To think that the household energy bills may genuinely be limited to £2,500?

[Opake]

So the price cap is only a cap on the cost of energy per kWh. If you use more, you pay for more, and April’s price cap of £1,971 actually only illustrates how much an ‘average’ household would spend.

That said

Newspaper outlets, including The Times, are reporting today that “Household bills will be limited to £2,500.”

Usually I would think this is merely sloppy reporting and they have left out the important words: “Household bills will be limited to an average of £2,500.”

However, the journalists in question are sticking to their original copy and not editing it.

Which made me think… maybe they really are introducing a household cap of £2,500?! Is this just wishful thinking?!

No, it's just sloppy - and thank goodness, because would you really want people who, say, were heating an indoor pool or who had their heating up to 28 day and night to know that they could waste as much energy as they wanted with no consequence? Leaving aside fairness, it's also clearly bad for the environment. And no one wants people using any more gas than they need - supply is still limited, even if the price is subsidized.

If it is just sloppy then if I were in charge of Government comms I’d be on the phone to the editors now demanding a correction. Because I can just see people hit with massive bills this time next year, claiming “you told us that it was a £2.5k limit!” And then it’d be “the lying evil Tories” again rather than realising that the newspapers seemingly all are reporting this incorrectly.

A trait of poor journalism. Yes it's sloppy. A few people will have a shock as a result.

The government can't be held responsible for idiots.

For reference see : B Johnson.

That's the same way they've been reporting the price cap all the way through. Yes, it's misleading unless you look further into the detail and some people will be in for a shock. But it's nothing new.

I dont understand how people could really believe "use as much energy as you want, they can't charge you more than £x per year". How could anyone possibly think that would be the case??

I think complaints about “the lying evil Tories” will be expressed regardless of whether people understand the price cap is a cap on the unit cost, not a limit regardless of usage.

As PP said a cap on total usage would be idiotic because there would be no incentive to save energy, plus it would be grossly unfair because someone with a huge mansion would end up paying the same as someone with an average three bedroom semi.

It's just stupidity and laziness on all sides. There is not a chance in hell it is an actual price cap in the way you're implying (hypothetically).

I agree. I've seen people saying things like keeping heating on 24/7 because it's capped.

The messaging needs to be so much clearer

It’s absolutely sloppy journalism. There is way too much moral hazard from an absolute cap.

The way it's reported really bugs me. It should be reported as a price per kwh.

I agree it's lazy reporting. I'd hope when (if) it is announced the government will make it clearer and people understand it better.

However I appreciate I'm putting a lot of faith in common sense.

A colleague of mine who is very intelligent thought the cap meant that is all you have to pay. I had to explain it to him. A lot of people are going to be misled.

Sloppy and misleading reporting. Again and again and again.

If you're an above average energy user, you will pay more than £2,500 a year.

This article shows what the previously expected October price could mean for different size houses. (This is before Liz Truss's new, lower price cap is announced.)

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-26/as-energy-costs-soar-bills-for-larger-uk-homes-will-hit-10-000

It would be good if they could actually say per kWh then I could work out if I need to come off my extortionate fixed tariff!! Hopefully we will know more soon and who it will be for

There's lots of things reported in the media that aren't absolutely correct when taken at face value, so why pick up on this particular issue? Many newspapers are one step up from social media in the level of accuracy, completeness and reliability of the information they publish.

It's fairly obvious that a newspaper article is not a full and accurate reflection of 'the rules' or terms and conditions of an energy supply contract, so you wouldn't take it as such without going off to do your own research from a more reliable source, would you?

It’s around 30p per kwh for electric and 10p for gas.

That’s all they need to put, possibly adding that it’s a 22p reduction (elec) and 3.5p reduction (gas) on the previously predicted October levels.

I think there's also a lot of misunderstanding about the scale of the variation in the size of bills across the year for most people.

So many people have said things in the last few weeks like 'my energy company wants to set my direct debit at £200 pm but my last bill was £80, what a rip off, scam, they're making a fortune in interest off my money etc etc', while seemingly oblivious that they're saying this at the end of the hottest, driest summer that we've ever experienced and it's very likely they'll use a lot more and hence run up much larger bills in winter, and that's before the price rise where even with the government subsidies the unit costs will be around double what they were last winter, which was also quite mild so people probably used less than they would in a harsh winter.

Fine if you can cope with large variations in your budget and pay £80 pm in July and August and £300 pm in January and February, but a lot of people would probably find it a lot easier to budget by paying the same amount year round.

That’s useful @BorgQueen , that’s about what I’m paying now so hopefully won’t get much worse than it is.

although I do worry that with capping the unit rate, they’ll still be free to increase the standing charges, mine are already almost 60p a day electric and 32p gas!

The rumours are that they will keep standing charges at October rates and there’s an outside chance they’ll remove VAT.
I recently fixed at 57p/14p so British gas had better let me drop onto svr with no penalty.

If they actually capped bills at £2,500 then people would have their heating etc on constantly and there’s just not enough resources for that to happen. They’re already talking about rationing gas/electric supplies , properly capping bills would make the situation worse.

So many people do take what they read in the media at face value. This is an important issue and clarity is really needed to stop people overspending as they expect a £2.5k cap.

I think it's sloppy reporting. If the companies (National Grid?) are looking into the possibility of blackouts and brownouts then they will be assuming that people use a similar amount of energy as last year.

If household bills were limited to £2500 then the energy companies would lose money in many cases and a PM who doesn't believe in windfall taxes is not going to go there.