Energy cap price rise

Those of you talking about increases in your bills, are the figures accurate ie any debt built up? Billing Is to accurate usage?

I don’t think so at all. We used to do monthly readings with People’s Energy, somehow still ended up £870 in credit when they went bust. Scottish Gas now saying based on People’s Energy readings we’re going from £1600/year to £3500/year.

A question at the breakfast table today in our household.

How come 80-90% of our electricity in Scotland comes from renewable or low carbonz*, yet bills continue to rocket and forecast for more? At some point does the ‘we have paid for the turbine / nuclear cost, therefore costs don’t rise’ kick in, compared to carbon heavy generation?

And how come electricity is so much more cost per unit of power than carbon heavy gas or oil alternatives already?

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*nuclear

How come 80-90% of our electricity in Scotland comes from renewable or low carbonz

Was discussing this the other day having been lumped with Shell following demise of Pure Planet. Allegedly, Shell say 100% of their electricity comes from renewables, so why the price hike? Gas prices, OK, if that’s what the market is saying (still wrong IMHO), but why the hike in electricity is none of your electricity generation is coming from gas???

Shell 100% renewable

There’s still a significant amount of fossil fuel generation within UK / European supply, and the cost of that governs. Interesting question with renewables increasing at what point the electricity price diverges from gas, but we’re not there yet.

Because the price of the renewables isn’t any different to the price of the non renewables. They’re both traded and they’re both “just electricity” at the point they are.
More renewables in the market makes the market more resilient to oil and gas prices but ultimately, unless they ring fence Scottish energy for Scotland only, you’re going to pay the market rate because they’ll simply sell the power generated elsewhere at a higher price if you don’t.

Until global demand is lower than production you’ll not see that dividend in price. The low cost isn’t predominantly about £ it’s about 🌡️🌪️🔥🌊 etc.

(Of course we’ll keep pumping public subsidy into building the private generation capabilities here so the power can then be sold to the highest bidder and since it’s all private it’s very much in the interest of those generation companies to see production costs massively below market rates)

Gas is a commodity traded on the global market, the market sets the rate, where it comes from is irrelevant. Supply and demand, demand is currently outstripping supply and price goes up.

Electricity is linked via the 40% or so of gas powered generators still in use in the UK, again how this is generated is irrelevant as it’s a market rate. Being green/renewable/low carbon also doesn’t equal cheap.

So once again the ambition for, investment in and growth of renewables in Scotland, halted and thwarted by Westminster and their investment in things like fracking, means that Scottish residents don’t benefit as much as if we had been independent? hmmmmmmmmm

So once again the ambition for, investment in and growth of renewables in Scotland, halted and thwarted by Westminster and their investment in things like fracking, means that Scottish residents don’t benefit as much as if we had been independent? hmmmmmmmmm

Not really, unless you mean independent of the whole world, or reality, in which case yes.

Generation from private companies in IS would still have been sold to the highest bidder exactly as it is in SiUK. You’d still be paying broadly the same.

So once again the ambition for, investment in and growth of renewables in Scotland, halted and thwarted by Westminster

You do know that the price of energy is rocketing all over the world don’t you?

Reuters link

Fwiw, Costa Rica, despite having nearly 100% clean electricity production isn’t a (comparatively) cheap place to buy electricity.

Just to cheer everyone up, price per therm for gas reached an all time high in December of 335, today we’ve absolutely smashed it out of the park with a new record of 453, it’s settled back a bit to around 400. Best hope it calms down a bit over summer….

‘we have paid for the turbine / nuclear cost, therefore costs don’t rise’ kick in,

No matter how much wind power you have you need a gas power as a backup. Even with links joining neighbouring countries there is often periods of low wind.

If you look at wind generation it varies from up to around 12GW , a third of UK demand to near zero. Treble the number of wind farms and you would still need back up. Much of the time there would be too much wind and you will pay wind farms to stop producing (already happening). Gas output mirrors wind. Wind goes down gas goes up. With large amounts of wind you need gas to back it up. The more wind you have the more expensive gas generation is since it needs to cover capital costs from fewer hours generating.

Just listening to Martin Lewis on 5live looks like the price cap will go up another 25% in October. I’m lucky that we are fixed until then but then our price will likely double, I can see ours being over £4k a year. More people are going to have to make decisions about eating versus heating next winter.

eating versus heating next winter

You just leave the oven door open whilst you’re cooking. Job jobbed.

Thanks for the explanations STW ^^^

So our Shell fixed price tariff just ended. We were on an average monthly payment of £120 (actual usage). Looks like this will hit £300pcm after April 1st and go to at least £375 in October. Blimey.

Just listening to Martin Lewis on 5live looks like the price cap will go up another 25% in October. I’m lucky that we are fixed until then but then our price will likely double, I can see ours being over £4k a year. More people are going to have to make decisions about eating versus heating next winter.

He’s produced an excellent video recently. In short, yeah 24% rise in Oct 2022 is likely, this is of course on top of the 54% rise in April which compounded is a 92% rise between the 31st of March and the 1st which will last until the 1st of April 2023.

The decent fix at the moment is only open to Eon customers, they’re offer a fix at the April cap, so anyone who takes it will be saved from the rise in Oct, which is the one that will hurt the most ‘because Winter’ the rest of us are screwed because there aren’t any deals out there.

The main thing to consider though (IMHO anyway) the bit we can’t avoid is the standing charge, it’s £21 a month if you have both, but most people bills are multiples of that and the majority of the unit cost rise is the gas – that’s really where we all need to cut back usage. At home that means turning the heating and water to the most efficient setting and stopping heating rooms the Mrs insists are left with open windows 365 days a year.

Also, and this is a bit shady. Every Unit of Gas you buy this month is 54% cheaper than next month, if haven’t got a smart meter and you want to be certain you’re not paying too much, get a meter reading in on the last day of March… if you’re a shady type then maybe you might misread the meter and add a couple of units whilst it’s cheaper???

Also, and this is a bit shady. Every Unit of Gas you buy this month is 54% cheaper than next month, if haven’t got a smart meter and you want to be certain you’re not paying too much, get a meter reading in on the last day of March… if you’re a shady type then maybe you might misread the meter and add a couple of units whilst it’s cheaper???

Unless you’re prepared to stick 1000+ units on then it’s a drop in the ocean

The E.On v11 one year fixed was sold-out incredibly quickly; replaced by v12 which is nothing like as good and is for two year term.
Both only available to existing E.On customers paying by dd.

I’ve just checked what I used last year. £153 for gas and £240 for electricity. The amounts many of you are paying is quite frankly terrifying.

Stainypants
Full Member
Just listening to Martin Lewis on 5live looks like the price cap will go up another 25% in October. I’m lucky that we are fixed until then but then our price will likely double, I can see ours being over £4k a year. More people are going to have to make decisions about eating versus heating next winter.

He’s just posted on FB saying Cornwall analysts have upped their estimates to a price cap rise in October of 47% over April’s rise

You do know that the price of energy is rocketing all over the world don’t you?

Although that is just the spot price. Most energy will be delivered on long term supply contracts and the price won’t change till the contracts next get negotiated eg after 3-5 years. It’s only any shortfall / excess which is actually sold at the spot price rate.

I’ve just checked what I used last year. £153 for gas and £240 for electricity. The amounts many of you are paying is quite frankly terrifying.

Well tell us your secret then? Are you living in your car? I live on my own in a small flat and even mine was about £1500.

Well tell us your secret then?

Temp no more than 14C, light on only when really necessary, short showers, charge my ebike at work.

Temp no more than 14C, light on only when really necessary, short showers, charge my ebike at work.

What do the other residents at your house think of this ?

Temp no more than 14C, light on only when really necessary, short showers, charge my ebike at work.

Cheers. Encouraging that it can be done. I’ve got electric storage heaters so I’m doomed.

What do the other residents at your house think of this ?

The mice seem fine with it.

I’ve got electric storage heaters so I’m doomed.

Only if you turn them on :)

The mice seem fine with it.

Ah yes it’s easy to live in the dark and cold if you only have to think of one. Not really representative of the real world.

Only if you turn them on 🙂

True. I’ve turned all but one of them off now. But everyone has different priorities. I quite like chilling out in the evening without seeing my own breath and being able to feel my fingers.

One thing I am considering is buying a microwave. No idea why, but I’ve never had one in my life. Would it be more economical over the electric oven? Must be, the oven takes about twenty minutes to even warm up.

I’ve just checked what I used last year. £153 for gas and £240 for electricity. The amounts many of you are paying is quite frankly terrifying.

I just checked what I used last week. £28.21 for gas and £22.60 for electricity. That is in a fairly modern house, 3 of us, using blankets to keep warm at night on the sofa…

I live on my own in a small flat and even mine was about £1500

Blimey, but seeing you have electric storage heaters explains it. Less than £1200pa currently for 4 bed detached with 4 adults in the house so cheaper per person than Mr Barnes and his mice 😃
Edit and a whole 4.5C warmer to boot

If you have a condensing combi gas boiler, it is worth considering turning down the flow temperature on the boiler. Condensing boilers only work efficiency if the return temperature is below 45 degrees C, this would normally correspond to a flow temperature around 50-60 degrees.

Typically they are set-up to operate with a flow temperature of 80 degrees and return at 60 degrees. At these temperatures the boiler is not condensing. This can be clearly seen as as a plume of steam coming out. This will knock the efficiency back by around 10-25% when heating. This equates to 6-8% on overall gas bills (including hot water).

If you reduce the temperature, you may need to have the heating on a little longer. Depending on how your radiators are sized, you may struggle to get up to temperature on very cold days. From our own experience, it has not been a problem at all, as the house is much better insulated than when the heating system was installed.

https://www.theheatinghub.co.uk/articles/turn-down-the-boiler-flow-temperature

I just checked….. We were 561 for last year’s electric according to ovo….

That’s 3 of us…2 of us working from home.

Then last year we got through 400 quid of oil thanks to the low prices……

This year was 800 to fill it.

And some logs.

47%! I expected it, but…. Cripes!

I still don’t understand the increase though. My average payment per month was set to be £105. (£80 for 6 months, and 130 for 6 months.) I’m now being told that my payment should £200 per month. That’s nearly a 100% increase. That’s not in line with all of the %s being talked about as part of the price cap increase in April. For the last 11 years I sent meter readings every month to ensure my figures were accurate, having previously been royally shafted by nPower. So a near 100% increase now and the prospect of a further near 50% increase again in October. Markets may be markets but this is disgusting. And did I read this correctly that Opec are keeping oil prices high? Is this not rank profiteering?
Oil prices
No wonder this world is goosed. Sorry – I’m in a bad place atm and maybe not thinking clearly enough to understand.

Martin Lewis says stick to the cap. That said my brother fixed back in early Jan, looked a bad deal at the time but the early cancellation fee was only about £30 so it seemed low risk, and the deal like good now! Check the early cancellation fee and ensure you can move if the fixed tariff doesn’t work for them

I did this yesterday and kinda wish I did it sooner! My old deal was due to end in May 2022, picked up a 2 year deal yesterday at cap till 2024, old deal had no exit fee, new deal has low exit fee. My DD is going from £75 to £150 though! If I had acted in Jan I could have got version 1 of the new tariff and my increase would have been less. When rates eventually start to fall, the low exit fee on current deal means I can jump onto a cheaper tariff when needed.

When rates eventually start to fall, the low exit fee on current deal means I can jump onto a cheaper tariff when needed.

I dare say that you’ll be way past the point of the exit fee being applicable by the time wholesale prices fall.
As for retail prices, what makes you think they ever will come down?

oikeith – which supplier was offering the tariff you refer to?

I did this yesterday and kinda wish I did it sooner! My old deal was due to end in May 2022, picked up a 2 year deal yesterday at cap till 2024, old deal had no exit fee, new deal has low exit fee.

AFAIK the best offer available was from E.On; V11 was a one year fix at the capped unit rates, sold out immediately and was then replaced by v12 which is a two year fix at 15% above the cap.

and of course a fixed rate deal is only good if the company ofering it don’t go bust. Not sure the current Ukraine situation was fully priced in, and things could get worse yet if Putin cuts the gas to Germany etc