To worry that people think the price cap means unlimited energy

[Shortjanet]

I've read quite a few comments here where posters seem to think fixed or capped energy prices mean that you can pay a set or limited amount for unlimited energy. It's quite worrying to think how much debt people might run up. The way the headlines are describing it as "bills capped to £x" or similar is helping to fuel the misunderstanding (no pun intended) I think. AIBU to wish the media were being clearer that caps and fixes apply to each kWh used and standing charges, not the total you can pay.

This. I’ve been trying to explain to my friend how it works until I confused myself because she just couldn’t get it it lol. And she’s very smart. This explanation was perfect and I have sent it to her. Phew.

No one should be belittled if they ask for help.

I wish more people would ask for help.

I saw your post yesterday and was confused but have seen lots of this today including references to rich people heating their pools and mansions for £2500 per year.

I agree with you about the reporting but if media reported it as using kwh, I think a lot of people would ignore the news as they don't know what tariff they are on right now. Last year was the first time that I had fixed my energy in all my adult life and I'm mid 40s.

I hope that we are wrong and people aren't going to be furious when their annual bill isn't under £2500.

@cakeorwine I agree with your points and the bill you shared is spot on - has all the needed information in a clearly accessible manner.

The issue is you'll never "win" this debate with logic or facts as there's many on here determined to justify that it's "everyone else's fault and responsibility" but the actual individual responsible (and who signed up for the contract themselves).

In my view it's part of a broader issue we have in society: no-one wants to take responsibility but everyone wants more and more rights (forgetting that one goes hand in hand with the other)

But I do think that as an adult, you need to take responsibility or get support if you don't understand a bill. There are resources out there and people willing to support others.

Yes, you should; but it's very easy to feel so hopeless if you really struggle with maths, logical thinking, have learning difficulties and/or are vulnerable etc. If something contains a few minor things you're not too sure about, you're far more likely to try to fill in the gaps; but when you don't have the faintest clue where to start, you'll probably just panic and retreat.

Imagine if you - in the UK - received bills entirely in Japanese. How would you begin to try to understand them?

A top athlete will be training hard and constantly striving in earnest to shave a fraction of a hundredth of a second off their time, whilst I - who have mobility problems - sometimes take the best part of a minute just to get up out of my armchair, and sometimes require several minutes before I have the strength and energy to even begin trying. If said athlete tried to engage me in discussions about the above bettering times, at best, my brain would just glaze over and go on strike; at worst, I would just feel so utterly rubbish and downcast and wonder what could possibly be the point.

But I do think that as an adult, you need to take responsibility or get support if you don't understand a bill. There are resources out there and people willing to support others

And you don't think asking for clarification from others counts? Say...on an anonymous parenting forum where you'd hope not to be judged (and at least then people wouldn't be shaming you to your face)..?

In my view it's part of a broader issue we have in society: no-one wants to take responsibility but everyone wants more and more rights (forgetting that one goes hand in hand with the other)

I do agree with you to a large extent, but I think it's far too simplistic and easy to lump in the lazy, entitled, arrogant chancers along with the great many who genuinely do struggle a lot, as if they were all one homogenous group, deserving no pity or empathy at all.

cakeorwine

Thank you so much for your patient explanation

Perfectly acceptable

I have helped many people on here to understand their bills and have helped them understand their electricity usage - and find ways to reduce it

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4600620-the-true-cost-of-running-electrical-devices-a-useful-guide?page=2&reply=119594952

www.mumsnet.com/talk/cost_of_living/4618028-the-how-much-does-this-cost-to-run-thread?page=6&reply=119811106

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4625036-understanding-power-kwh-and-the-price-cap-a-guide-with-some-analogies?reply=119710865

Something that I don’t think has been pointed out, and is worth mentioning, is that not everyone does get bills. I am on a non-smart prepay meter that was here when I moved in, and I haven’t been able to get it changed. I have asked the provider for bills just for information, and been told it’s not possible with a legacy meter to provide any information about usage. So then I tried meter readings. There are two screens that show kWh when I flick through the screen options, but they show different readings! There is nothing to indicate what each screen is showing (eg current usage, usage in the last week/month/since last top up etc.). Both figures are high so I don’t think can be current usage, beyond that, no idea. Again I asked the provider for help, and again they were not able to provide any, as they didn’t know themselves. So I take these readings but have no idea how to establish actual usage except by how quickly my top ups run out based on the usage charge. It is ridiculous! I will try to post pictures of the screens for reference.

It's absolutely astonishing how many people don't understand energy pricing, tariffs and capped pricing. Yet it seems OK that these people are expected to understand far more complex subjects to submit an informed vote in elections, and referendums.

Would anybody like to speculate whether leave or brexit supporters are more likely to understand energy bills?

Oh give it a rest.

For your first paragraph I encourage you to read the thread.

For your final question, no, I would not care. Utterly pointless, troll-like question

help.bulb.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360006294991-How-to-read-your-top-up-prepayment-meter#h_994ed193-80de-4c95-b8e3-154ca8280238
Is this any use?

It's absolutely astonishing how many people don't understand energy pricing, tariffs and capped pricing. Yet it seems OK that these people are expected to understand far more complex subjects to submit an informed vote in elections, and referendums.

Although they of course are fully entitled to vote - and wholesale denying all members of any particular group/class of adults (other than prisoners) the vote based on a perceived/believed/assumed lack of understanding/ability to participate properly has not tended to fall on the right side of history in retrospect - I'm guessing that there's a very large crossover between the proportion of those who don't go out to exercise their vote and those who just don't understand/care about/see the point of elections; so there would be a lot of self-exclusion on that point, whether intentionally or not.

It is right that reporting of the price cap is misleading, I've been saying this for a while. However, the media are taking their lead from the regulator Ofgem, who like to bandy these "typical" figures about without explaining they are examples. They have tried to infantilise the public, believing them to be incapable of understanding unit costs, and in doing so have only succeeded in making them more confused.

At a time when it is important people understand their bills (and the need to cut consumption), it is highly misleading in my view.

From the BBC today about the price cap:

'It will mean an average household will pay £3,549 a year for their energy for typical use'.

There's two indicators in that sentence to show that £3549 is subject to 'it depends'.

Household size and typical use - now while people might be under the impression that two showers per person per day with a clean towel every time before putting clean clothes on that have been tumbled dried come rain or shine in a house where the heating is on 22 C 34/7/365 is what everyone does, it's really not, so if that's the way you roll, it's likely to cost more than that.

But people can surely work out that 1 or 2 people who go out to work every day and live in a well insulated flat are likely to use less than the average household and a family with a SAHP who are at home a lot in a 4/5 bed detached are likely to use more than average?

For anyone who doesn't understand their bills or can't do a bit of addition and multiplication, there's also calculators on energy company websites and the likes of Moneysaving Expert that will work it all out for you.

So how can it not be any clearer without making it a long sentence full of numbers, which we've established many people don't understand, that the price cap is not a maximum for all circumstances?

They'd have to say something like 'the price cap is £X which breaks down as A pence per unit for electricity plus B pence per day standing charge plus C pence per unit for gas plus D pence per day standing charge'. All these amounts will vary slightly depending on how you pay and, for electricity, where you are in the country.

Daily Mail headline today.

They should have added the word 'average or typical'

And The Sun

But then we're back to 'if anyone makes any decisions in life based solely on a headline in the Daily Mail then more fool them'.

At least with misunderstanding how energy bills work, it's only their own finances they're fucking up.

And to remind people.

In Oct 21, the price cap was £1309 per year

There were calls for support - there was the £400 off plus some support for pensioners and people on Universal Credit

In April 22, the price cap jumped to £1971

In Oct 22 - if predicted, it will be at £2500 - so £1200 more than in Oct 21 - for average users. This is the Truss support

It gets more complicated - as it will be interesting to see how they set the price of gas. But your gas is already twice as much now as it was in October 21 and it was predicted to go to nearly 3.5 times more - and then higher Who knows what the Truss subsidy will do?

I think some people - including the Government - are going to be in for a shock.

From the Sun

"LIZ Truss will today freeze energy bills at £2,500 and greenlight an expansion of North Sea drilling.
She will reveal a cap on wholesale prices for at least four months, enabling lower prices for households and businesses."

The BBC today says "The amount you actually pay depends on the amount of energy you use" and then gives a scenario of a one-bed flat, three-bed house and five-bed house. To be fair, the amounts they're quoting start at £2,400 for the one-bed and then go up to £5,100 for the five-bed; but I can still see people thinking that it means 'what you would pay without the new cap'.

I think some people might reason almost that it's a foregone conclusion if you live in a big house - i.e. it's almost like they're saying that the house uses this much rather than you are likely to use this much if you live in a big house.

It isn't necessarily a huge leap for people to see the figures and illustrations, rationalise that 'the government is helping by reducing the bills for households to the stated capped level' and then that, as bigger houses are more likely to contain more children, take it that the government is going to be giving more help to those who need it more - reducing it down to £2,500 for all families - in the same way that the government gives more tax credits/UC/child allowance based on you having more children.

Regardless of what people 'should' realise, I still think the word 'cap' is being used problematically and will confuse many people. People (not unreasonably) believe that 'cap' means 'the maximum you will pay' and the workings out are still not helping to make it crystal clear to those who might be confused about it. Sometimes, you really do need to spell things out rather than using a shorthand and just assuming that everybody will understand.

Absolutely, I work in a related field and have to explain this all the time, and the confusion goes right through society, comfortable or poor, well educated or not.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Sometimes, you really do need to spell things out rather than using a shorthand and just assuming that everybody will understand.

I largely agree but we can't take this approach for everything (and where would we stop?).

It reminds me of the saying, and if I may build upon it:

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.... and sometimes you need to accept it'll go thirsty as you've other horses to tend to"

To be fair I only properly informed myself on what a price cap actually meant in March this year and I'm in my late 40s! I then got out previous winter bills and calculated what our winter bills would look like if the worst case scenario unfolded in October and then January- using the predicted rise in unit prices. I'm thick as mince when it comes to maths, but it's really not that hard. There are even online calculators to convert cubic metres of gas into kw/h. There are online calculators for everything! I even found one that takes the wattage of an appliance and converts it into kw/h for the numerically challenged like me.