To think that very few people can manage £4200 energy bills

[Butterflyfluff]

news.sky.com/story/energy-bills-forecast-to-rise-even-higher-than-previously-thought-12668906

This simply isn’t manageable for the majority of people.

Where’s this going to end?

On insulation, Germany electricity unit prices atm similar to UK but their avg bills far lower.. reason being more efficient housing.

Truss put her name to that book, she might lie and deny it but her name is on the cover.

Me too.

It's so critical, right now, for everyone to understand what energy they use over the year and what the cost of that is going to be based on the latest predicitons.

It's an hour of your time (max) to figure this out - and it's an hour very well spent.

Yep, it seems the Tories think that British are the sick man of the world...and don't care about making their lives better. Thats a difference between reasonable governments and others - I don't agree with conservative ideas on principle but in some countries conservatives actually care about their own e.g. Switzerland and others really don't like the Tories.

It doesn’t even take an hour. Every Monday morning I take my meter readings and write them in a notebook. That way I know exactly what I’m using week one week.

as for not paying because it’ll destroy your credit score. Wake the duck up, people who can’t afford to pay generally have fucked credit scores anyway - and the whole point of having a “good” score is to borrow money… which they’d not be able to pay anyway.

According to the media £1.3bn is already owed to the power companies in unpaid bills.

The difficulty is that the two people trying to get votes to be the next PM have no idea whatsover about paying bills on the breadline or any line for that matter. Liz is on a salary of in excess of £100K plus benefits and is a qualified accountant and Rishi who has wealth in the family beyond the imagination. How can these people claim that they understand the riduclous increases in bills?

4 million British households are on pre-payment meters - if they don't pay the energy just cuts. 😞

www.theguardian.com/money/2022/apr/15/im-frightened-prepaid-meter-users-feel-early-impact-of-price-hike

Octopus's crystal ball facility suggests that if these rises go ahead as planned, we will need to up our direct debit to £500 a month to stop us going into debt with them.

£500 a month ...

We have two very young children so can't have a freezing house, we are in the north of Scotland so it gets properly cold here too and I'm on maternity leave. So I'm looking at cancelling stuff which, surprise surprise, affects small individual businesses. The milkman, dog walker, classes we do with DC, no more lunches at the local cafe, no more boxes from the farm shop. All very first world problems for me, but not for the people whose livelihoods those are.

A lot of small businesses are going to be hit very hard

We are lucky that we have that wiggle room in the budget where we still have non-essentials we can cancel, but if we are having to cut back like this, two people on decent salaries with savings, then how the hell are other people going to manage?

My problem with not paying, or being in some way permitted not to pay, is that is no encouragement to conserve energy. If I had nothing to lose I may feel I might as well whack my heating up to 30 degrees day and night. Which of course impacts on the schmucks who do feel obliged to pay.

I am afraid my head is in the sand because three times our current bills is… undoable. Reminds me of the Momentum plan to base council tax on size of plot (ie garden). Our council tax would have been almost more than our income (and I live in a four-bed box) as it would have been for anyone outside an urban area.

I am hoping (against hope) that someone does something [wrings hands] .

I know. I now have 14 different gmail addresses....

Ok, so I can see how gas prices are going up due to the European squeeze on gas supply by Russia.

But why is the price of electricity going up?

Because a lot of our electricity is generated from gas driven plants.

Yes of course, thanks

Electricity comes from a generator.

The generator is spun by a turbine.

The turbine is spun by steam.

The steam is made by heating water.

Water is heated by burning gas.

We could burn coal, or oil, or waste, but people don't seem to like that.

We could split atoms to heat the water, but people don't like that either.

We could attach a windmill to the generator instead of a steam turbine, but if the wind doesn't blow, the generator doesn't spin.

Wind is only covering 9% of demand today.

Solar currently generating 12%.

Gas turbine power stations 50%.

Take a look a grid watch website. It really shows the difference between extremely stable nuclear power which provides around just over 4GW consistently for months on end, compared to wind which can provide as much as 15GW but frequently provides less than 2. Gas is used to to fill the gaps, as no one wants to build nuclear(expensive) or burn coal(dirty).

Grid Watch

Is there some kind of 'energy bills for dummies' guide that I can use to estimate how much my bills will go up?

I'm with British Gas, DD, I can see my usage online but I don't understand how to project it forward.

Our current bills seem to be lower than average so it's hard to tell from what other people are saying. Our monthly usage ranges from £71-135 with an average of £89 (for gas + elec).

Any advice would be very welcome thanks!

I will be giving up my car once my d's finishes army cadets. I work from home anyway and order Asda online. I will be buying a pushbike to keep overheads down that way freeing up money to keep afloat.

It does feel a helluva wrench as I have been driving for over 40 years but I am working on minimalism and simplifying my lifestyle and several of my friends already cycle everywhere and it does them no harm whatsoeve r.

So the predicted October rise represents an additional 82% on current svr rates. £89+82%=£161.98

Although it's not really as easy as that because it assumes the you use the same proportion of gas to electricity as the assumption about average usage. Later in August the unit rate will be set for October so you can work it out more accurately then.

That also assumes you aren't on a cheap fixed rate deal, as if you are coming off a fix now then the increase will be much greater.

Oh yes, that too Hugasaurus.

If that's the case, op, you could find out how much you would be paying now on the svr and then add 82%.

Truss has now upgraded her position to 'not ruling out energy bill handouts'.

How nice of her.

I'm starting to think that the government might do something. I'm not sure what it'll be yet but the tone in the media at least has definitely changed over the past couple of days and it seems like the screws are tightening.

I maybe am saying this in blind hope as I come off a 'cheap fix' in October, and it's going to be hideous otherwise!

I suspect pressure will increase on this to the point where either the Tory party leadership race will be short-circuited and they'll agree it's Truss, or the candidates will be forced to agree a policy before Sept 5th.

Even the right-of-center media is full of doomsday predictions, and it's only getting worse.

Watching them ignore this is like watching a slow motion train wreck. It is blindingly obvious that pressure will continue to build on the issue until they fold. Better to get out ahead of it.

Good. If she is having to adjust her position to make herself more amenable to the Tory faithful then hopefully that means there is a broad political consensus among Conservatives that more needs to be done.

A VERY rough workout is to double what you are paying now, assuming you are on the variable, price capped rate? If you are averaging £89pm now then you are likely to be averaging £180pm over the next year (assuming you don't reduce usage or that something miraculous happens and prices go down). However, the government will pay £400 of that, split over Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar.

Oct - Mar: £180. Government pays £67. You pay £113
Mar onwards: You pay £180.

If you wanted to understand it in more detail...

Firstly, work out your yearly usage for gas and elec. Sometimes energy companies do this for and it's available online - have a look.

If not, do your bills or online account allow you to see what your metre readings were this time last year? If you do it this way you may need to translate gas from a cubic metre reading to a kwh - yell if you think you do and we can help.

Then check your latest bill to see what you are paying for each gas and electricity for:

• standing charge
• per KWH

Then total it all up for a yearly cost at current prices:

1. Electricity standing charge per day x 365
2. Electricity cost per kwh x the total kwh you use in a year
3. Gas standing charge per day x 365
4. Gas cost per kwh x the total kwh you use in a year

That will give you the total cost you face at current prices. Divide by 12 to understand how that translates to a monthly direct debit.

You get a gold star if your previous bills/online account allows you to see how much energy you used in each month and you do the sums above for each month of the year, allowing you to see the cost of the energy you use per month.

Then you can work out the projected cost per month over the next year, based on the predicted rises:

Oct - Dec: 82% increase over current prices
Jan - Mar: another 19% increase over Oct/Nov/Dec's prices
Apr - Jun: another 4% over Jan/Feb/Mar's prices
Jul - Sep: a 14% drop over Apr/May/Jun's prices

(the further out predictions may yet change dramatically, up or down, so be wary of those)

@dreamingbohemian you need to find out what tariff your on to be able to predict your bills. If you log onto British Gas online, then click your tariff, you’ll see what your current tariff is.

if your on a standard variable tariff, then your on the current price cap and you can expect your bills to go up around 82% in October.

if your on a different tariff, then you need to know when it ends to be able to predict future bills.

on that screen, if you click switch tariff, British Gas will give you a quote to fix - I fixed mine in June at 60% above current cap, which seemed huge at the time, but now I’m very relieved I did. Last week when I checked for DM they were offered 75% above cap, but I’d expect it to be higher now after yesterdays predictions :(

Oh wow thank you everyone for the advice!! This is super helpful! I mean, really depressing, but super helpful.

BG online is great in that I can see usage in £ and Kwh per day/month/year

So if I understand you all correctly, I should expect an 82% increase on what I pay now -- but if we reduce our usage, it should be less than 82%?

Does it matter that our gas usage is quite a bit lower than the average? Earlier on the thread I read:
The price cap is the maximum amount that can be charged for “a typical household”, defined as 2,900kWh electricity and 12,000kWh gas per year.

We are about that for electricity but only 8000 Kwh in gas, does that matter?

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread for personal advice, I hope it's helpful to other people too.