Energy Price Cap to hit nearly £7000, what is the chance they will hit £10k by end of 2023?

[onthefencesitter]

I think it's extremely likely esp if Putin cuts off Nord Stream. Thoughts?

would be sold on the open market. this is what energy companies do. for their shareholder value

There will be some so-called relief package of some description to make some people feel like they are being protected.

Double glazed windows, energy efficient doors, loft, floor, walls all insulated , heat recovery system & a boiler manager, can’t do anymore but frankly getting bored listening to all now

You're both right of course @BeyondMyWits and @latetothefisting .

It's going to be extremely depressing and really scary when places close their doors due to the bills. People will lose their jobs then be even more unable to pay bills.

I'm scared it's going to spiral into absolute mayhem pretty quickly if something isn't done.

How on earth are schools, hospitals and care homes going to pay? They can't even afford school books let alone an extra £50K per year added to bills.and food. I work for a charity and I'm very worried this is going to tip everything over the edge.

France have nationalised their main energy supplier as they were charging too much - why can't we do that??

Putin messing about with Nordstream this week?

put this shivers up the industry I think

nationalization doesn't really work for us as we still have to buy gas from overseas at inflated prices (loss of russian gas means prices go up like crazy and this is made worse by the fact that china is transitioning to gas and so demand is high plus lots of asian countries have contracts to buy LNG fuel). So we are importing from norway and europe at inflated prices. Even if you nationalize the energy companies you still have to import that expensive gas . There are merits to nationalization but it wouldn't necessarily lead to lower prices.

France has a lot of nuclear energy so is protected in that way. But the French state is still subsidizing EDF to the tune of 8 billion every 3 months.

Of course the state has to step in; it can either do the keir starmer plan of freezing the energy cap at current levels (very very very expensive) or just giving money to the vulnerable to pay their bills (lots of middle income households will suffer). I don't think there are any solutions except long term plans to become more energy independent. I think for most of us, we have to cut back on energy to bare minimum or pay the high prices. live in smaller energy efficient properties that are cheaper to heat.

Limiting your showers to 4 minutes a day saves approx. £38 in a year. Doesn't that rather depend on what you are limiting it down from, whether you have a power shower, how hot the water is, etc. ? 😉 I know, it's an average, but from a very broad range of costs and savings.

I can't get the soap suds out when washing my hair in 4 minutes and prefer baths anyway. But I don't have one every day, and I will economise further on other things. Although most of the things people are suggesting to economise on, we don't have already. But we are getting a new cheap microwave (other one went kaput before we moved house), that'll help us to use less gas.

Yes and the average consumption doesn’t move in these predictions - as if people will be sitting there worried about their £600 a month bills in a room with heating on 12 hours a day in winter. Logically, the average use will come down quite a lot?

I do think there is a massive problem but I find the newspaper headlines confusing. I’m very worried about small businesses who won’t be able to reduce their energy use much at all. I don’t see how takeaways and restaurants survive.

This

But there are many who cannot breathe in cold air without running into health problems.

Of course the state has to step in

It doesnt.

And it hasnt, Not to any degree.

@Wishyfishy

"Yes and the average consumption doesn’t move in these predictions - as if people will be sitting there worried about their £600 a month bills in a room with heating on 12 hours a day in winter. Logically, the average use will come down quite a lot? "

+++

Spot on - demand will come down simply because people can't afford the high prices. As they say the best cure for high prices is high prices.

In addition at the current high prices additional supply will come on as any mothballed power plants will be brought back into service and additional gas supply brought on n stream.

Previously on UK gas consumption - roughly 50% is produced in the UK (down from 100% 20 years ago) a third is supplied by Norway, 5% from Russia (probably now down to zero) and the rest from LNG. Or in short it won't take much of a drop in demand or much of an increase in supply to give a significant drop in prices.

I won’t be having heating this winter. I also don’t have double glazed windows (I can’t afford to replace them) so any heat I do have goes straight out of the window anyway. I’ll turn on the radiator in my sons room and rely on the open fire…which doesn’t give a lot of heat. I don’t know what else to do.
How are people supposed to live?

Of course it doesn't. It can just watch our economy collapse.

I heard on the radio yesterday that Toney Blair rejected investing in nuclear because it would too long to get things up and running.
Bizarrely the projected date for those plants working was 2022. If only they had known what was ahead.
It seems to be that governments (of all parties) are only interested in short term vote winning strategies.

At this point £6500 in April and £9000 are the most conservative estimates.

If it can go up fourfold in a year then it can go up fourfold in a year again.

interesting news piece from 2003
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3034088.stm

UK power cuts 'in 20 years'

Britain could face power cuts within the next 20 years as the country imports the bulk of its energy needs, a report says.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) says 80% of the gas needed to fuel power stations will come from what it calls "politically unstable" countries thousands of miles away.

The report says that if the supply was interrupted the lights would start to go out within hours.

The institution said emission constraints mean that the UK's coal-powered generating plants will close shortly after 2016 and only one nuclear power station will remain operational beyond 2020.

Ok but listen, we are an eco conscious household and a few years ago we got rid of gas and worked hard to reduce our usage.

Since then we have been paying about £100 a month.

Our direct debit is going up to over £500 a month and life is going to have to depart from a normal British way of life quite considerably to reduce our usage by even a quarter of that.

Sky new have just said the new amount could be £7700 a year I expect it will be more than £10.000 being quoted by next week.
Whu not if the government are going to hand over £10.000 for every household or the millons on top ups why stop at 10.000 sky's the limit.

Excellent. Tell your local fish and chip shop. They are looking at energy bills of £70,000.

We did know. The last three Labour manifestos were full of strategies to make Britain energy independent via more wind, solar and tidal lagoons etc, and Jeremy Corbyn planned to renationalise it.

Britain's energy sector should work for our country. Not against it.

This current shower are so clueless they decommissioned a nuclear power plant.

My hot water and heating is via Oil which is coming back down in price. My electric bill is still £150 a month..... From £90 when we first moved in 3yrs ago and had credit built up for the winter period. We are paying 33p/kw and no standing charge. If we go over £200 a month I literally cannot afford to pay it.

Its going to be grim winter in alot of households this year.

I am getting really f’d off with everyone telling people to reduce their fuel consumption to a minimum. One of my children is quadriplegic with respiratory problems, her bed is a hospital bed (plugged in as needs changing position through the night) she is fed by a pump (needs to be fully charged from the mains) her consultant wants her to go onto a CPAP machine at night this winter, you guessed it, plugged in to mains, I have a stats machine (again, plugged into mains) for her and she can’t regulate her body temp. She’s a hoists that is mains operated and Her room has underfloor heating which I turned off in March this year. However she can’t breathe properly in the cold and her health declines. I have 3 other children and am a single parent, I haven’t used heating since March and won’t do on the house this year, but will have to heat my daughters room which runs off a different system. We’re already sharing bath water, cleanest in first! Me and my three able bodied children can wrap up and move about to keep warm, my disabled child, this is not possible. I’m so scared for hat will happen to her health over winter if I can’t afford the basic electric she needs for her equipment, let alone the heating for her.

Are you really expecting to pay £500 a month though? Energy prices are going up by c 80% in October plus there will be the £400. Even if you are increasing your direct debit to make a big buffer, surely £250 would suffice?

I say that because we spend a bit more like £120 a month on energy. The projection from my provider, the fixed deal I was offered until last week and my own calculations all suggest that I will be spending in the £200s from October. Because of Jan and April to come we’ll probably pay upper £200s (and it will be overpaying a little to save a credit).

Is £500 really correct? Have you checked the numbers?