the SoLR process where your balance is protected and transferred to the new supplier if they go bust. That protection is paid for by everyone. That said when it was dreamed up, they hadn’t envisaged a mass bankruptcy event…
The market in the way it works privatised the profits and socialised the risks, it’s crazy when you think about it. It’s not really a market at all.
a single national supplier ran on a not for profit basis would make much more sense. The amount of money that these suppliers used to spend on customer acquisition was pretty serious but they added a tiny amount of value, if any given the only thing they can differentiate on was price as the product they were selling was the same regardless of where you bought it.
The market in the way it works privatised the profits and socialised the risks, it’s crazy when you think about it. It’s not really a market at all.
a single national supplier ran on a not for profit basis would make much more sense. The amount of money that these suppliers used to spend on customer acquisition was pretty serious but they added a tiny amount of value, if any given the only thing they can differentiate on was price as the product they were selling was the same regardless of where you bought it.
Soldato
It's not a bailout, their operational costs have increased because they have to honour the credit from the new customers dumped in their lap.
Soldato
Ofgem and the government were warned when they announced the cap that this could happen, they ignored it.