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?!

[gogohmm]

Very sloppy wording. The cap is on the price per unit not how many units you use. Personally we use less than half the cap (modern house, I'm very tight with the heating- there's nothing wrong with thick jumpers!)

[Damnautocorrect]

she needs to sort commercial energy out or people won’t be able to afford this price cap when there’s a huge proportion out of work.


i still can’t get my head around bailing out businesses that make that much profit.

[anniegun]

To be honest I do not know anyone who is not fully aware of the meaning of the Cap given the impact energy prices have on everyone at the moment. I agree its lazy reporting but its been covered so intensively people are following the details closely

[BonesOfWhatYouBelieve]

@Auntieobem

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 agree. Of course that isn't what's happening. Why on earth would it be that??

[Abra1d1]

No word yet on help for mainly rural oil-fuelled households like ours. No gas in our area.

[Opake]

@BorgQueen

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.

Crap, I really hope they don’t use October’s standing charges.

[JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon]

If you see this from a proper news outlet please complain to the editor, and to the press complaints commission.

If it is on social media report it as false news for a fact check.

[Leftbutcameback]

The reporting certainly has been sloppy. They talk about "freezing" current rates but does that mean the October cap amount which most people are already working to, or the cap with applies now (Sept). It is hard to keep up with all the changes.

[Leftbutcameback]

This is the BBC wording: A typical household energy bill could be capped at around £2,500

[QuebecBagnet]

BBC are saying a typical bill will be capped at £2500. But yes they need to make it clearer.

[Opake]

Truss said “typical.”

Must do better, journalists!

[OfficiallyBroken]

I blame Ofgem for the confusion.

The whole language and structure used around price caps is clear as mud and lends itself to this level of misunderstanding and worry.

The language and application should be from kWh upwards so for example...Electricity will be capped at 30p per kWh, Gas will be capped at 5p per kWh and standing charges capped at 25p per day, therefore the average consumer could expect to pay £2,500 per year. (These are absolutely just numbers for the purpose of my example and not based on any kind of reality!)

Why on earth the ombudsman of all organisations can't get the message down to that level of clarity I have no idea. The media really don't help at all either.

[Leftbutcameback]

They're still at it

[Opake]

@OfficiallyBroken

I blame Ofgem for the confusion.

The whole language and structure used around price caps is clear as mud and lends itself to this level of misunderstanding and worry.

The language and application should be from kWh upwards so for example...Electricity will be capped at 30p per kWh, Gas will be capped at 5p per kWh and standing charges capped at 25p per day, therefore the average consumer could expect to pay £2,500 per year. (These are absolutely just numbers for the purpose of my example and not based on any kind of reality!)

Why on earth the ombudsman of all organisations can't get the message down to that level of clarity I have no idea. The media really don't help at all either.

💯

[sevenbyseven]

@Leftbutcameback

This is the BBC wording: A typical household energy bill could be capped at around £2,500

This is still misleading. No one's bill will be capped.

A more accurate statement would be "New price cap means a typical household energy bill could be £2,500"

[Leftbutcameback]

@sevenbyseven

This is still misleading. No one's bill will be capped.

A more accurate statement would be "New price cap means a typical household energy bill could be £2,500"

Yes, that's much better wording.