Energy Prices

[Atticus Finch]

Bet it’s fucking freezing this winter as well

[Lee909]

On 08/08/2022 at 18:52, John102 said:

The BBC had a handy little piece of advice on the website that basically said if you turn the heating down a bit, take less baths, do less washes and generally cut back on everything, you can knock £120 off your annual bill, bringing it down from about 400 a month to 390.

 

So wear dirty rags,stink and freeze in the winter you can save £100

[Red_or_Dead]

2 minutes ago, Lee909 said:

 

So wear dirty rags,stink and freeze in the winter you can save £100

Has no one piped up yet about not paying the TV licence so that money can go to 5% of your energy bill?

 

 

[Furmedge]

Don't worry, a councillor on Radio 5 has said tonight that if you pay now for as much insulation as you can then you'll make that money back in a year.  A fantastic idea, only THE MOST VULNERABLE PEOPLE DON'T HAVE ANY FUCKING MONEY NOW!

[Harry Squatter]

Don't worry. The MP's who claim utility bills on expenses for 3 homes and get their expensive rail tickets paid for will sort it out for us. 

[johnsusername]

British Gas emailed asking me to go on their fixed tariff - up from the current £2000 a year (which itself is probably a 70% increase on last year) up to a lovely £4000 a year. So roughly £333 a month. 

 

 

How about....shove it up your fucking arse. 

[Rico1304]

1 minute ago, johnsusername said:

British Gas emailed asking me to go on their fixed tariff - up from the current £2000 a year (which itself is probably a 70% increase on last year) up to a lovely £4000 a year. So roughly £333 a month. 

 

 

How about....shove it up your fucking arse. 

That’s based on your last 12 months usage at the current price for gas and electricity. To get it down you need to use less. They are pricing to the cap, and still losing money (probably about £600) on you. 

[Mook]

If the wholesale energy prices are falling (which I've read they are), how can they justify these forthcoming increases in October & January?

 

I know other factors play a part but from what I can make out, they are dwarfed by the wholesale price.

 

There is no way a huge amount of people are going to be able to afford these increases.

[Rico1304]

4 minutes ago, Mook said:

If the wholesale energy prices are falling (which I've read they are), how can they justify these forthcoming increases in October & January?

 

I know other factors play a part but from what I can make out, they are dwarfed by the wholesale price.

 

There is no way a huge amount of people are going to be able to afford these increases.

It’s because the cap is based on an algorithm that looks at prices on a particular time frame.  
 

In simple terms the previous cap was based on the previous 6 months wholesale price (and a few other variables) so it’s looking backwards.   
 

Say the wholesale price for gas for a typical house was £200 in H1 2021 that forms the price for the cap in H2 2021. But if the H2 price changes to say £300 (which is about what happened) the energy supplier is losing £100 per customer as they can only charge £200.  That’s why so many went bump as they ran out of cash. 
 

Does that make sense? 

[Mook]

1 hour ago, Rico1304 said:

It’s because the cap is based on an algorithm that looks at prices on a particular time frame.  
 

In simple terms the previous cap was based on the previous 6 months wholesale price (and a few other variables) so it’s looking backwards.   
 

Say the wholesale price for gas for a typical house was £200 in H1 2021 that forms the price for the cap in H2 2021. But if the H2 price changes to say £300 (which is about what happened) the energy supplier is losing £100 per customer as they can only charge £200.  That’s why so many went bump as they ran out of cash. 
 

Does that make sense? 

That makes sense but only takes into account wholesale price increases, why would the price cap in January be going up if wholesale prices have been falling recently?

 

Also, how are some of the larger companies reporting huge profits if they are down (for example £100 per month) on thousands/millions of houses?

 

Apologies if these are stupid questions but a lot of people are asking them & I've not seen any clear answers.

[johnsusername]

Is this happening around the world to other countries? 

[Trumo]

8 minutes ago, Mook said:

Also, how are some of the larger companies reporting huge profits if they are down (for example £100 per month) on thousands/millions of houses?

 

The media are muddying the waters a little bit by lumping energy suppliers (like EON for example) with fuel/energy producers like Shell and BP. The energy suppliers, especially the bigger ones, have had to shoulder the cost of becoming a Supplier of Last Resort (SOLR) when energy suppliers started dropping like flies, as well as shoulder the wholesale price explosion to a degree. Most of the bigger energy suppliers have bought a shitload of energy well in advance to meet the demand of their customers and this has helped them hedge against the worst of the cost increases, but they are still operating to finer margins. The fuel/energy producers have seen revenues and profits soar thanks to things like post-pandemic increase in demand plus events like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[Mook]

11 minutes ago, Trumo said:

 

The media are muddying the waters a little bit by lumping energy suppliers (like EON for example) with fuel/energy producers like Shell and BP. The energy suppliers, especially the bigger ones, have had to shoulder the cost of becoming a Supplier of Last Resort (SOLR) when energy suppliers started dropping like flies, as well as shoulder the wholesale price explosion to a degree. Most of the bigger energy suppliers have bought a shitload of energy well in advance to meet the demand of their customers and this has helped them hedge against the worst of the cost increases, but they are still operating to finer margins. The fuel/energy producers have seen revenues and profits soar thanks to things like post-pandemic increase in demand plus events like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Thanks for clarifying that point.

 

So surely these soaring profits can be passed on to the suppliers & us somehow. It seems like the producers are coining it in while everyone else is being shafted.

[Arniepie]

24 minutes ago, johnsusername said:

Is this happening around the world to other countries? 

I think we are paying a lot more than the likes of France

 

Not sure about other countries

 

[RedKnight]

I don't get it. My electricity went up after my latest meter reading by a £1, to £66 a month. My gas meter reading dropped my monthly payment from £45 to £31, though I kept it at £45 because that looked ridiculous.

[Captain Howdy]

The incompetence of British Gas is almost beautiful in it’s completeness. You can only gape wide eyed and slack jawed at the sheer Everest like scale of its magnificence. Nigh on a year I’ve been with them now and the Pythonesque dealings I’ve had with them are off the charts. The latest now is that I’m not and never have been a dual customer and only buy their electricity even though I have clear, documented bills for both. Try getting in touch with them though. They are sensational they really are. The sooner this calamity of an industry is Nationalised the better for all concerned ( yes Starmer I’m looking at you you useless twat) Said it a thousand times but imagine being a lone pensioner having to deal with these fucking grifters.

[Jairzinho]

7 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

The incompetence of British Gas is almost beautiful in it’s completeness. You can only gape wide eyed and slack jawed at the sheer Everest like scale of its magnificence. Nigh on a year I’ve been with them now and the Pythonesque dealings I’ve had with them are off the charts. The latest now is that I’m not and never have been a dual customer and only buy their electricity even though I have clear, documented bills for both. Try getting in touch with them though. They are sensational they really are. The sooner this calamity of an industry is Nationalised the better for all concerned ( yes Starmer I’m looking at you you useless twat) Said it a thousand times but imagine being a lone pensioner having to deal with these fucking grifters.

Eon are no better. Spent three and a half months (the time since moving in to the property) on the phone to them about once every three days. Had engineers out about half a dozen times, must have spoken to 20/25 different people on the phone. None of them ever speak to each other. All very proud of themselves for opening official investigations into my account/meter/etc issues. All utterly fucking useless. It actually looked like it was finally fixed about two weeks ago, then I logged on to the online dashboard thing and they'd stuck the account about 2k in credit for some reason, called them and as I imagined no-one had a clue why. 

 

As you say, spellbinding incompetence. 

[Gnasher]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/10/gordon-brown-says-energy-firms-unable-to-offer-lower-bills-should-be-temporarily-re-nationalised

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/10/tax-profits-freeze-energy-prices-bring-suppliers-into-public-sector-gordon-brown

[Anubis]

Norway may add to our woes. Not out of spite, but necessity.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/08/uk-braces-for-even-higher-bills-as-norway-threatens-electricity-export-cut
 

[Rico1304]

9 hours ago, Trumo said:

 

The media are muddying the waters a little bit by lumping energy suppliers (like EON for example) with fuel/energy producers like Shell and BP. The energy suppliers, especially the bigger ones, have had to shoulder the cost of becoming a Supplier of Last Resort (SOLR) when energy suppliers started dropping like flies, as well as shoulder the wholesale price explosion to a degree. Most of the bigger energy suppliers have bought a shitload of energy well in advance to meet the demand of their customers and this has helped them hedge against the worst of the cost increases, but they are still operating to finer margins. The fuel/energy producers have seen revenues and profits soar thanks to things like post-pandemic increase in demand plus events like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Energy producers also make a lot of their money on international markets, so the profits aren’t ‘just’ out of U.K. energy users.  They aren’t able to ring fence gas for the U.K. any cheaper as it would be anti competitive.  

[Mook]

'Free market capitalism, a great bunch of lads'

[Captain Howdy]

1 hour ago, Jairzinho said:

Eon are no better. Spent three and a half months (the time since moving in to the property) on the phone to them about once every three days. Had engineers out about half a dozen times, must have spoken to 20/25 different people on the phone. None of them ever speak to each other. All very proud of themselves for opening official investigations into my account/meter/etc issues. All utterly fucking useless. It actually looked like it was finally fixed about two weeks ago, then I logged on to the online dashboard thing and they'd stuck the account about 2k in credit for some reason, called them and as I imagined no-one had a clue why. 

 

As you say, spellbinding incompetence. 

Sounds very familiar 

[johnsusername]

Centrica, who own British Gas, made a £948m profit last year. 

 

Wonder if we should have a whip round for them? 

[Gnasher]

1 hour ago, Gnasher said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/10/gordon-brown-says-energy-firms-unable-to-offer-lower-bills-should-be-temporarily-re-nationalised

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/10/tax-profits-freeze-energy-prices-bring-suppliers-into-public-sector-gordon-brown

Fucking hell, its a broken clock moment for Desperate Dan,

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Section_31]

41 minutes ago, Mook said:

'Free market capitalism, a great bunch of lads'

Posted it before but I watched a thing once about the credit crunch and the US treasury honcho got the bank bosses in a room and told them civilization was essentially about to collapse, but he said people were making excuses to leave the room to make phone calls to try and make money out of it. 

 

People have to proceed under the assumption that at least a chunk of the people who run big business are high functioning psychopaths and they have to be viewed and treated as such.