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?

We are high use users. I have an electric car, five people in a 4 bed, kitchen is entirely electric and a chronic illness which means a warmer home means better health in the winter.

We were able to use savings to get solar panels and a home battery in April. It's going to be the reason we aren't entirely screwed. The speed with which this system will come to pay for itself is crazy now.

It’s not quite like that though @IndifferentFeet . The cap is updated quarterly so if wholesale prices go down, the cap will go down and bills will decrease. It’s not a one way change.

The system itself is a mess and the impact on people is awful but I don’t think it’s the cap that’s the problem. It’s the wholesale prices being sky high, and yes the cap and the regulatory system weren’t really designed around this situation.

I think there's a large swathe of middle England who are going to be the new working poor. We don't get any top.ups or benefits. Are taxed heavily and are also supporting the economy. Once that money is tied up in paying bills recession is going to really bite.

This is mad. I feel completely sick at the thought. It's not just fuel rises, but also food.

WTF are Truss and Sunak on? No-one is doing anything actually practical like building new on-shore wind to generate more energy or insulating homes to bring down demand. Just these macro levers that are highly uncertain (Sunak argues Truss tax cut will fuel inflation, she argues the opposite - there seems to be scant evidence for either position).

Completely agree about the billions found for Eat Out to Help Out, but not for this stuff. Governing is just a giant PR exercise for these clowns.

@Mangolist my reality, my energy bills will soon be higher than my rent each month and I have no idea how I'll cope.

I already do lots of cold meals to not switch my electric oven on. I have a DD with a medical condition that means we need hot water and heating in winter to help her to be able to walk but I'm not sure I can even afford to switch the heating on.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches because the wholesale prices are going up! When they come down - hopefully next year - the cap will go down.

If there was no cap, suppliers would be free to charge you as much as they wanted and believe me it would be much, much more than it is now. Like I say many aren’t making a profit (last year over 20 suppliers went bust and this year who knows?)

I don't know where you shop for curtains, but mine cost max £70 a pair for floor to ceiling. My house has 4 windows curtains could be put on.

If you live in a mansion and have them made bespoke, maybe they cost thousands.....

Even so, all new curtains would be less than a month of gas and electric for many. Which is also disturbing.

Let’s say for the sake of argument someone was using 1/3 more energy than they needed to, and paying £150 last year. So they could insulate and get curtains and a slow cooker and get that down to £100/month. But even after doing all that, with price rises they would be faced with £400 a month next year. AFTER cutting down. You can’t pop a bit of tinfoil behind a radiator and wish away 400% price rises. This is not about people walking around in t-shirts. The average usage cited for price cap purposes is not a particularly profligate use of energy and although anyone with that usage could cut down a bit they’d struggle to halve it.

I was on £75 with British Gas then got an email saying £180 and every week it’s a new announcement. It’s depressing. Going to have to use savings to pay energy bills and really think about the kids and treats and Christmas budgeting. Even at £180 I was thinking what the hell and now I am kind of in a panic mode about this in addition to the fuel prices to use the car to get to work. This is before the add on off the increase in most food items etc.

The problem also is that a lot of 'advice' out there is useless for renters. We can't make any real modifications in our homes to reduce bills, or force landlords to fix things.

£350 a month. That's absurd

If it goes that high, I'll have to get a lodger.

So the supply of Russian gas to Europe has been cut due to the war in Ukraine.

Although the UK only gets 5 to 10% of its gas from Russia, Germany for example gets 55% of its gas from Russia. As this is no longer possible they have to buy more gas from say Norway or LNG which normally supplies the UK.

To get those countries to do this they have to pay a higher price than the UK is paying so that in turn pushes up the price in the UK. If Norway and the LNG suppliers illogically refused to sell at the higher price to Germany, gas prices would stay low in the UK but Germany would then get no gas

It's supply and demand.

If you want gas prices to come down before winter then the best solution is for the war in Ukraine to come to an end as soon as possible.

Our bill is already £4300 a year. I am awaiting with horror to see what it will rise to in the winter.

Last winter I got some long thermal blackout curtains, that are also quite wide from Dunelm for £80 a pair.

For ONE window, lots can't find £80 for one window let alone the whole house.

Everyone should be worried because wherever you work they now have to find the money to cover the energy bills, so they will need to cut costs or raise prices. Jobs will be at risk and everything, everything we buy will be going up.

From twitter:

"Liz Truss not budging when asked several times about providing extra support on energy bills:

"What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back."

Am I being naive to think the government could just NOT raise the price cap? I mean they COULD do that, right?

Just in case you're not aware, you can register with the Priority Services Register with your energy supplier if you (or occupants) are elderly, disabled or vulnerable and need energy as a priority. I've just registered my dad as he has Lifeline plus a heart monitor at home which sends his heart readings to the hospital once a day. If you're on the register, they can't ever cut you off and your home is a priority in the event of a blackout/brownout.

If you suspect most ordinary people can afford this you are living in very different circles to me. People were already doing everything they can to lower their energy bills two years ago because they couldn't afford them

2018 was £85/month for gas and electricity. 2022 will see us at £400/month. No pay rises here to help though. It’s dire!

No, the government don't run Ofgem.

This is the crux of it.

People are having to pay more than 4 times more for the same thing - in many cases for less as they have limited their usage.

It’s simply not sustainable for anybody other than the very wealthy

I'd like a decent explanation of this too, in words that everyone can understand.

My fix is £1000 over that.

I will manage but I won't be eating out, going to the hairdresser, meeting friends out of the house for drinks etc. Services and hospitality will be hit hard when large amounts of people do the same. It's true we've gone from an enforced lockdown to can't afford to go anywhere anyway! The government were so keen to have everyone back in the office for the likes of Pret and so on, but who's going to be "wasting" money on those things now?

People who are reasonably ok now are probably still likely looking ahead. Thinking what will everything cost in 12 months time? I know I am. So any spare cash now is being saved rather than frittered away.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I've been poor and on benefits as a single mum and I managed but it was tough. But back then prices on everything were reasonable. Sensible budgeting made it work. But you can't budget what you don't have. If there's no more money in the pot what do you do.

True they could do this, but all that would happen is that the energy suppliers would still have to pay the high international market price for gas but then sell it at a loss to customers and would then go out of business.

This happened in California, although that also involved illegal price manipulation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301Californiaaelectricitycrisis#:~:text=The%202000%E2%80%9301%20California%20electricity,and%20capped%20retail%20electricity%20prices.

Please note that the there is a big difference between energy producers such as BP or Exxon that find and produce natural gas and those that just supply it like OVO for example. Some companies like Centrica or Shell do both.

There is very little profit if not an outright loss right now in just supplying gas to households. The same logic applies to electricity.