Electricity pricing....

[Marvin]

Checking the latest offers I notice that the electric standing charge has almost doubled. This is apparently because a levy is now charged to pay extra money for commercial wind and PV farm produced electricity. This will put my bill up about £91.25 per year.

 

Now the government is thinking of this:

 

Households face paying extra on energy bills to cover customers' bad debts under plans by the industry regulator. (BBC report)

Ofgem is proposing lifting the energy price cap by £16 between April next year and March 2025 so bill payers can contribute to the costs to electricity companies for the customers who can't pay their bill which has caused a debt of about £2.9bn.

 

So Ofgem is considering, passing the cost of those not paying, from those not paying, to those paying.

Causing more of those who are paying, to be not able to afford paying, causing some of them to ending up not paying.

Therefore increasing the contribution needing to be paid by the people paying. 

Causing more of those who are paying, to be not able to afford paying, causing some of them to ending up not paying.

Therefore increasing the contribution needing to be paid by the people paying, and on and on and on and on.

 

WTF! It's like some absurd version of musical chairs. It's insanity!

[kandgmitchell]

Well I feel sorry for the poor sod who'll end up being the only one left paying for everyone's electricity use.......

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

Checking the latest offers I notice that the electric standing charge has almost doubled ....

...

So Ofgem is considering, passing the cost of those not paying, from those not paying, to those paying.

Causing more of those who are paying, to be not able to afford paying, causing some of them to ending up not paying.

Therefore increasing the contribution needing to be paid by the people paying. 

Causing more of those who are paying, to be not able to afford paying, causing some of them to ending up not paying.

Therefore increasing the contribution needing to be paid by the people paying, and on and on and on and on.

...

 

The Minister responsible doesn't understand the situation, neither does his PPS or the PPs' pps, neither could they give a flyin' fookety fook.

Not going to be there more than a few minutes more are they...

[ProDave]

A bizarre twist to this, is those on pre payment meters won't get this surcharge as they can't go into debt.  And already the prices of PPM have been levelled so it is not more expensive.

 

Perhaps en-mass we should all switch to pre payment meters?

 

Like I suspect most consumers I pay the same amount each month building up a credit in the summer to pay for the higher usage in winter.  Does that not qualify as "pre payment"?  If I did, as a matter of protest switch to a PPM it would mean me paying less in summer and more in winter.  Is this a "solution" they really want?

[Marvin]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

  Is this a "solution" they really want?

What they want is their heads banging together....

[Bozza]

Just another example of a country that is not functioning correctly, with no obvious solution or alternative to those in charge.    

[Mr Blobby]

4 hours ago, Marvin said:

This is apparently because a levy is now charged to pay extra money for commercial wind and PV farm produced electricity

Do you have a source for this?

[Marvin]

12 hours ago, Mr Blobby said:

This is apparently because a levy is now charged to pay extra money for commercial wind and PV farm produced electricity

Hi @Mr BlobbyNo. Because I made a mistake and your right to point this out! 

 

There are several Ofgem discussions I read which discussed past, present, and future levies, but the main driver presently is the shared cost between the existing energy providers, due to the recently failed energy providers.  All the money received by an electricity company goes in the same pot anyway and then dished out.

 

From SO Energy:

 

These industry costs include the increases in fixed network costs, this is the cost of maintaining cables and pipes that distribute energy, costs which have gone up nationwide due to changes in the labour market and inflation. An increase in policy costs applied by the government or Ofgem, such as green levies and the rise in the warm home discount rebate. Most significantly, the cost of moving everyone whose firm went bust to new suppliers as part of Ofgem's Supplier of Last Resort Process is added to everyone's bills via an increase to standing charges.

 

 

 

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2023/07/martin-lewis--why-are-energy-standing-charges-so-high--what-can-/

 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-12562287/Why-standing-charges-going-energy-price-cap-falling.html

[Mr Blobby]

Thanks @Marvin, that's what I thought, it's the costs of bailing out the failed suppliers that we all have to pay for now.  It's not a green levies thing it's a privatisation blunder.

Privatise the profits and nationalise the losses 🤦

Edited December 16, 2023 by Mr Blobby

[Mattg4321]

That last sentence. As with everything these days. 
 

Rampant unchecked capitalism is the root cause of most of our problems these days imo. Can be blamed

on every government without exception for the last 50 years probably. 
 

Doesn’t matter how many times the public attempt to vote for/communicate that we want more accountability/power to be less centralised/the power of the super rich/elite class to be brought under control, we get the opposite. 

[Marvin]

Another added cost coming up.....

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67494082

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Another added cost coming up

Yes, I heard this on the radio this morning, along with Grayson Perry and his £40k EDF bill.

 

Would it not be the same if you looked at the cost of not using your car.

Say your car is on finance, at £310 a month, so a tenner a day (just to keep the numbers simple) and your daily commute cost your a fiver.

So to use the car cost you £15, to not use it cost you £10.

Alternatively, you could just paying for the days use it, say 300 days a year, so £12.40 plus the £5 fuel, £17.40 a day.

If you do a bit of dodgy arithmetic, those numbers can be made to look like it is either a saving, or a cost, of between £2.40 and £10 a day.

 

I would like to know who started the story, I bet it was the large gas fired or nuclear generation companies.

 

[Marvin]

5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

Would it not be the same if you looked at the cost of not using your car.

Probably more like having 2 cars and driving one at a time: Tax, Insurance, MOT, purchase and deprecation all year if you use them or not.

 

My point is I expect the UK cost of electricity to increase above the rate of inflation going forward because of all the deals, subsides, price caps, repayments, grid issues and so on. 

 

Really what we need to do is to improve storage techniques by utilising as many ways of storing energy as possible, looking at how the energy will be used before deciding how the energy will be stored.  

 

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Really what we need to do is to improve storage techniques by utilising as many ways of storing energy as possible

I wonder if it is better to not use a kWh than try and store 10% of that.

 

Simple number.

Storage £500/kWh, expected cycles 5000, price of wholesale electricity £0.085/kWh. Total £0.185/kWh.

10% storage costs £0.0183

Not using saves £0.085

4.6 times cheaper not to use any.

[joe90]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

4.6 times cheaper not to use any.

Quite, but even you use some 🤷‍♂️ and if excess is available at other times then storage of some sort is a way forward surely.

[Marvin]

2 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Quite, but even you use some 🤷‍♂️ and if excess is available at other times then storage of some sort is a way forward surely.

 

We produce twice what we use but still buy electricity because we don't produce it when its needed. Sound familiar?

 

 

 

[NSS]

Surely this no different from what any retailer does to cover the costs incurred when shoplifters steal stuff rather than pay for it, ie the 'loss' is borne by those who do pay.

[SteamyTea]

26 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Quite, but even you use some 🤷‍♂️ and if excess is available at other times then storage of some sort is a way forward surely.

Not that that sort of price difference though.

Saving a kWh is really not that hard.

And it is not really a matter of never using that kWh, we can divert power, we already do.

Say there is a supermarket chain that has 500 stores, and each store has 50 fridges and freezers.  Probably save to say that the cooling load in a store is in the region of 10 kW,

That is 120 MWh/day.

Now shifting that by a few hours is easy enough, it is already done though a pricing mechanism.

Change the pricing mechanism to a compulsory one. i.e. don't allow the supermarket to actively cool during the 5PM to 7 PM window, but guarantee power during the more stable 10 AM to 2 PM window.

 

[Marvin]

Another dreamy headline. Will this be the one?

 

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-clean-energy-b2466344.html

 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Will this be the one

Ask them in 20 years time, I suspect the answer will be "in 20 years".

[Marvin]

and then again still problems with radiation, water coolant challanges and high investment running costs....