Energy price rises and price cap discussion.

[AM9]

Natural gas wholeslae prices have now risen so high that they appear to be more expensive, per joule, than fully taxed petrol/motor spirit.

That's what wholesale spot markets do, - nothing to see here.

 

[najaB]

Natural gas wholeslae prices have now risen so high that they appear to be more expensive, per joule, than fully taxed petrol/motor spirit.

We'll only need to worry if they stay that high for an extended period, rather that it being a transitory spike.

 

[DelayRepay]

The only businesses that should be allowed to fail because of this, are the privatised energy companies. The only reason they were set up in the first place was to provide efficiency gains to customers, and since they can't do that, there's no point in having them.

Nationalise the gas well and sell it at production rates to customers.

The problem with that approach is the way the industry was privatised. The companies failing are basically retailers. The producers are raking it in due to the high prices.

We (the United Kingdom) owned our North Sea oil and gas reserves, but we sold the right to extract the fuel to the private companies. They are simply using the assets they've paid for to generate the maximum return for their shareholders, as any business would do.

There are similarities with what happened in banking a decade ago. Lots of people got rich in the good times, then the whole house of cards came falling down and everyone else was left to pick up the pieces.

 

[tomuk]

We (the United Kingdom) owned our North Sea oil and gas reserves, but we sold the right to extract the fuel to the private companies. They are simply using the assets they've paid for to generate the maximum return for their shareholders, as any business would do.

And we are currently taxing said companies at a 65% tax rate before any additional windfall tax is added.

 

[najaB]

And we are currently taxing said companies at a 65% tax rate before any additional windfall tax is added.

Is that correct? I had a look and I saw that they are subject to standard corporation tax and ring-fenced corporation tax of 30% on production from non-exempt fields. The only thing I saw coming close to 65% was Petroleum Revenue Tax which is 50% but only applicable to fields given consent before 1993 (and allows deduction of any licence payments, etc).

 

[JamesT]

Is that correct? I had a look and I saw that they are subject to standard corporation tax and ring-fenced corporation tax of 30% on production from non-exempt fields. The only thing I saw coming close to 65% was Petroleum Revenue Tax which is 50% but only applicable to fields given consent before 1993 (and allows deduction of any licence payments, etc).

30% ring-fenced corporation tax - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/oil-gas-and-mining-ring-fence-corporation-tax
10% supplementary charge - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/oil-gas-and-mining-supplementary-charge
25% windfall tax - https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/draft-legislation-energy-oil-and-gas-profits-levy-bill

 

[ASharpe]

I've spent the last few days really worried about what the rises were going to do to my astronomical bill already.

Started digging into what I was using and it turns out eon have been doubling my electricity bills since they started taking smart readings earlier this year.

 

[trebor79]

I've spent the last few days really worried about what the rises were going to do to my astronomical bill already.

Started digging into what I was using and it turns out eon have been doubling my electricity bills since they started taking smart readings earlier this year.

View attachment 119821

F-wits!
Crikey though, how do you use 400kWh in a month in summer ?

 

[ASharpe]

Crikey though, how do you use 400kWh in a month in summer ?

I generally use a fair bit of electric for some aquariums and in winter to heat the guinea pig "facility".

Used a bit more this month as my expensive Samsung all singing and dancing and well within warranty fridge freezer broke during the big heatwave. It was nearly 3 weeks I had two very inefficient camping coolers running instead while I waited for it to be fixed. For one of them from the farther in law I bought a cheap 230AC to 12DC converter that looked like a bulky laptop charger and the thing put out some heat.

 

[ComUtoR]

Deleted

 

[duncanp]

I've spent the last few days really worried about what the rises were going to do to my astronomical bill already.

Started digging into what I was using and it turns out eon have been doubling my electricity bills since they started taking smart readings earlier this year.

View attachment 119821

Er, I thought that smart meters were supposed to mean no more estimated bills, and that you would only be charged for what you actually used.

Just proves that all the blurb about smart meters (including that incredibly irritating TV advert with the Albert Einstein lookalike ) are a complete load of rubbish.

Good luck with trying to get the excess refunded - probably easier to get blood out of a stone.

Or perhaps you could get the excess credited to your account to provide a cushion against the rise in energy bills over the winter.

 

[Silver Cobra]

With the announcement of the new price cap for October, I imagine those who went against the advice given in the autumn last year and signed up to new long-term fixed contracts with their suppliers back then must feel very relieved right now (I myself signed up to a 24-month contract with Octopus Energy at ~£1800 per year last October, so runs until October 2023). Though I do have to wonder if there is a get-out clause in the contracts for suppliers to terminate them early and bump the price up to the new cap.

 

[DelayRepay]

Er, I thought that smart meters were supposed to mean no more estimated bills, and that you would only be charged for what you actually used.

Just proves that all the blurb about smart meters (including that incredibly irritating TV advert with the Albert Einstein lookalike ) are a complete load of rubbish.

Good luck with trying to get the excess refunded - probably easier to get blood out of a stone.

Or perhaps you could get the excess credited to your account to provide a cushion against the rise in energy bills over the winter.

I don't think a billing error on one customer's account means that smart meters are a load of whatever. More likely that the energy supplier that did this is a load of whatever.


Anyway, now we know what we'll be paying from October. Fortunately the standing charges have only increased by 1p per day each.

But the unit price for gas has more than doubled - on top of the big increase we saw in April, which won't really have impacted most people yet given their heating will have been off since then.

In the absence of further government support, I can see millions struggling to pay their bills. Not just those on benefits and pensioners, but working families too. Unfortunately as we do not currently have a functioning government, we will have to wait a few weeks to find out what they're going to do, if anything.

I guess those of us that are able to ought to try to stock up the foodbanks. My god I think they'll be busy this winter

 

[duncanp]

In the absence of further government support, I can see millions struggling to pay their bills. Not just those on benefits and pensioners, but working families too. Unfortunately as we do not currently have a functioning government, we will have to wait a few weeks to find out what they're going to do, if anything.

i really don't think that whoever is the new Prime Minister Liz Truss will be able to get away with doing nothing beyond what has already been announced.

The current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, has been preparing a list of options for providing further support to households and businesses to cope with energy bills over the winter.

This will be presented to the new Prime Minister as soon as she takes office, and Liz Truss has indicated that there will be an emergency budget before the end of September.

 

[AM9]

i really don't think that whoever is the new Prime Minister Liz Truss will be able to get away with doing nothing beyond what has already been announced.

The current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, has been preparing a list of options for providing further support to households and businesses to cope with energy bills over the winter.

This will be presented to the new Prime Minister as soon as she takes office, and Liz Truss has indicated that there will be an emergency budget before the end of September.

I doubt that a wait as long as until anywhere near the end of September would be tolerable in the current climate.

 

[DarloRich]

The government don't care if you cant pay your bill. You should work harder or longer or marry a billionaire. By the time simpleton PM wannabe Truss takes over the plans she and her team of cretins are working on to lend you £3.50 ( administered by thier mates at a very favourable rate) will be out of date and useless.

Every day I become more amenable to the solution Stalin would have deployed!

 

[adc82140]

Everything seems to be skewed in favour of the energy providers. I'm supposed to be able to sell excess electricity back to the grid from the solar panels on the roof, which given today's announcement has become all the more important. But I've been told by my energy supplier, British Gas, that I won't get any payment for 3 months, and there's no back pay. A rough translation of their comments is "we're allowed 90 days to register your export meter on to our system, and we're going to make damned sure it takes that long". It's strange how the import half of the meter, where I pay them, was registered within an hour.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Every day I become more amenable to the solution Stalin would have deployed!

Putin must seem quite happy with the latest UK energy price "cap" as he will see this as pay-back for the money that has been poured by Britain in weaponry support of Ukraine against the Russian "short-term military exercise".

 

[Lost property]

i really don't think that whoever is the new Prime Minister Liz Truss will be able to get away with doing nothing beyond what has already been announced.

The current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, has been preparing a list of options for providing further support to households and businesses to cope with energy bills over the winter.

This will be presented to the new Prime Minister as soon as she takes office, and Liz Truss has indicated that there will be an emergency budget before the end of September.

That's very kind and thoughtful of him really.....of course, had he, or indeed Boris or in fact ALL and every member of the Cabinet sat down with the energy providers some considerable time ago now when it was obvious the price rises would be both significant and damaging, plans could, and should, have been in place for this announcement today.

As it is, with this "caring ", remember that slogan ?, now long discarded, Tory Gov't, we await the usual, after the event, sticking plaster reaction as uttered by either the smirking Sunak or, more likely, the ever preening herself Truss.

 

[duncanp]

Anyway, now we know what we'll be paying from October. Fortunately the standing charges have only increased by 1p per day each.

Where does it say that the standing charges are only increasing by 1p per day?

Is there somewhere that gives the new maximum price per unit (of electricity) ?

 

[GS250]

Putin must seem quite happy with the latest UK energy price "cap" as he will see this as pay-back for the money that has been poured by Britain in weaponry support of Ukraine against the Russian "short-term military exercise".

Our outgoing PM had suggested higher bills are worth it to stop Putin. I suppose it depends on what his ultimate intentions are. Not so sure if years of pretty much putting the majority of the UK into fuel poverty is going to be considered 'worth it', if all he ever wanted was more control over a few nations the majority couldn't point out on a map.

 

[Domh245]

Where does it say that the standing charges are only increasing by 1p per day?

Is there somewhere that gives the new maximum price per unit (of electricity) ?

Energy price cap

The energy price cap is a limit on the price people pay for their energy.

www.ofgem.gov.uk

	Last price cap period (1 April - 30 September 2022)	Current price cap period (1 October - 31 December 2022)
Electricity	£0.28 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.45	£0.52 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.46
Gas	£0.07 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.27	£0.15 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.28

Edit: I should point out this is the average figure, it varies by region and by payment type

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Our outgoing PM had suggested higher bills are worth it to stop Putin. I suppose it depends on what his ultimate intentions are. Not so sure if years of pretty much putting the majority of the UK into fuel poverty is going to be considered 'worth it', if all he ever wanted was more control over a few nations the majority couldn't point out on a map.

One may well have said the same about the "majority" of the populace of Britain in the 1930's and Hitler's commencement of his expansionist plans commencing with Austria and the "German-speaking" parts of Czechoslovakia.

 

[najaB]

Our outgoing PM had suggested higher bills are worth it to stop Putin. I suppose it depends on what his ultimate intentions are. Not so sure if years of pretty much putting the majority of the UK into fuel poverty is going to be considered 'worth it', if all he ever wanted was more control over a few nations the majority couldn't point out on a map.

As others have already pointed out, the seeds of our energy price crisis were sown a long time ago - from Brown's dithering over new nuclear, Cameron's cutting out "the green crap", May's allowing Rough gas storage to close, Boris rejecting expansion of on-shore wind and our energy companies mismanagement of their finances.

There is zero need for us to be as exposed to global energy price spikes as we are.

 

[Howardh]

Have we got a Prime Minister at the moment? Because today, right now, the PM should announce -

No VAT or green levies on fuel between 1 Oct and 30 Apr (maybe extended for properties in the north) which helps households and businesses
Money to local councils to provide warm banks
At least £500 per household over said 6 months (a £100 increase)
Cancel all proposed tax cuts for the wealthy to help towards the above
Possibly call a general election or an emergency coalition cabinet.

It's not much, but it's a start.

But they won't of course. Just kick the can down the road

 

[GS250]

As others have already pointed out, the seeds of our energy price crisis were sown a long time ago - from Brown's dithering over new nuclear, Cameron's cutting out "the green cap", May's allowing Rough gas storage to close, Boris rejecting expansion of on-shore wind and our energy companies mismanagement of their finances.

There is zero need for us to be as exposed to global energy price spikes as we are.

Agreed. But the current spike in prices is unlike anything else seen before. You could say dithering over self sufficiency has cost us in other areas too.

 

[Lost property]

As others have already pointed out, the seeds of our energy price crisis were sown a long time ago - from Brown's dithering over new nuclear, Cameron's cutting out "the green cap", May's allowing Rough gas storage to close, Boris rejecting expansion of on-shore wind and our energy companies mismanagement of their finances.

There is zero need for us to be as exposed to global energy price spikes as we are.

Pretty accurate assessment really, albeit you missed out the bits about Hilda and her obsession with "the free market " and, the Holy Grail of Tory ideology....privatisation !....and the private sector who, always secure in the knowledge the tax payer will come to their aid when they screw up, were happy to oblige.

Along with which comes Ofgem, who decided, that, something called due diligence wasn't really applicable to the start up suppliers...hence the reason when they duly went bust, the revenue had to be recovered from somewhere and customers who were innocent as it were, found themselves paying off the debts of those suppliers when their own former customers were transferred to solvent suppliers.

 

[Howardh]

Hopw do we feel about standing charges? I reckon they should be reduced or scrapped, why pay a substantial amout when you don't use any at all? It's not costing them any more in administration or delivering, maintainance etc so no excuse for increasing that again.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hopw do we feel about standing charges? I reckon they should be reduced or scrapped, why pay a substantial amout when you don't use any at all? It's not costing them any more in administration or delivering, maintainance etc so no excuse for increasing that again.

There is a cost to keeping you connected so I have no issue with them. That cost is increasing (due to factors like e.g. diesel in maintenance vans), so it should increase, but not as much as the per kWh rate.

 

[duncanp]

Have we got a Prime Minister at the moment? Because today, right now, the PM should announce -

No VAT or green levies on fuel between 1 Oct and 30 Apr (maybe extended for properties in the north) which helps households and businesses
Money to local councils to provide warm banks
At least £500 per household over said 6 months (a £100 increase)
Cancel all proposed tax cuts for the wealthy to help towards the above
Possibly call a general election or an emergency coalition cabinet.

It's not much, but it's a start.

But they won't of course. Just kick the can down the road

There will be an emergency budget in September, and some of your suggestions are likely to be adopted, so the new government is not going to kick the can down the road.

But a general election is the last thing we need right now, and I don't think a coalition cabinet would serve any useful purpose.