Energy bill price cap predicted to go to £3850 - 3 x what it was a year ago

[cakeorwine]

There is an AIBU here - but really it's posting for traffic

Russia is having 'maintainance issues' so has reduced the gas flow to Europe to a low level.

Gas prices have soared again.

Price cap prediction - £3850 - about 3 x what it was a year ago.

This is going to affect all of us

www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jul/27/uk-energy-bills-forecast-to-hit-3850-pounds-russia-cuts-gas-supply-further-europe-pipeline

I understand that Germany haven’t been able to fill storage either yet and they don’t have adequate LNG storage. It’s going to be an awful winter. I imagine everyone is expecting for the gas supply to be completely shut down over winter and then Putin will ask if anyone would like to have a chat about whether they would like to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons and support.

To be honest I’m a bit thick with energy currently we are paying (yes it’s summer) avg bill £65 (electric £50 and gas £15) currently have £380 in credit (goes up about £35-40 a month as paying £110 DD) I’m keeping as it is for winter as a bit of a buffer.

predicted useage 8550kwh gas and 2150kwh elec.
standing charge £0.485 for elec and £0.273 for gas

rates are variable as we were with bulb obviously they went bust and I stupidly listened to Martin Lewis and didn’t fix back then and everywhere now won’t take us on as a new customer due to the high prices. Obviously no one has a crystal ball but how do I roughly work out my predicted bills with the new price cap from this info I have? Should I be expecting about £220 a month based on it doubling?

My MIL does, and turns it up even more rather than put a jumper on. It's stifling, and I'm extremely uncomfortable every time I'm there. Oven on for one potato, dishwasher on after every meal, etc, washes a couple of items, tumble dries the same couple of items, several times a day, and so on. Drives me bonkers to see such wasteful use of energy! She's very comfortably off though, doesn't give a thought to how much anything costs, and will no doubt continue to do this. I guess there are quite a few like this, but to others who've been accustomed to giving energy use little or no thought, they're going to be in for a big shock.

We’d have to buy it though? The taxpayer that is at market rate, how much would it cost?

Reporting that profit won’t help though I agree. Maybe more tax although at least they should be getting highly taxed on it at 40% or higher

Nudge theory worked during the pandemic ( at first anyway) but whilst Royals and celebs and politicians continue to use private jets and carry on their own lifestyles whilst telling us what to do then nothing much will change really
( with regards to climate change)
We have since found out that many broke the lockdown rules, so good luck to anyone in power trying that one again too!!
Bills and fuel consumption will reduce , but only because most people won't have a choice but to try and cut back a lot to make the higher payments they demand.
More divide to come as the rich absorb the costs and the poor become poorer.

Rishi Sunak has already said that he will be looking again at helping people once prices are confirmed. But who knows who will be PM. As a single pensioner and low user - 8000 kw gas and 2200kw elec my bill is estimated to be at £215 a month from October paid over the year. I won't be using any heating this year. At the moment I'm using about £80 a month with just hot water, cooking etc. I think that the additional 20p a day on the electricity SC to pay for the costs of the cheapskate companies who went bankrupt but hadn't paid their levies is disgraceful.

There's a concern over people who're switching off their fridges to save money. But if you are sending dcs to school you need to have the means of washing their clothes. I have a water meter but the water bill on my cottage is £800 on unmetered usage.

These are essential services and should be state owned.

^this, gas and electric are hardly luxury items they are utterly essential to live, it's totally inhumane that it could potentially be out of peoples reach.

If Centrica's profits are up 5x compared to the same period last year I'm not sure how they can justify it, and blame 'rising costs'.

There needs to be a way for the govt to step in, increase the tax they pay and give it back to us in the form of a rebate or something. Or just cap their fucking profits they make out of us.

Just cap the profits, none of this fucking around with taxes and rebates.

Similarly plugs, chargers, appliances which are left on. Everything you have on standby is using electricity. Dishwasher, washing machine, do you reset those back to the 0 mark after you’ve used them? Plug sockets, do people switch them off after use

Standby usage is incredibly low nowadays. 1 watt - so 1000 hours of standby (about 40 days) is the same as a KWH.

There are much more easier ways to save usage which have a far greater impact

You must be on an incredibly cheap fix compared to the current standard variable rate so will have a huge shock of an increase coming when your fix ends I'm afraid.

I bought this house we live in because it had a log burner and no heating.
The heating was installed for free and the log burner heats the room and the floors above via convection. It was £200 plus for 2 tonnes of logs. Cheap compared to gas.

Mine's £50 for June, 3 bed, fixed 15% above the current SVR.

When I go to the supermarket, and none of the fridges have doors, and the place is freezing cold, I get angry. Fuel and food prices going up, it's so wasteful and we are paying for it at the till.

People who are quoting their cheap direct debits should really understand their actual usage in KWH and the current price they are paying.

When a cheap fix comes to an end, people who aren't clear on their actual usage might well be in for a shock.

Our fixed monthly payment with EON has just gone up 141% from £117 to £295 per month. This is fixed until next August.

www.businessballs.com/improving-workplace-performance/nudge-theory/
It's basically soft governance, compliance via suggestion/choice.
Cummings just likes it he didn't invent it.
I studied it at Uni (BA Economics).

I'm a tiny bit in credit at the moment as been with the same company for years. The 400 will be welcome and we should be ok ( I hope ) only just by the skin of our nose though. Once it goes up again the 400 will soon be used up.
I do them monthly readings and keep an eye on consumption, but it's not winter time.
How big families or those on benefits or a fixed income will manage I've no idea. We only live in a small house.
It's the knock on effect to every thing else that will also increase prices as well and that is even more of a worry too. Food especially.
I can see many countries having to try and make deals with Russia too as things get worse. He is probably counting on this :(

Is that £50 based on usage?

Do you give them readings / smart meter and they look at your actual usage?

My gas and electric on the current price cap was:

£28 electricity usage / 109 KWH (plus the standing charge of about £14
£11 gas / 155 KWH plus SC of about £8

So about £65 for the month

This is a small flat

The problem with everyone getting log burners is that is becoming clear that they are associated with poor air quality and ill health. It's not really a great solution for the population as a whole for us to switch back to burning wood and coal.

On the log burner issue. It wasn’t long ago people were decrying them and there was talk of banning them altogether. I even once saw a thread in here about how they thought houses with log burners would be devalued. Seems ridiculous now. I’m very grateful we’ve got one as an option (and ours does heat the whole house) and have just ordered logs for the 1st time, we never really used it because of the indoor and outdoor pollution but will probably relying on it this winter. Not great environmentally but people will choose to burn whatever the can for heat, which will have health implications too as well as environmental.

Yes, I expect the main way that we will save money on our increasing bills is by energy rationing. We may well find ourselves using less gas and electricity as a result of it being rationed rather than just because it will be so expensive.

The idea of energy rationing is awful :(

I guess it happened during WW2 and WW1

Please get the chimney checked out and swept before you light it.