Energy to go up 64% in October

[ToastedWaffle]

And 4% in January.

Fuck sake!
I dont even have an AIBU, this is just fucking ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the bill for all the people who can't or won't pay will be added to everyone else's bill...

So there's something else to look forward to!

It's a bloody nightmare.

Apologies if I’m being naïve but the fact some people have a fixed rate of 3 years etc and haven’t seen their prices rise shows that energy companies could do something about these huge increases but choose not to

They will continue to pass on these astronomical prices to us in coming months and will not feel any shame or guiltily

Are you on a fixed rate without realising?

I also ignored Martin Lewis advice not to fix. I was baffled by him saying

I'm also thinking the Tories might throw a curveball and temporarily nationalise utilities and rail - first thing I thought with RS resignation letter and his reference to "difficult choices".

I also wondered if rail strikes were a factor in mass resignations. Certainly there are things afoot that we don't know about.

Economy will suffer. For example, to be able to afford our bills we cut all the "treats" :
*hairdresser
*gym
*son's music lessons
*all subscriptions for magazines, Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.
So how many people will loose their jobs/incomes? My friend is a very good hairdresser, she used to be fully booked for month ahead. Now she is advertising herself on all Facebook groups to get even few clients a day....

Yes it's fucking madness.
Stupidly moved into a freezing flat at the beginning of this year and the winter was terrible. I'm doing what I can now to draught proof and buying thermal curtains and fleece blankets in the sales. Scared to try and work out what the increase will mean for us.

I suppose it depends on how many of those companies can afford those fixes, as the price increases.

Don't worry, it's been felled for several years to season. Now split into small chunks and stacked ready for use.

But this is 2020s and I'm working like this is 1920s.

I work for a charity dealing with elderly people, many of whom are ill or disabled too. People are worried sick, we have never been so busy with benefit enquiries.

Yes exactly. I don't think they will cut off gas and electricity for old and vulnerable people in huge numbers so it will have to be paid for somehow.

Energy companies forecast how many customers they will have and how much they will use, and hedge (basically fix) their volumes in advance. If they know you are signed up for three years, they will hedge/fix their costs in advance.

The risk with hedging so far in advance is that if prices drop, customers will switch and the energy supplier is over-hedged which means they won’t be able to offer competitive tariffs.

The big energy companies are good at managing complex hedging strategies (hence why they didn’t go bust as prices rose), but contrary to popular belief, energy suppliers only make tiny margins on energy supply and the last five years have been really tough, this is why this is such a difficult problem to solve, because it’s a global wholesale price issue.

France has more self-generated nuclear power so doesn’t have such a big gas reliance, but also their population will have to pay for the rising wholesale costs - the government may have capped energy prices but they will have to claw it back from the population some other way !!

he government may have capped energy prices but they will have to claw it back from the population some other way

If only there was a way that the Government could get money to pay for things.

It's not actually as simple as that. I had to research this for my job. I went in to it pro-public ownership for water but ended up pro-private water. I can supply some links to research if you are interested.

@Primatrying I’d love to read the links please!

You have the "No the nuclear" mob to thank for this that scared successive governments from taking the plunge and investing in our energy security a in Nuclear power plants rather than our heaving reliance of fossil fuel generated electricity.
I wonder now how the great "change to electrical power" will go now.
Most renewable energy is unreliable and too costly per kWh to produce, its a shame the green mob dictated government policy

The only short term answer is get Russian gas supplies back to normal but that would involve throwing Ukraine under a bus by making them concede the territories of donbas and luhansk and conveniently forgetting the whole invasion thing.

The only long term solution is more renewables and more gas storage.

but contrary to popular belief, energy suppliers only make tiny margins on energy supply

And yet they do make a profit on something that is essential.
And the big bosses earn a shed load in salary and bonuses.

I'm anyway paying £634/ month - 7 kids and an electric car in an old inefficient house.

£1000 / month will be a killer.

From a position of total ignorance, why is it not possible for more to be done to pressurise E.g. OPEC? I feel like we’re being held to ransom by the energy producers and I have yet to hear/see an argument that makes sense as to why they’re allowing/pushing prices so high

This will have a knock on affect for everything, people won’t be able to afford to eat out , clothes shop etc! We have just had a £5000 gas bill ! I pray it’s wrong 😑

We only bought four percent of our gas from Russia. So puzzled by the shortage excuse.

OH built a log shed and bought downed trees from a storm last year its all sawn, chopped and stacked. Eight tons We paid 2k for a log burner when I got a bad feeling about energy costs back in January. The log burner was on back order the price had gone up of course. Now I think we'll get most of our money back this winter

I'm sorry😞

@saleorbouy

The Government has guaranteed a price for Hinkley nuclear power plant of £92.50 MWh, if actual power prices are lower than this the Government will top up the difference . But equally if they are higher then EDF pay the Government the difference.

Conversely the latest offshore wind contracts are only guaranteed less than half of that at around £43 MWh.

Or in simpler terms electricity from offshore wind is half the price of nuclear.

Also Hinkley which was scheduled to take 10 years to build and come on line in 2017 has been delayed until 2027. The cost was forecast at £18 billion which has now become overrun to £26 billion.

We're on British Gas variable as our old supplier went under. Just looked on their website and there are no deals/fixed tariffs available at all. It says don't ring customer services as they don't have anything else to offer.

Turned our heating off in may so just water heated . Two quick showers and a couple of bowls of washing up water a day is around £1. When the heating is on its £7 a day. I get my pension in October that's going to be swallowed up.

Hot water bottle and heated electric blankets are going to sell well this year

It will be like life before the 80s when the only heated room in a house was the living room, even that room wasn't warm enough to sit in wearing just a t shirt. Seriously it is time us Mums took the streets and told this Government that we will not let our children go to bed cold.