Current deal ends in a week.
Estimated usage costs jump us from £117 to £205 (variable) despite running in credit at the moment for both gas and electricity.
There is an option to fix for 2 years at £280 a month which is a huge increase from what we are paying at the moment. Pretty nominal exit fee for early exit though which is a bonus and does offer a little protection.
Now I had this conversation with friends and family back in September when they were in a similar boat and a number are kicking themselves they didn't go with a fixed rate then given the cost increases we have seen since.
Yes there are predicted increases in October but will they be as high as expected?
What are others doing at the moment?
If you do go for the fix it's not a 100% guarantee you will be protected from price rises, eg If your supplier goes bust you will be transferred to a new supplier on their variable rate, your fix will be no more.
@julians Agreed. That said, without naming names, I would be surprised if this lot disappear.
eg If your supplier goes bust you will be transferred to a new supplier on their variable rate, your fix will be no more.
As no doubt many of us on here can attest
I've gambled that the predictions come true, and taken a new fix deal.
The thinking is that it doesn't matter too much right now whilst it's summer and we're using less, but by the time the next cap increase comes round in October? the fixed rate will be lower that whatever the standard variable ends up at.
It's british gas, existing customers only, 35% increase over current rate, fixed deal; despite the forecasts it still feels like madness to to sign up for something that much higher than what I pay now.
I got moved to Shell last year when Green went belly up.
Having a quick compare session reveals that I'm on one of the best rates going ATM, maybe save £5 a year
Flexible 7
Electric...................................................Gas
Unit rate per kWh: 27.090p ................. Unit rate per kWh: 7.225p
Standing charge: 48.91p per day.......... Standing charge: 27.22p per day
I'll just stick with that for now as there are no exit fees
Martin Lewis (moneysavingexpert) gives advice most weeks and for majority of cases, the answer is no.
The price cap will be lower than most fixes on offer right now (as they have already priced in Octobers price cap rise)
This video is a month old, but relevant
The price cap will be reviewed every 3 months, whereas there are existing customer fixes available for a 37-42% premium over the current price cap, that lock in a price for one or two years. Could win, could lose, and a £200 exit fee.
Wholesale gas prices +20% in last two days; in part caused by russia limiting nordstream 1 to 20% of capacity.
This has potential to blow energy price cap forecasts out of the water.
Time for sunak and truss to be asked very pointed questions about how they will help the increasing numbers of people who really truly are out of options; they have no meaningful answers.
Time for sunak and truss to be asked very pointed questions about how they will help the increasing numbers of people who really truly are out of options; they have no meaningful answers.
Of course there is. Remove VAT from gas and electricity. Remove green subsidies from consumer bills. They can either be paid by borrowing or from taxation where those who can afford it pay more.
Get fracking.
whether either of them will do this come Sept who knows?
Until sunak's latest emission late this evening there had been no commitment from either of them.
Anything either say is merely wordsmithing to persuade the tory party membership.
There is no moral, legal or contractual obligation for either of them to fulfill their promises or commitments; words are cheap - and completely meaningless when uttered by politicians.
Get fracking.
Wouldn't lead to lower prices.
It will lead to small earthquakes in Lancashire
4 000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire?
How many to fill the Albert hall?
Suppliers had been losing money on the price cap whereas in the past they’d made money hand over fist on variable rates - hence why so many went bust.
Going forward they are going to continue to lose on capped rates, so they will have to make their money on the fixed rates - there will be a good degree of hedging in their prices.
Other than that - your choice, you might be smarter than them on the degree of hedging needed.
Of course there is. Remove VAT from gas and electricity. Remove green subsidies from consumer bills. They can either be paid by borrowing or from taxation where those who can afford it pay more.
Get fracking.
Better would be for a farsighted U.K. party to do what should have been started with the 1970s energy crisis: move to mostly sustainable energy sources; abandon coal completely; legislate for effectively insulated homes; incentivise insulation of existing homes (not subsidise); tax emissions heavily.
If only we had a ground-source-heated hot tub time machine…
And eliminate the evil that is VAT completely.
Time for sunak and truss to be asked very pointed questions about how they will help the increasing numbers of people who really truly are out of options; they have no clue
meaningful answers
Agreed. What they’re saying now is for their own MPs, less for the countries. I expect no change from business as usual for politics in the U.K.
Current deal ends in a week.
Estimated usage costs jump us from £117 to £205 (variable) despite running in credit at the moment for both gas and electricity.
There is an option to fix for 2 years at £280 a month which is a huge increase from what we are paying at the moment. Pretty nominal exit fee for early exit though which is a bonus and does offer a little protection.
Now I had this conversation with friends and family back in September when they were in a similar boat and a number are kicking themselves they didn’t go with a fixed rate then given the cost increases we have seen since.
Yes there are predicted increases in October but will they be as high as expected?
What are others doing at the moment?
What are the unit rates on your fixed offer?
Current estimate for the October cap is around £3200-3500 with unit rates around 45ppkWh for electricity and 14ppkWh for gas, standing charges are expected to go up but not by much. However there's been another large rise in the wholesale gas prices this week so all bets are off.
I'm staying on variable with Shell - decision based on nothing more that gut instinct! 🙂
Cost breakdown for your energy units
Although removing VAT would help, it won't have the impact necessary to fix the situation for the worst off. There needs to be some proper strategic intervention in order to source O&G supply that doesn't rely on the same locations as everyone else. Increased North Sea production, a supply contract with Tunisia or Algeria, re-establishing pipelines from North Africa to Europe...
But reducing VAT is not a cure to the rapidly escalating prices.
Of course the inevitable conclusion is that the move to sustainable self sufficient renewable energy needs to be accelerated with national investment in infrastructure (not to be confused with begging shell to accelerate green project investment).
how much can it go up?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62318376
we are still on a fixed and not had the increase affect us yet. who else is in a similar position? I wonder what happens when everyone who is on a fixed has their rate change ?
£3850, wow.
A lot of people are struggling massively to make ends meet now, come mid winter, those and a low more are truly in deep do do. I can't see truss or be sunak protecting them vulnerable.
There needs to be some proper strategic intervention in order to source O&G supply that doesn’t rely on the same locations as everyone else. Increased North Sea production, a supply contract with Tunisia or Algeria, re-establishing pipelines from North Africa to Europe…
Not sure this would really help as the price of gas and oil is largely set on an international market. So even now we have a situation where the cost of getting gas out of the grouhd has not changed but the price on the market has gone through the roof. On top of that our domestic energy market is screwed so the price of electricity is controlled by the price of gas, even though a large proportion is generated by renewables.
I'm also shell since green went to the wall let year. Tough to choose but currently I'm sticking with it. Although I use much more electricity than gas so a deal with cheaper electric could make a saving for me.
Blimey. Just ran my details through uSwitch and the cheapest fixed tariff is over £500pcm, whereas I'm currently paying £200pcm and building credit.
That's a 250% increase, against a projected rise in October of c50%. Are they taking the Mickey?
People are going to freeze to death this winter. In Britain. In 2022.
No tory MPs will freeze to death this winter.
So even now we have a situation where the cost of getting gas out of the grouhd has not changed
Source ? The cost of everything* related to getting oil out the ground has doubled if not trebled...... Even the cost of the gas needed to get the gas out the ground....
*Raw materials -labour - machine time , chemicals , intervention spreads etc etc
@DrJ you are of course correct that even sourcing from elsewhere won’t quickly fix the problem, it will improve the supply side situation by increasing production capacity away from the FSU.
A point people generally seem to be missing is that there is also a huge impact on the energy cost caused by our poor showing on the currency market. Consecutive cock ups and embarrassments have put the GBP/USD down to around $1.20 to the £. Oil and gas are still bought and sold in USD so we are about 20% worse off than we would have been in early 2016. Neither of the candidates to lead us to a bright new future have been asked about currency stability, who knows where that will end up.
Regarding the original question Mark, I think the energy companies are pricing in massive increases with their fixed rates, there is always a chance they are underestimating but they will certainly have hedged in the medium term.
People are going to freeze to death this winter. In Britain. In 2022.
And the terrifying thing is that the people in charge couldn’t give a **** about these people.
I’m genuinely saddened and embarrassed by this country.
12% increase in the cap last October, 54% in march, current prediction another 78% in the coming October, that's a 307% rise in 12 months! And that's just the cap. Most of us were on a deal much lower than the cap so factor in that and most of us will have seen 350-400% increase in the cost of our energy in a 12 month period.
My fixed deal ends in March/April; I'm paying £140/month, am in credit and count myself as fortunate to be on that deal.
I'm even more fortunate that I can afford the current projections - and more.
Costs of energy, fuel, food and everything else you can think of - including macdonalds cheeseburgers - going up.
US Fed have just increased base rate by 0.75 %-age points; expect BoE MPC to follow.
An increasing number of people have no options, no money, no solutions, nowhere to turn.
Help and support from the governing party is completely absent.
My expectation? A massive increase in number of excess deaths some of which will be due to covid; increase in suicides; increase in shoplifting; increase in burglaries; possibility of civil protests and disobediance.
The so-called silent majority will stop being silent.
This is a really poisonous brew.
As for energy prices - immediately...remove green levy and vat; follow the french lead and cap unit price increases (10%?), freeze the standing charge.
follow the french lead and cap unit price increases (10%?), freeze the standing charge
If you cap the unit price increases when energy is more expensive than it was the companies won’t have the cash to buy energy to sell to you - probably leads to energy rationing. Yes some have been making profits, but more have been going bust - there isn’t much cash in the system.
If you freeze the unit cost (which has mainly been rising due to the costs of looking after the customers who were supplied by companies that have now gone bust) then you will struggle to get anyone to look after customers whose suppliers have gone bust. That’s already happening.
And you could clamp down on the electricity distribution companies and their portion of the bill - that’s about £8 a month for a domestic customer (so not that much to go at in the several hundred pounds of monthly bill) and pays for investment in the network that feeds you (we could perhaps delay that but not without consequences) but it also pays for folk working every waking hour after storms and the like. Not that we had the worst storm season in living memory this year.
There is no easy answer. The best answer is probably more insulation, a couple of degrees off your thermostat (no more please), more wind, more PV and more nuclear. And start soon enough (which was a long time ago for nuclear, but less so for insulation, thermostats and maybe PV).
And as a stopgap grants, benefits and tax breaks.
Maybe voltage reduction too.
So what you're saying is that privatisation was wrong as it diverted huge sums of money to newly minted shareholders and owners when if could - and should - have been used to support consumers.
The best short-term answer is for government to shake the magic money tree.
Ah, just remembered the magic money tree can only be used if there's an immediate benefit to the tories.
Scrub that suggestion.
stuff like this isn't going to help either
@frankconway - Privatisation has probably been nothing but good in the networks area - more mixed in the energy supply area.
If you dig around you’ll find I work for an electricity network company - we don’t buy electricity, selll it, make it or bill you for it - we simply transport it. And we are heavily regulated.
Since privatisation we are around half the cost we used to be in real terms, we invest more, we have 20% of the safety incidents we used to (and we look harder for them), customer service has improved (and we’ll make it better still) and reliability is massively better (please don’t mention Arwen - it really is better the vast majority of the time, but that wasn’t fun).
Until a couple of years ago we hadn’t paid a dividend to our owners in almost 20 years (capital growth was accepted as sufficient).
So I’d say customers got a decent deal from networks privatisation. And I am proud to be part of that. I am also clear the job is not yet finished (probably never will be).
The case is harder to make for energy supply companies.
As for short term and magic money trees - I don’t have better short term answers. Killing the income energy companies need to buy the energy to sell to customers is going to crash the system and see lights going out.
I wish I did have better answers.
igm - the fragmentation caused by privatisation is, I think, a net negative for customers.
I accept that some parts of the fragmented system may work better now than
pre-privatisation but many parts don't work better and/or are significantly more expensive than before after allowing for inflation.
I was aware from previous posts that you're involved in networks - presumably with a DNO.
Same as you, I wish I had better answers - or any meaningful answer.
No tory MPs will freeze to death this winter.
Their deaths will need to be messy and protracted to encourage the rest!
That Martin Lewis interview on R4 just now was pretty sobering.
Source ? The cost of everything* related to getting oil out the ground has doubled if not trebled…… Even the cost of the gas needed to get the gas out the ground….
It doesn't seem to be a problem for Shell.
There is lots of talk about removing vat on gas and electric, but nobody talks about EV tariffs.
From what I can see, this is a tariff that must be subsidised by something, encourages consumption of energy and doesn't pay tax where it should (road).
Increase this and reduce the other rates.
I'll be in the car park waiting for the firing squad 😬
Source ? The cost of everything* related to getting oil out the ground has doubled if not trebled…… Even the cost of the gas needed to get the gas out the ground….
Source? Looking at my pay packet. It doesn't track the price of oil, unfortunately. It's true that some costs increase - the vicious circle of requiring fuel, as you say, and also the way that contractors bump up their prices in high oil price times so as to keep their greedy snouts in the trough.
It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Shell.
Well, exactly. It's not feasible to have a global price cap, so the next best thing is to tax excess profits.
It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Shell.
How very daily mail.
If only shells profits were directly related to and specifically to their ukcs operations
also the way that contractors bump up their prices in high oil price times so as to keep their greedy snouts in the trough.
I don't think you can complain about your own pay not tracking oil/gas and yet say that someone whose pay does track it is "greedy".
I don’t think you can complain about your own pay not tracking oil/gas and yet say that someone whose pay does track it is “greedy”.
I wasn't complaining, just observing 🙂
How very daily mail.
If only shells profits were directly related to and specifically to their ukcs operations
It's "Daily Mail" to point out that a leading supplier of oil and gas is making record profits? Try taking more water with it.
Perhaps you could point out the areas of record growth not related to record commodity prices.
It’s “Daily Mail” to point out that a leading supplier of oil and gas is making record profits? Try taking more water with it.
Try reading what I wrote again....but slower.
Your point stands valid if the profits were driven solely by the commodity values that were being extracted from our own resources.
The cost of extracting a scf of gas here is vastly higher than in other regions and there isn't enough being extracted here either.
Your point stands valid if the profits were driven solely by the commodity values that were being extracted from our own resources.
Shell profits are not due solely to UK production, but a large part of them are. The UK is a very profitable place for oil companies, despite our limited reserves. One reason for that is the low taxes they pay (don't pay). Countries like Norway have higher tax rates to fund their society; countries like Nigeria have high tax rates to fund Swiss bank accounts (allegedly).
Countries like Norway have higher tax rates to fund their society; countries like Nigeria have high tax rates to fund Swiss bank accounts (allegedly).
And yet the tables published in documents from the likes of rystad and McKinsey analysing just this take into account the taxes. Place the UK at almost double that of Norway in cost per barrel of oil about 1/3rd more than that of Nigeria. And about 10 times that of Saudi....
Interestingly oil produced in on the UKCS was at its cheapest during the peak of covid..... But there was minimal development ongoing - skeleton staff offshore, minimal travel and mass layoffs. + all non essential maintenance was kicked down the road etc.
I'm pro windfall tax , I'm pro upping the taxes on the companies but the journos spitting out the record profits are a direct result of price gouging is just clickbait- especially once you dial down into the details of where the profits have emerged.
Without links to the reports you refer to it's hard to respond properly, but take a look at:
https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents/news/press-releases/the-uk-offers-operators-best-profit-conditions-to-develop-big-offshore-fields-kuwait-canada-follow/
I dont think they're "gouging" - at least not any more than usual - but they are clearly benefiting from unprecedented spike in oil and gas prices, while the rest of us are suffering from huge utility bills. That ain't right.
We've just been offered a fix rate deal from British Gas (we're still on a standard tariff and probably need to shift to the Direct Debit tariff).
On the face of it I'd steer clear but if prices run wild we'd be scuppered. No idea what to do.
They seem quite keen for you to fix....
People are going to freeze to death this winter. In Britain. In 2022.
It's fine, Rishi has promised to cut inheritance tax.
On the face of it I’d steer clear but if prices run wild we’d be scuppered. No idea what to do.
So that's approx. £170/month on DD at the new fixed rate?
I'd fix! And it looks like you're only fixing till Oct 23 so no long tie-in if prices do drop.
Your yearly energy use is very low though based on your previous usage.
For the first time in probably the history of central heating, it is currently cheaper to use LPG than town gas to heat your home. And that's before October. Not that LPG has suddenly gone down - it's stil what was previously considered eye wateringly expensive. It's just not as mental as everything else and prices don't seem to be raging - we just fixed for 2 years at the same price we were paying a year ago.
Dr J - I don't altogether agree with that analysis. The UK comes up cheap re. government take because everything else in the North Sea is expensive, and rates of return small, so if there was a large government tax applied nothing would be economic in normal conditions, and nothing would get developed.
Personally I'd like a lower and more stable price, as no doubt another price crash will come along in due course
the-muffin-man
So that’s approx. £170/month on DD at the new fixed rate?
I’d fix! And it looks like you’re only fixing till Oct 23 so no long tie-in if prices do drop.
So approx 65% increase to fix, and Martin Lewis predicting ~70% increase in the autumn and potentially another in spring.
Probably worth fixing just for the stability i guess but it's a tough call.
On moneysavingexpert's advice I chose the fixed offered by british gas at end of June as whilst a big hike it was less than the predicted % increase from Oct and next feb's rises. registered via their automated phone line
Checked new tariff started 1st August as it should have and it hasn't, we;re on variable. Bastards, as there's been an increase in the predicted Oct rise in the news since then.
So I've raised a complaint ticket which will take 7 days, but I might be snookered as there's no proof other than a chase call I made to them end of July where they said it would be applied to the account 1st August...no email or text confirmation :-<
My non expert instinct is the the companies will take their money however they can and the fixes aren’t just a random number - just like mortgage rates - using the best analysis they can to ensure their costs and profit are protected.
We are with Bulb so not change to fix without changing suppliers, but we might get it cheaper if it does vary downward a bit during other peoples fixes. That is, unless Octopus take over and move to the more standard model.
I always dither around stuff like this. We could save a little by simply moving to variable rate and Direct Debit (I pay by card quarterly) but I like to keep as much control of our limited resources as possible and tend not to use DD unless I have to.
It looks like there's a potential price cap increase in October so I assume that they're only offering fixed rate deals until October so that they can apply any increase (which I believe is expected to be large) before offering another fixed rate deal.
Just checked my OVO account offering - 2yr fixed going from my current variable of 26p a unit to 55p a unit - so a 112% increase. That would obviously be paid from today too so a couple of months at that higher rate to be taken into account.
No too keen on that.
An aside - being vaguely numerate, I find these headlines of monthly figures for an average house so annoying. Like talking about the price to fill up a tank of fuel on 'an average car'. Talk to me as a grown up in unit per KW and standing charges and let me calculate what I need for myself.
Talk to me a grown up in unit per KW and standing charges and let me calculate what I need for myself.
Most people can't though. They just know what they pay per month.
And I'll be honest when I've used comparison sites in the past they make it very hard to drill down into the details to make proper comparisons. And I class myself as fairly savvy in these things.
Talk to me a grown up in unit per KW and standing charges and let me calculate what I need for myself.
Completely agree with this - I've got spreadsheets and graphs coming out of my ears with our historical usage and per unit costs, but it's all useless for predicting our costs this winter if they just quote one pretty meaningless number all the time.
I've trawled the internet all over the place, there are loads of pages explaining what the price cap is expected to be but absolutely none of them give anything but the pretty useless headline number.
Talk to me a grown up in unit per KW and standing charges and let me calculate what I need for myself.
Absolutely .... Talking about a price cap of £x can't help but confuse some folks who will inevitably use more than average and wonder their bill is above the cap no matter how many times it is talked about as " average usage " -- what ever that is,
I am lucky in that living alone in a small flat and out at work all day I never use much my bills for the last year are around £700 and I have space to soak up a large rise in that
but it took me ages to work out what was best for my elderly parents ( 90 ish ) and in the end looking at the bill and the fixed offer it was obvious that even in the worst case scenario of a tripling of bills they would be better off on variable rates and that was only possible because we could work out by knowing unit cost and usage over the last year...
I always dither around stuff like this
As I said, the Energy provider will get their money from you one way or another, fixed or not. The don't fix for your benefit, thats a disguise to keep your money flowing to them in as predictable manner as possible. They have clever people working out what to charge you to minimise any losses on their part.
Does anyone know a method of calculating if their gas usage is accurate?
We live in a first floor flat, have no heating on from Feb til Oct/Nov (and only then for a couple of hours a day).
So gas is used for showers (about 10 mins a day), hot tap (3 sink fulls a day?) and cooker hob (1 ring for about 20 mins per day max). Everything else is electric.
At the moment we are being quoted as using 1000kWh for each of the last few months (with no heating) so about £80pm on our current plan (Transferred to British gas because People's Energy went bust)
Is this about right? Or am I paranoid in thinking this is too high, as we really don't seem to use much gas?
Is this about right?
Family of four, end of June to end of July was £15.72 gas being used for showers/baths/hot water only as of course the heating hasn't come on via Bulb/Smart Meter
At the moment we are being quoted as using 1000kWh for each of the last few months (with no heating) so about £80pm on our current plan (Transferred to British gas because People’s Energy went bust)
Is this about right? Or am I paranoid in thinking this is too high, as we really don’t seem to use much gas?
As I understand it 1 unit of mains gas is 1kwh at source (i.e. it won't generate 1kw of heat as your system will have a less than 100% efficiency). So have you been using 100 units of gas at your meter? For reference 100 units of town gas is costing you £8 odd a month currently.
Thanks Kryton.. that's a huge difference! Any idea on kWh or gas units used for a typical month (or anyone else with this info?).
Our Worcester Bosch boiler is 3 years old and just been serviced, all working fine apparently (and seems to be on ECO mode), so can't see it being that.
Family of four, end of June to end of July was £15.72 gas being used for showers/baths/hot water
£15.72 for a day/week/month?
If per month is everyone on a 1 minute time-limit for a shower! 🙂
Average use (I know) of gas for an average home across the year is about 30kWh a day IIRC, so 1000kWh in summer in a flat seems a little* high.
*OK a lot
joeydeacon
So gas is used for showers (about 10 mins a day), hot tap (3 sink fulls a day?) and cooker hob (1 ring for about 20 mins per day max). Everything else is electric.
At the moment we are being quoted as using 1000kWh for each of the last few months (with no heating) so about £80pm on our current plan (Transferred to British gas because People’s Energy went bust)
That is high, for reference we have two adults and a 7 year old. So that's at least one shower a day each for the adults plus a wash or bath if we can convince the filthy beast to have one. Heating is off. Our gas usage was 292KW between June and July, 287 May to June and 257 April to May.
£15.72 for a day/week/month?
Month.
British Gas have an app that shows your usage. I think the smart meter updates your use. This is what I use.
Failing that, take some readings.
1000kwh seems excessive, we only used 120kwh of electric in June.
Thanks convert - my bill says as follows:
1 Jul 2022 - 28 Jul 2022 (so not quite a month)
916.22kWh at 7.120p per kWh - £65.23
2896 - estimated meter reading at tariff change (this is in line with the meter reading I supplied)
2925 - you gave us your meter reading
29 gas units at 39.3 calorific value
Standing charge
28 days at 25.923p per day - £7.25
So £72 ish plus gas VAT at 5% for 28 days gas
Gas Meter Readings are:
28/07/2022 2925 1142 kWh
22/06/2022 2888 1737 kWh
04/05/2022 2833 1327 kWh
30/03/2022 2791 1912 kWh
15/02/2022 2730 1223 kWh
27/01/2022 2691 3355 kWh
02/12/2021 2584 63 kWh
01/12/2021 2582 (estimated) 1796 kWh
Is this about right? Or am I paranoid in thinking this is too high, as we really don’t seem to use much gas?
That does sound like a lot, although you can get through 1kwh of gas an awful lot quicker than 1kwh of electricity so it can be difficult to tell.
During the non-heating months our household tends to use an average of about 5kwh a day; this is from a few showers a week (total), two baths and odds and ends of sink and washbasin filling. This only comes to just over 150kwh a month; our total for the year is about 10-13000kwh, the vast majority of which is for heating in winter.
Have you got meter readings to be able to check it properly?
My energy company seems really keen for a fixed rate.
So I won't, based on the basic rules of capitalism.
28/07/2022 2925 1142 kWh
22/06/2022 2888 1737 kWh
Those columns as you paste them don't seem to make a lot of sense. You appear from column 2 to have used 37 units of gas in just over a months. Not very much at all. The 3rd kwh column appear to make little sense - maybe something is lost in formatting as you pasted it.
