Electricity Price Hikes

[mc2fool]

Well I just got notice of price hikes from my electricity supplier, Good Energy, effective 1-Nov.

My current estimated annual cost of £1,042.54 is rising to £1,445.95, an increase of £403.41, being 38.7%. (It's an all-electric flat).

The standing charge is going up by 20%, the day time rate by 30.4% and the night time rate by 46.4%! (Yes, I'm on Economy 7).

Phew!

[scrumpyjack]

Don't know why they only talk about estimated annual cost. It would be much more illuminating to say the unit cost. That, with the daily charge, is the only meaningful comparator. I'm with SO Energy at present and their website assures us they are not going bust! Day rate 16.04p, night 9.49p plus 22.05p a day, fixed for another few months then (up,up,up!).

[mc2fool]

Don't know why they only talk about estimated annual cost. It would be much more illuminating to say the unit cost. That, with the daily charge, is the only meaningful comparator.

Uh? They, at least my supplier, doesn't only talk about estimated annual cost, it gives the unit costs and the daily charge.

Of course, to then estimate what your electricity is actually going to £££ cost you -- which IMO is the meaningful comparator -- you have to multiply those by your estimated usage, and I for one find it useful that they've already done that for me.

[mc2fool]

I'm with SO Energy at present and their website assures us they are not going bust! Day rate 16.04p, night 9.49p plus 22.05p a day, fixed for another few months then (up,up,up!).

Up up up is right! I just went through the get a quote system on the SO Energy website and they offered me a daily charge of 23.38p, a day unit rate of 36.30p and a night rate of 24.75p, for a grand total of £1933pa! I think I'll stick with mine...

[88V8]

Currently.... paying 15.72p day and 9.62p night with Ovo on a fix to December.

Might go up I suppose.
Well, we have to pay for the green crap and leaving all that coal in the ground.

We also have to pay for the suppliers taking over the refugees from the little Ponzi companies who should never have been allowed to set up shop in the first place.

V8

[Bminusrob]

I'm with Octopus Energy. The rate I will be paying from 14/10 is a daily standing charge of 25.75p plus a day rate of 21.87p and night rate of 15.61p. With the latest increase, the standing charge went up nearly 20%, the day rate went up 16% and the night rate went up 45%. I can't see any good reason for the standing charge (which I thought was to cover general administration) should go up more than inflation. Like all other suppliers, the benefit of using the night rate is diminishing rapidly, and I am sure it will go away completely soon, especially as more people charge electric cars overnight.

As a country, we have broght this on ourselves by having weak governments who kowtow to every protest group, so no progress is ever made. We more or less stopped building power stations after 1980, and relied more and ore on importing power from overseas. We desperately need to pour investment into small nuclear power stations, and sod the protesters. Perhaps if everyone who protested about new power facilities (whether nuclear, wind, solar or any other) was made to pay £5 per kWh for their electricity, they would see the light.

[stevensfo]

I'm with Octopus Energy. The rate I will be paying from 14/10 is a daily standing charge of 25.75p plus a day rate of 21.87p and night rate of 15.61p. With the latest increase, the standing charge went up nearly 20%, the day rate went up 16% and the night rate went up 45%. I can't see any good reason for the standing charge (which I thought was to cover general administration) should go up more than inflation. Like all other suppliers, the benefit of using the night rate is diminishing rapidly, and I am sure it will go away completely soon, especially as more people charge electric cars overnight.

As a country, we have broght this on ourselves by having weak governments who kowtow to every protest group, so no progress is ever made. We more or less stopped building power stations after 1980, and relied more and ore on importing power from overseas. We desperately need to pour investment into small nuclear power stations, and sod the protesters. Perhaps if everyone who protested about new power facilities (whether nuclear, wind, solar or any other) was made to pay £5 per kWh for their electricity, they would see the light.

Don't worry about inflation. I have it from a reliable source that the reason for the increased activity in Westminster is the implementation of a new way of measuring inflation. After RPI, CPI, CPIH, we will have CPIH+, which will use Hedonic regression to show that the average family can easily reduce their heating bills by wearing more jumpers and 'shivering', thus cancelling out the increased prices and bringing inflation back down to <2%.

You know it makes sense.

Steve

[88V8]

...the average family can easily reduce their heating bills by wearing more jumpers and 'shivering', thus cancelling out the increased prices and bringing inflation back down to <2%.

Hahah but there's some truth in that.
From memory, it typically costs twice as much to heat a house to 70F, rather than 62F which is our heating level.
The hotter the house the faster it loses heat to the surroundings.

Close the curtains at dusk, wear a woolly, don't heat the bedrooms.

Those who heat the whole house to 70F and walk around in their shirt-sleeves (or blouses) need only look in the mirror for the cause of their high electricity bills.

V8 (woolly, two pairs of socks)

[UncleEbenezer]

From memory, it typically costs twice as much to heat a house to 70F, rather than 62F which is our heating level.

Blech. 62 = 16.67; 70 = 21.11. Never heated my home that hot, and feel uncomfortable in that level of heat (when it's not natural).

More interesting question. Given that most Fools are old enough to remember at least the tail end of last century, wasn't everyone brought up in much colder winter environments? I can't imagine even the Queen could've heated her home that hot when she was, say, half her present age.

[88V8]

More interesting question. Given that most Fools are old enough to remember at least the tail end of last century, wasn't everyone brought up in much colder winter environments?

Certainly I was. Winters were colder. and even though my parents had CH from about 1965, it was only downstairs.
My bedroom often had ice inside the Critalls, and the bathroom was unheated.

I put CH into our first house in 1977, we heated to 62F+/- and lit the coal fire in the sitting room.

And it was 1978 before I owned a car with a heater.

V8

[tjh290633]

More interesting question. Given that most Fools are old enough to remember at least the tail end of last century, wasn't everyone brought up in much colder winter environments?

Certainly I was. Winters were colder. and even though my parents had CH from about 1965, it was only downstairs.
My bedroom often had ice inside the Critalls, and the bathroom was unheated.

I put CH into our first house in 1977, we heated to 62F+/- and lit the coal fire in the sitting room.

And it was 1978 before I owned a car with a heater.

V8

My bedroom at home was over the front porch, so had two outside walls, a floor and a roof exposed. 1947 was the hardest winter, but those of 61-63 were longer and colder. At home we had coal fires in dining room and kitchen, and on Sundays in the sitting room. I bought my first house in 1961, in the Peak District. I asked for a Dunsley fire in the lounge with a big back boiler and 4 radiators. It ran on coke non stop until the ash box was full. No insulation anywhere and critall windows. Our house was the only one in the road with no snow on its roof.

My first new car was a Volkswagen Beetle in 1958. That was heated by the heat from the air cooled engine. Its predecessor was a retired GPO Telephone Morris 8 van, 1943 vintage, with no mod cons.

All subsequent houses and cars had heating, air conditioning came in the 1990s. We have had hot summers and cold winters along the way, and the hottest year was in the 1980s. Global warming would seem to have passed us by.

TJH

[mc2fool]

Well I just got notice of price hikes from my electricity supplier, Good Energy, effective 1-Nov.

My current estimated annual cost of £1,042.54 is rising to £1,445.95, an increase of £403.41, being 38.7%. (It's an all-electric flat).

The standing charge is going up by 20%, the day time rate by 30.4% and the night time rate by 46.4%! (Yes, I'm on Economy 7).

Phew!

Well if that was phew ... I've just got notice of further price hikes, effective 17-Jan.

Now my estimated annual cost will rise to £2,068.69, so a doubling of the cost since October.

This time the standing charge is unchanged but the day time rate is up by a further 40.2% and the night time rate by a further 73.5%. That makes them up by 82.8% and 154% respectively since October!

Phew!

[scrumpyjack]

I presume all these rates are going up to the regulatory cap level so all suppliers will/do offer very similar prices.
As I recall the cap gets reviewed in Feb with the new cap coming in in April. One can only hope for a collapse in the gas price by then as that must be the main factor in pushing up electricity prices.

ps mine going up to 21.71p day and 15.95 night, plus 24.09p per day.I rejected their fixed offer which was massively higher!

[Alaric]

ps mine going up to 21.71p day and 15.95 night, plus 24.09p per day.I rejected their fixed offer which was massively higher!

I've stayed on the traditional open ended tariff, paying quarterly in arrear by usage.

Current prices variable 20.38p per kWh and standing 24.11p per day.

I suppose the cap prevents price gourging on all those annoying clients who decline to lend them money by paying a monthly estimate in advance.

The supplier is SSE/OVO.

[88V8]

This time the standing charge is unchanged but the day time rate is up by a further 40.2% and the night time rate by a further 73.5%. That makes them up by 82.8% and 154% respectively since October!

As an E7 user, the continued telescoping of the day/night rates is irritating, but with the rise of EVs I suppose inevitable.

Happily, having peered at my paperwork, our cheap Ovo fix goes on to December 2022 and our £170/month looks like giving us a nice surplus on which they are paying us 5% tax-free.

V8

[bungeejumper]

One can only hope for a collapse in the gas price by then as that must be the main factor in pushing up electricity prices.

You'd better sit down. Four French nuclear reactors are currently out of action because of cracks in the pipework. (Okay, they found the cracks in one but closed the other three because they were built to the same design.) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ed ... 021-12-16/.

All this, and Putin threatening the Nord Stream gas pipeline if the West objects to him invading Ukraine. It's going to get bumpier for a while yet, I fear.

BJ

[1nvest]

Open up the old fireplace/chimney, and bigger (paper) bills provide a potential cost reduction

Disable ad-block and have your postal address logged and there may even be enough paper flowing through your letterbox daily to provide a good bit of heat/light. Maybe even sustainable self sufficiency. For example ordering small inexpensive items via Amazon could be appropriate given the amount of packaging they're usually delivered in

[swill453]

Martin Lewis reports that an energy market analyst has estimated the price cap will increase by 48% on 1 April 2022.

https://twitter.com/MartinSLewis/status ... 7169083408

Scott.