Energy cap price rise

It’s not the standing charge that’s the problem, it’s the speed it’s gone up, this time last year I was paying 23.22p per day standing charge for electricity, its now 39.63p, a 71% increase, that’s not down to increased engineer and maintenance costs, that’s getting around the government price cap.

Ours has gone up from 22.6p to 43.7p that’s 89% rise that’s not related to the price of fuel. Multiply this by the many thousands of people on the same contract as me & it’s not difficult to see how the energy companies are reporting record profit.

Robbing bastards, why? How do you mean, your DD is up by £60? Are you sure that’s not just because the £67/mo that the Gov has been crediting is now not there. So really your overall DD is down by £7 maybe?

Seriously? Wholesale prices have come down a fair bit over the last few months yet bills are still rising. I get daily updates of what the energy market is doing as part of my job. I know I can alter the DD and likely will. This isn’t mentioned in the email I received from my supplier. This will lead to a lot of people just accepting price rises. If you’re not happy with robbing bastards then seriously unethical, money grabbing bastards suit you any better?

Wholesale prices have come down a fair bit over the last few months yet bills are still rising.

Most suppliers will buy energy on long term contracts, so the wholesale price might rise or fall independent of their contract price.

The reason all the smaller players went bust was they didn’t have the wherewithal or possibly capital to arrange long term supply contracts and so were completely caught out when prices rose suddenly, they found themselves buying energy far above the price they’d agreed to sell it to users.

Prices didn’t rise suddenly. You could see it coming a mile off! That is why I purchased a three year deal for work. I have zero sympathy for energy companies but a lot for consumers, both business and domestic. The companies behind this are still making huge profits and it’s pretty indefensible when you get right down to it.

Wind it in a bit – I’m trying to offer a potential explanation for why your DD is going up by £60, which it could do (indeed, mine did) as a result of the removal of the Gov top up, that’s all.

It wasn’t clear that your price was rising, my interpretation was that your DD was going up, aligned with the point that actually my price has gone down a bit. Not as much as the wholesale, for sure, but as has been said the summer is when the market is predicted to start setting prices competitively again.

Interesting reading on one idea to sort some of this out.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/05/reduce-average-uk-electricity-bill-public-ownership-clean-energy

Prices didn’t rise suddenly. You could see it coming a mile off!

Looks pretty sudden to me….

The companies behind this are still making huge profits and it’s pretty indefensible when you get right down to it.

You need to separate the supply companies from the generators. The generators who own gas fields will benefit, suppliers who just resell energy are just caught in the middle, buy at inflated prices and have to sell at capped prices….

suppliers who just resell energy are just caught in the middle, buy at inflated prices and have to sell at capped prices….

AIUI that’s not absolutely true, in the UK at least. The government has been topping up the amount the suppliers get (and not just by the £400 paid ‘direct’ to consumers), also by covering the diff between EPG and the OfGem cap

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64748135

AIUI that’s not absolutely true, in the UK at least. The government has been topping up the amount the suppliers get (and not just by the £400 paid ‘direct’ to consumers), also by covering the diff between EPG and the OfGem cap

Not quite so simple though.

You buy a unit from your supplier. They charge you x which is capped by the EPG.

The government tops up x to whatever the Offgem price cap is. They set this as a expected 2% profit margin across the industry.

Your supplier still has to buy that unit from somewhere at the market rate, which is partially what they negotiate with suppliers directly and, and partially what the government (and the national grid) do on their behalf.

yes. But the point is that they are not being squeezed down to the EPG level – I know it’s all this fictitious average house and actual usage varies but up until recently the EPG was £2500, and the Ofgem price cap was £4279, so for the average house the Gov was topping up by up to £1729 (could have been less if supplier actual cost was less – but recently that’s unlikely)

Then in addition they were giving us all £400 towards our bill, so of the £2500 we only actually paid £2100. Gov has been paying half the average bill, suppliers haven’t had to suck that up.

Now the EPG is reset to £3000 and we have to pay it all (no £400 giveaways), and in addition the Ofgem is £3280. So while Gov has talked about continuing to support, the reality is that the level of support has dropped substantially. Especially as most of us won’t be using close to the actual capped rate through summer.

I know I can alter the DD and likely will. This isn’t mentioned in the email I received from my supplier. This will lead to a lot of people just accepting price rises.

You can’t reject a price rise.

You need to separate what you pay by DD from what your actual prices are.

Also, if the energy supply companies made zero profit on consumer bills, how much exactly do you think they would go down by?