to say that "typical household energy prices won't fall by £238 per year"

[cakeorwine]

Typical energy bill to fall by £238 under new price cap - BBC News

I know that this is the new price cap - coming into force from April - and that it's a price cap on unit cost, not an overall maximum.
I know that they then look at the typical energy usage over a year and work out what the cost of that would be with these new prices and compare it to what it would be if they kept the prices the same.

BUT

Prices change every quarter.

Energy use peaks during winter, as people use more heating - so it's not consistent through the year.

We don't know what the price will be in July 24, Sept 24 or Dec 24. The price could be higher or it could be lower.

I don't know an easier way it could be presented to people - but I do think it's inaccurate to tell people that a typical household will save £238 a year.

YANBU. As you say the price cap changes every 3 months so we've got a couple more changes before next winter and who knows how good/bad they might be.

Most articles about the price cap are meaningless to us as they don't include the unit cost which is what we actually need to know. At least the BBC article included this. In the past we've had to go hunting on the ofgem website to find it because reporters just quoted the average bill.

We're rural with no gas so not the average household. And we're Economy 7 which means the day units are always even higher than the price cap because they're allowed to average the cost out across the 24 hours.

Thought this was useful from Martin Lewis though, “The new rates for 1 April have just been announced. In a nutshell, for every £100 a Direct Debit user spends on energy today, they’ll pay £87.70 for it from 1 April.” At least this lets people who pay by DD work out approximately what it'll mean for them for the next 3 months.

Agreed. Unit cost and standing charge is what enables people to calculate their bill. Not some arbitrary "average" figure that few can relate to because their usage is different.

I would prefer it if they said unit charge has gone up by x% and standing charge by y%. That gives you a better feeling as to how much bills are or are not increasing. That is pretty much the same as what Lewis said.

Yes this whole price cap average bill nonsense needs to stop and they just need to tell us what the standing charge and u it charge cost change is. It causes so much confusion with people thinking they won’t pay more than the price cap in a year. It’s treating everyone as being stupid but actually making it harder for stupid people to understand.

I have a spreadsheet with figures in - and can calculate my rough annual spend - based on unit costs and standing charges.

It's obvious that winter sees a lot more energy use - and we don't know what the unit cost will be in Winter 24.