To ask can someone explain energy price capping?

[Loginmystery]

Many thanks If someone can help me. I have just got my quarterly energy bills that 500 for gas and several hundred for electricity (I can’t look at exact amounts due to chronic anxiety).
We have not been able to heat the house throughout winter and it’s been pretty miserable. We are rationing showers and even cooking less etc.

I hear that there is a 2000 price cap. What does this actually mean? I know I could research this myself but I’d be so grateful if a wise mn could help me.

Does it mean we could heat the house and the bill wouldn’t go over 2000 per year? We are in a rental for 6 months. I have paid over 1000 in energy costs so far. The bills are not estimated because I sent in meter readings at end of March.

Is this price cap a factual thing? So all families? Is it gas and electricity combined? What does it mean for me? Thank you for any advice

No there is a price cap per unit of energy that suppliers are allowed to charge. There is no maximum cap for a customer’s bill, if you use more you will be billed more.

Have a look at Martin Lewis Facebook page or his website he very clearly explains how it works
You need to know if you are on a fixed rate or variable tariff and you will need to know your actual usage in kwh

If you send readings in March your bill will be estimated from the read to the date on your bill

What does it mean for me? Thank you for any advice

You should probably take a look at this, it will explain what it means for you.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-is-the-energy-price-cap/

The price cap sets the rate charged for each unit of gas and electricity.

It means that an “average” consumer will pay no more than £2000 a year for energy.

@luxxlisbon

No there is a price cap per unit of energy that suppliers are allowed to charge. There is no maximum cap for a customer’s bill, if you use more you will be billed more.

Exactly that. It’s is a cap on the price per kilowatt hours. The cap has been rising mainly because of the increase in global gas prices. Higher global demand fighting over available supply, made worse by the games Russia is playing with its supply.

Thank you so much all. I knew it couldn’t be a cap per family really. But for a moment I thought about putting the heating on!
I just have awful anxiety and a bit overwhelmed with everything so felt I’d get the info here. Thanks again

It's part of a long-standing aversion in the UK to scientific thought, using proper metrics, in favour of 'easy to understand' bullshit ripe for gaming by industry and vendors. Since numeracy is shocking here, we have the following:

'Average energy bills' instead of price per unit of energy, real metrics which is what the bills are actually calculated on;

'It uses £20 a week' for your car's fuel consumption instead of miles per gallon or litres per hundred kilometres used in the real world (both of which are almost as useless because of half-arsed metrication forty years ago);

'Apples are just £1.50 a pack' at Asda this week. Is that a one kilo pack, a pound, a pack of six? Who knows?

'B rating' for the thermal transmittance of double or triple glazing (which is bloody voluntary anyway!) instead of the actual U-value expressed in watts per square meter-Kelvin. See also the EPC rating for your entire house;

A rating for your washing machine's energy use instead of kWh per standard cycle. Your A rated washing machine might also be D rated for the exact same energy use, depending on when it was tested...

It's nonsense.

@Otherpeoplesteens it’s so true. Average families/ average weekly shops/ average heating bills.

My numeracy is good but without clear data I don’t have a chance.

Anyway the bills are big and we have frozen through winter. I do not know what anything costs to run but I’m not even boiling the kettle for tea as often.

@Otherpeoplesteens

It's part of a long-standing aversion in the UK to scientific thought, using proper metrics, in favour of 'easy to understand' bullshit ripe for gaming by industry and vendors. Since numeracy is shocking here, we have the following:

'Average energy bills' instead of price per unit of energy, real metrics which is what the bills are actually calculated on;

'It uses £20 a week' for your car's fuel consumption instead of miles per gallon or litres per hundred kilometres used in the real world (both of which are almost as useless because of half-arsed metrication forty years ago);

'Apples are just £1.50 a pack' at Asda this week. Is that a one kilo pack, a pound, a pack of six? Who knows?

'B rating' for the thermal transmittance of double or triple glazing (which is bloody voluntary anyway!) instead of the actual U-value expressed in watts per square meter-Kelvin. See also the EPC rating for your entire house;

A rating for your washing machine's energy use instead of kWh per standard cycle. Your A rated washing machine might also be D rated for the exact same energy use, depending on when it was tested...

It's nonsense.

This all over. Also woman's clothes sizes while we’re at it- measurement not meaningless sizes!

@Otherpeoplesteens

It's part of a long-standing aversion in the UK to scientific thought, using proper metrics, in favour of 'easy to understand' bullshit ripe for gaming by industry and vendors. Since numeracy is shocking here, we have the following:

'Average energy bills' instead of price per unit of energy, real metrics which is what the bills are actually calculated on;

'It uses £20 a week' for your car's fuel consumption instead of miles per gallon or litres per hundred kilometres used in the real world (both of which are almost as useless because of half-arsed metrication forty years ago);

'Apples are just £1.50 a pack' at Asda this week. Is that a one kilo pack, a pound, a pack of six? Who knows?

'B rating' for the thermal transmittance of double or triple glazing (which is bloody voluntary anyway!) instead of the actual U-value expressed in watts per square meter-Kelvin. See also the EPC rating for your entire house;

A rating for your washing machine's energy use instead of kWh per standard cycle. Your A rated washing machine might also be D rated for the exact same energy use, depending on when it was tested...

It's nonsense.

So true.

The one that annoys me is microwave ovens. My 800W microwave actually uses 1.5kW (it is approx 53% efficient). I even saw a newspaper article comparing microwave ovens with conventional gas/electric and they thought an 800W microwave only used 800W of electricity.

Never mind microwave ovens, try booze.

By law the label has to show the alcohol by volume. With even a fairly rudimentary command of maths you can work out how much pure alcohol you are consuming in a given measure, can or bottle.

But no, we insist on 'units of alcohol'. There is actually a definition for this measured in pure alcohol, but we're then taught that a glass of wine is one unit even though a glass could be anywhere from 125ml to 250ml and the wine itself might be 10.5% ABV or 14.5% ABV. So your glass in the pub could contain as little as 13ml of pure alcohol, or as much as 36ml, all in the name of simplifying things.