This is getting ridiculous (energy prices - Strictly NO referrals!)

[wildman]

I know I respondong to someone saying the system isn't working. ..... there is more that needs to be done but global disasters are going to cause problems. too many people are trying to use this to suggest frakking and coal is the answer and that renewables don't work. my view is renewables have to work even if it means government having to step in for a few years.

we would have been a lot further onb with renewables if governments and the general public didn't get brainwashed by big oil in the 80's and 90's when they spent hundreds of millions feeding anti green propaganda and discrediting actual scientists who knew this was going to happen. We have basically been sold down the river by corrupt politicians and greedy corporate giants and I think we are past the point of no return on this one now.

 

[bigmike20vt]

we would have been a lot further onb with renewables if governments and the general public didn't get brainwashed by big oil in the 80's and 90's when they spent hundreds of millions feeding anti green propaganda and discrediting actual scientists who knew this was going to happen. We have basically been sold down the river by corrupt politicians and greedy corporate giants and I think we are past the point of no return on this one now.

I agree with all your points however I hope you are wrong in your conclusion

 

[danlightbulb]

Well if the campaign can increase the number signed up from the current 80000 to the 30 million + not fixed they might get somewhere...

They are aiming for a million. I think they need 3 million to get a million who actually do it. I hope they get 10 million plus just to put the scare on.

 

[Surveyor]

They are aiming for a million. I think they need 3 million to get a million who actually do it. I hope they get 10 million plus just to put the scare on.

Have you signed up?

 

[flea.rider]

for those that wont pay they will take everything from them .. the only way this stops now just dont use gas or electrickery .. hard i know ... hence why they put the cosh on wood and coal first ... nothing to fall back on ..
i'll just make it to next yr .. 5 cords of wood stocked ..

 

[chrcoluk]

I just don't understand why everyone gets so hung up on the standing charge?!

It's what? 45p a day? so £165 a year. What would you like them to do, halve it? that's saved you all of £82 over a year, drop in the ocean. Cutting the vat rate will save you more than that and that's only 5%. Sky high unit prices are where the problem is at.

Its not much for heavy users but more so for light users, especially if they are poor light users.

Ultimately we should be encouraging people to use less energy, but our energy is more expensive the less you use which is backwards.

There is people who live in this country where £15 a month makes a difference. Also combined duel fuel, its more like 80p a day and now likely rising in October.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

95p a day here, and i spend less on gas and elec a day atm
was 14p a day last year, i can control my spending but hate the fact i cannot control the standing charge!

I want them to abolish the standing charge so that if I were to not use any gas or electric I wouldn't still have to pay for it, it's a massive con as the original infrastructure has been paid for hundreds of times over and we still have the standing charge for "maintenance and upkeep"

Its not much for heavy users but more so for light users, especially if they are poor light users.

Ultimately we should be encouraging people to use less energy, but our energy is more expensive the less you use which is backwards.

There is people who live in this country where £15 a month makes a difference. Also combined duel fuel, its more like 80p a day and now likely rising in October.

The standing charge is to cover fixed costs, maintenance and repair to the network, smart meter roll out, meter readers, green levies etc and most recently covering lost credit for failed suppliers. This should always be spread equally across all customers, it's the correct and fairest way to do it, it's completely irrelevant hoe much or how little gas or electricity you use, that's purely down to each individuals choice, heavy users should not be used to subsidise others purely because they use more.

 

[LabR@t]

I am banking in the government pulling something out of the hat as the alternative will be a blood bath

 

[Zenduri]

They are aiming for a million. I think they need 3 million to get a million who actually do it. I hope they get 10 million plus just to put the scare on.

Vote for name change to danlightbulbonnoonehome

I dont get why people have such a hard on for such an ill thought out plan. I suspect a lot of people who DONT want to pay will use this as an excuse not to pay which is insulting IMO to the people who genuinely cant afford to pay. Shame on you

I'll quote myself from the "dont pay" thread

People are really overthinking the success of this scheme. The Poll Tax rebellion worked because the people refusing to pay were refusing to pay 1 body, the government, and it hit the Gov directly.

Dont pay UK etc want 1 million people to withhold payment on Oct 1st but realistically if those 1 million were evenly spread out over the top 5 suppliers its only 200k each, which while horrific for any companies books to have that many people refusing to pay, its less impactful than 1million people per company. The Government is insulated from the non payment scheme too as it doesn't directly effect them, it hits private companies and even then it's aimed at the wrong private companies. The issue is the likes of Shell/BP not overcharging while the likes of EDF, British Gas still have to buy the energy at whatever the market dictates so the real villains here wont be touched.

Energy companies (EDF/ British gas etc) would complain to the government, the Government will say they have put measures in place, £400 here, £600 for those on benefits etc etc and nothing would change. The worst that could probably happen is if a large chunk of people that dont pay are with a smaller supplier, it could drive that supplier out of business and then its the SOLR issue all over again or a BULB mk2 where the government is having then to spend money it doesn't want to spend to prop a company up.

 

[jpaul]

Better protest, analogous to blocking petrol stations/DOS, might be for everyone to put their kettle on at the same time.

The standing charge is to cover fixed costs, maintenance and repair to the network, smart meter roll out, meter readers, green levies etc and most recently covering lost credit for failed suppliers. This should always be spread equally across all customers, it's the correct and fairest way to do it, it's completely irrelevant hoe much or how little gas or electricity you use, that's purely down to each individuals choice, heavy users should not be used to subsidise others purely because they use more.

keep telling yourself that .. ofgen have already enumerated the inequalities of the standing charge, and need for a cap

49. The burden of the standing charge falls disproportionately on those who consume the least energy because it forms a large part of their total bills and means they pay the highest price overall for each unit of energy (see paragraph 34 above). These are generally low income households, who are also most likely to be on the SVTs and the poorest value tariffs generally and to be fuel poor and most in need of help with energy bills.

The CMA went further. In setting the PPM price cap for nil consumption at the average standing charge of the Big Six energy firms’ PPM tariffs it broke the standing charge down into its components. It stated that “the value of the price cap at nil consumption does not include, nor need to include, network costs since these are volume driven”63. It said that the network charging statements of the network companies defined ‘use of system’ charges to be nil at nil consumption64 . Thus it has been acknowledged that almost all (if not all) network costs should be recovered through the unit rate.

...
The benefits of a cap on the standing charge would also be further enhanced if the
Government withdrew value added tax (VAT), currently levied at 5% on all elements of
energy bills, from the standing charge. This would be on the basis that the standing
charge confers the ability to access a supply of energy, which is a necessity83

 

[Mysterae_]

Better protest, analogous to blocking petrol stations/DOS, might be for everyone to put their kettle on at the same time.

A forced blackout is better for whom? The families that have sick relatives at home and those that need power such as home dialysis? Families with young children or the elderly at home alone? Businesses needing power to survive so they can pay their staff? Obviously not good for any of the above and is ill-conceived endangerment.

I know someone who is struggling, already a few hundred pounds in arrears, has a young family of 3 and both parents are working 3 jobs between them. What does British Gas do to help them? Charge them £13 each time a bill goes unpaid or underpaid. Threatening to install a prepayment meter which we know is more expensive per kWh.

If everyone stops paying their bills it'll only make these companies richer through the issuance of fines. Face it, these companies have us by the balls and now is the time for the government to show some and step in and help their country's population. The leaders are too busy hiding away and choosing their next muppet puppet.

 

[413x]

If you don't use electricity you'll be doing them a favour at the moment as they are selling at a loss.

Only when the wholesale price ends up being lower than the previous cap will you be hurting them. (suppliers)


They do have us by the balls.
If you don't pay you'll be cut off eventually and fall into debt and have your credit file trashed.
How many people can use 0 energy? Almost none.



Its been said over and over. Someone needs to pay for the raw materials and processing. Someone in the our country.
There aren't many Options.

-print money/increase national debt by gov bail outs, just kick that can endlessly down the road
-tax the rich - not enough cash there
-tax BP etc again - big risk of them just leaving the UK if they are pushed too far
-nationalise? - is like option 1

There is no answer to this. No silver bullet.

If these prices continue past one winter the consequences will be severe.
I believe the government will do something. It will likely be running up debt, as anything else leaves an immediate impact. At least the "next lot" can deal with the debt

 

[danlightbulb]

dont get why people have such a hard on for such an ill thought out plan. I suspect a lot of people who DONT want to pay will use this as an excuse not to pay which is insulting IMO to the people who genuinely cant afford to pay. Shame on you

I don't think a million people is enough myself, more like 5-10 million I personally would like to see.

The reason for the protest is not to ultimately not pay, at least not this time. It is to send a message, to create some disruption and attention, to demonstrate that in numbers people do have some power.

If everyone did stop paying, everyone, then these companies would not be able to take everyone to court or fit prepayment meters on all houses in the UK. This protest is to demonstrate that it could get to that scale if pushed.

It's as much focussed towards the government and energy producers as the retailers, it's just that the retailers are the only ones people can affect given how the market is structured.

 

[chrcoluk]

The standing charge is to cover fixed costs, maintenance and repair to the network, smart meter roll out, meter readers, green levies etc and most recently covering lost credit for failed suppliers. This should always be spread equally across all customers, it's the correct and fairest way to do it, it's completely irrelevant hoe much or how little gas or electricity you use, that's purely down to each individuals choice, heavy users should not be used to subsidise others purely because they use more.

Thats all well and good when you start to realise how horrid it is.

Lets say e.g. you decide its not worth paying the SC for gas and ask for it to be disconnected as some people have done, then the gas infrastructure people turn up later decided to do a full disconnection from the street when the request was merely to disconnect from the meter (I assume they do this as they paranoid about people tapping the supply), and then there is a 4 figure cost pushed onto the consumer, so the SC is effectively a protection racket. Also there is an argument to be made that the higher the usage then the higher the wear and tear on the network, and hence heavier users create more maintenance demand. I also think the arguments I have seen regarding the failed suppliers shouldnt be paid for by the SC are valid as well.

Spread equal as a fixed rate or a % of the bill? Debatable and I dont think we going to be all agreeing, but what I do think, is an ever increasing fixed cost is a dangerous game to play and wrong. These costs need to be scrutinised more (I suspect Ofgem doesnt scrutinise enough), and alternative forms of funding should be considered not to mention, the credit balances of customers should most definitely not be funded by everyone else if a supplier goes bust, these need to be held in a protected way, even Ofgem has now admitted they got this wrong. The revenue from the SC amounts to billions annually currently, I would love to see the breakdown of where its spent. I expect some fancy accounting to elevate maintenance costs.

We know e.g. there is 28 million consumer energy accounts. If we assume average of 50p day (some will be on old fixed deals so lowered this from 80p). Then it is around 4.8 billion in revenue (after VAT is removed). Things like the WHD are only in the 10s of millions so a very small % of this.

It cant be assumed this can always go up and up and up and up to cover whatever costs, it wont be sustainable.

Will the possible 1 billion handout to Octopus be added to the SC as well? We pay for a company to buy another?

Remember back to October last year, the SC went up then before any companies even went bust, SC is not meant to be affected by wholesale cost of energy so how did that happen?

 

[danlightbulb]

The revenue from the SC amounts to billions annually currently, I would love to see the breakdown of where its spent

I doubt that it is identifiable separately from the unit rate once it passes through from retailers to supply chain. Does Octopus pay both a unit rate and standing charge when they buy energy contracts from the market?

I would expect that the retailer simply buys based on unit rate and they split this out in whatever way they want for their own customers into the two components.

 

[chrcoluk]

I doubt that it is identifiable separately from the unit rate once it passes through from retailers to supply chain. Does Octopus pay both a unit rate and standing charge when they buy energy contracts from the market?

I would expect that the retailer simply buys based on unit rate and they split this out in whatever way they want for their own customers into the two components.

Well I am not sure on this part.

I believe the SC as part of the cap (current SVR) is regulated by Ofgem, and for it to go up there has to be supposed proof provided of increased costs. They also include things like the WHD, and paying for the bust companies in this. However as pointed out earlier, the Green Levy it seems is not actually specifically part of the SC.

On the tariffs not subject to the cap, the suppliers are in control of the SC? a post a little further up suggests SC is not compulsory? Questions to be asked here I think. Or are we all just assuming the maintenance of the gas network actually costs 3+ billion every year which sounds absolutely ridiculous to me.

 

[silversurfer]

If you don't use electricity you'll be doing them a favour at the moment as they are selling at a loss.

The ideal is infinite storage, use the elec now and consume/produce in 6 months time could make a profit. If you live at the top of a hill with an unused reservoir then you are minted just running a hydro power setup, how many people are in this situation and able is probably a handful sadly. A little more brains then moving water is going to be required, not quite sure on that one but its not impossible. Uk or just Europe strategic reserve is not a thing ? USA and China have one I know, none of this is unknown unknown outside of what we knew could happen for a variety of reasons not just ruskies.

I mentioned before UK has a world class natural energy asset, the Seven; did that get mentioned even once this year I didnt see it. Unfortunate when UK is superior in engineering instead we import ditto Germany are muppets for wasting their ability. Leadership asleep at the switch for decades, still are seems like.

 

[Surveyor]

They are aiming for a million. I think they need 3 million to get a million who actually do it. I hope they get 10 million plus just to put the scare on.

Have you signed up?

No then

 

[Zenduri]

I don't think a million people is enough myself, more like 5-10 million I personally would like to see.

The reason for the protest is not to ultimately not pay, at least not this time. It is to send a message, to create some disruption and attention, to demonstrate that in numbers people do have some power.

If everyone did stop paying, everyone, then these companies would not be able to take everyone to court or fit prepayment meters on all houses in the UK. This protest is to demonstrate that it could get to that scale if pushed.

It's as much focussed towards the government and energy producers as the retailers, it's just that the retailers are the only ones people can affect given how the market is structured.

Sigh..... ill say this as plainly as possible.

If you can afford to pay and dont pay because "stick it to the man" (which is sticking it to entirely the WRONG party) achieves nothing and will do more harm and damage to YOU than it will to the company. Joining this "movement" shows how little people know about the market or how it works and how little research they have done and how little understanding they have.

Regarding your last point

It's as much focussed towards the government and energy producers as the retailers, it's just that the retailers are the only ones people can affect given how the market is structured.

Get out on the streets of London in an organised protest but as usual people aren't prepared to do that, instead they will take the armchair protest of not paying and "sticking it to the man" when targetting the wrong organizations and then announce to the world they did their bit. Its the pussy way to protest

Meanwhile there are people who will genuinely be in fuel poverty or cant pay that will suffer and all these part time protestors will claim to be dying on a cross for the people who are really effected.

 

[Zenduri]

I doubt that it is identifiable separately from the unit rate once it passes through from retailers to supply chain. Does Octopus pay both a unit rate and standing charge when they buy energy contracts from the market?

I would expect that the retailer simply buys based on unit rate and they split this out in whatever way they want for their own customers into the two components.

You trigger me so hard because i honestly cant believe someone can read this poorly/ is this dumb