I thought I’d repeat on this topic, that the issue with prices is global, it’s a wholesale price issue.
It’s not Octopus (or other energy suppliers) trying to rip you off. Energy suppliers make less than £10 per customer. In fact, wholesale prices are so high that under the price cap, suppliers are selling energy at a loss.
Because the suppliers left manage their businesses properly, they ‘hedge’ these wholesale prices, essentially fixing them in advance. As gas prices rise, they lose money buying gas (because it’s more expensive), but make money on the offsetting ‘hedge’ (it’s something you can buy from a bank, for example). The result is a small (less than £10) profit per customer - assuming the supplier has hedged costs perfectly.
It is in everybody’s interests to have well-hedged, properly run energy suppliers. Some suppliers are generators too - but their profit will depend on their hedging strategy. Banks are also making profits too on the hedging profits (on the generation side).
If energy suppliers did not hedge properly, everybody would have to pay the wholesale price rather than the ‘hedged’ price, and the cost would be far, far higher than the variable tariff. Energy suppliers are necessary villains I’m afraid, but many of them are helping consumers through various schemes. All little suppliers that went bust did so a long time ago because they didn’t understand the importance of hedging future customer volumes.
The only answers are to lower consumption or try to get a time of use tariff and pay lower prices overnight.