April 2023 Electricity Prices

[tsedge]

Hi,

What do people think the cap will mean for both standard and Octopus Go rates from April 2023?

The energy “cap” is rising from £2,500 to £3,000, which is a 20% rise (remember that the £66/67pm is a £400 subsidy we won’t get next year, so bills will actually rise by 43%).

The cap covers both standing charges and unit rates and the mix across gas and electricity varies - for example next year we may have lower standing charges if we have paid off some of the energy company failures from last year. Then also, the rates/charges vary regionally.

Cornwall Insight’s latest predictions:

Predicted fall in the April 2023 Price Cap but prices remain significantly above the EPG

Our latest Default Tariff Cap (price cap) forecasts for April – June 2023 (Q223) have dropped by over £600 since the last widely released figures on 17 October.

www.cornwall-insight.com

I am thinking the basic rate will be 40p/kWh and Octopus Go will be 50p/17.5p

Edit: And I am thinking rapid chargers will rise to 75-90p/kWh.

Edit2: Got my sums wrong! Corrected!

 

[smokie]

It's a bit of fun maybe but impossible for anyone, even Cornwall, to predict. The elevated energy costs are apparently largely due to the Ukraine situation, and if that were to significantly improve I suppose we could find prices lower.

 

[JohnInFrance]

Sorry, perhaps a little off topic, but at least loosly related, but why do the UK media (and the government it seems) insist on quoting this energy cap price as £2500/£3000 rather than what it actually is, a price per kW/h used plus the standing charge?

Is this because they feel the public are incapable of working out their bills and have to dumb it down to an 'average' price? Have you ever met an average household? I'm not sure I have, but I have spoken to people who genuinely expect that their bill will not pass £2500 no matter how much electricity that they use !!!

 

[MoDolph]

Is this because they feel the public are incapable of working out their bills

Yes, the average member of the public is that stupid. As evidenced by:

"but I have spoken to people who genuinely expect that their bill will not pass £2500 no matter how much electricity that they use !!!"

 

[tsedge]

Sorry, perhaps a little off topic, but at least loosly related, but why do the UK media (and the government it seems) insist on quoting this energy cap price as £2500/£3000 rather than what it actually is, a price per kW/h used plus the standing charge?

Is this because they feel the public are incapable of working out their bills and have to dumb it down to an 'average' price? Have you ever met an average household? I'm not sure I have, but I have spoken to people who genuinely expect that their bill will not pass £2500 no matter how much electricity that they use !!!

Partly they are patronising us all by saying we can’t work it out. But also partly it is because they figure out the average figure first then have complicated discussions to figure out what that means for elec:gas unit rates, standing charges and regional variations. So I think it is as much about them trying to make their process easier.

The £2500/£3000 is also a MEDIAN (middle) figure not the most common or averaged value, so not many people actually have the median usage.

 

[JohnInFrance]

Yes, the average member of the public is that stupid. As evidenced by:

"but I have spoken to people who genuinely expect that their bill will not pass £2500 no matter how much electricity that they use !!!"

That's my point, this figure is being force-fed to people so violently that they actually believe it and I've not seen government or mainstream media doing anything to explain this is a 'best guess, average, middle-of-the-roadish' figure, not a cap.

When someone says price cap to me, that suggests that the price cannot rise above that which is not, and has never been, the situation here - it stinks of media supported spin sadly.

 

[JohnInFrance]

Partly they are patronising us all by saying we can’t work it out. But also partly it is because they figure out the average figure first then have complicated discussions to figure out what that means for elec:gas unit rates, standing charges and regional variations. So I think it is as much about them trying to make their process easier.

The £2500/£3000 is also a MEDIAN (middle) figure not the most common or averaged value, so not many people actually have the median usage.

And I agree and have no issue with that, it's nice to have an average figure, but it should be stressed every time this ficticious statement is made that's all this is, an indicitive figure and that each household's final bills are based upon a capped kW/h charge plus the standing charge and reflect the energy used - that message is simply not being given enough.

 

[tsedge]

And I agree and have no issue with that, it's nice to have an average figure, but it should be stressed every time this ficticious statement is made that's all this is, an indicitive figure and that each household's final bills are based upon a capped kW/h charge plus the standing charge and reflect the energy used - that message is simply not being given enough.

Agreed. If it was up to me, they’d say:

1. We are capping the unit rates at X & Y
2. Here’s a typical monthly bill for a 1-bed flat, 2-bed flat, 2-bed terraced house, 3-bed semi, 4/5 bed detached.
3. Here’s the typical monthly increase for a 1-bed flat….

 

[awbugritt]

Don't be silly, that would require commonsense

 

[Lovemyev]

To be fair Martin Lewis of "Moneysaving Expert" fame, has been preaching the message very loud and clear for months and months now, about there is NO LIMIT placed on your usage / bill !.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-price-guarantee/

 

[Roldorf]

In Germany for gas if you can keep your usage down to 80% of last years bill you will pay the old prices anything over that will be at the new rate.

 

[awbugritt]

Now there's an incentive, but is it achievable?

 

[JohnInFrance]

Now there's an incentive, but is it achievable?

I think it should be. As an example, prices have not risen here in France anywhere near as much as they have in the UK, but they have still risen and continue to do so with next year looking to be over twice the percentage rise as we saw this year, hence we have been making lots of small changes to change our power use habits etc. and it is working.

The biggest thing we have done is reduce the time that our water heater runs to around 2 hours per day which still produces more hot water than we can use. Only running the washing machine twice a week rather than 3 or 4 times, turning off lights, computers, and unplugging things such as phone chargers when they are not being used - all small things, not one of them really affecting us detrementally (or to be honest, really even noticing that we have made these changes!) and the results speak for themselves.

This is our November 2021 electricity usage:

And this is Nov 2022 (to date)

The results couldn't be clearer and just go to show that a lot of small, seemingly inconsequential changes can add up to a huge difference overall.

 

[awbugritt]

Very interesting

 

[tsedge]

In Germany for gas if you can keep your usage down to 80% of last years bill you will pay the old prices anything over that will be at the new rate.

I like the idea, although it has flaws.

If we had that in the UK, I could achieve it just by switching off the hot tub. But a struggling family of 4 would find it much harder to do.

Even better would be thresholds for different size houses/households.

 

[smokie]

Didn't I read somewhere that France more cushioned because they have more nukes, whereas we've had to fire up gas (and coal) powerstations for electricity? You reap what you sow...

 

[JohnInFrance]

Didn't I read somewhere that France more cushioned because they have more nukes, whereas we've had to fire up gas (and coal) powerstations for electricity? You reap what you sow...

Hahaha .... yes, we have more nukes but .....

France has 56 nuclear reactors but it's an ageing infrastructure, having put no new commercial reactor into service for more than 20 years. Today, almost half of those 56 are at a standstill for maintenance, (some have been turned off for up to 12 years) with schedules slowed by industrial action (quelle surprise en France eh?), or due to what the national nuclear watchdog has worryingly called, “corrosion”. The problem is so wide that EDF are upping the output (and subesquently the input) of France's gas powered stations at the moment.

Interestingly, the UK government confirmed in the Autumn Statement that they are pushing ahead with the Sizewell C reactor and paying EDF to deliver it. However, what should be ringing alarm bells loud and clear in Westminster right now is that no EPR reactor - the type proposed for Sizewell C - has ever actually been successfully completed in France; work began on France's first EPR reactor in 2003 at Flamanville and was slated for delivery in 2012 with a cost of €3billion - it's now 10 years late and still not yet online and earlier this year EDF announced further delays and a new commissioning date of "sometime during 2023" along with a staggering €16billion cost uplift!

In summary, yep, we have more nukes here than Britain does, but it's not helping us enrmously at the moment and could rapidly become somewhat of a burdon.

 

[Lovemyev]

Didn't I read somewhere that France more cushioned because they have more nukes, whereas we've had to fire up gas (and coal) powerstations for electricity? You reap what you sow...

Yes your right !.
In the U.K. all of our power plants where sold off one by one years ago.
The government have recently announced they are to build a brand new nuclear plant.
Which given the current situation, very late but welcomed in some circles.
It will be built in conjunction with the French company EDF energy.
I just can’t believe that SO many European countries, where daft enough to line the pockets of Russia with money by buying their cheap gas and then NOT expecting it to bite them on the arse, latter down the road ?.
All if this money that they have received from all of the countries, has been used to buy weapons to bomb the place to bits.
Why did they not see this coming ??.
I think they call it “Putting all of your eggs in one basket”.
They bought it, because it was cheap.
Not so cheap now though folks, is it !.

 

[smokie]

But it's because "we" want cheap, we are apparently not prepared to pay for stuff. It's visible all over the place - the state of the NHS and other public services, poor customer services in other industries to name a couple.

People want tax to come down, not to go up, yet tax rises are needed just to keep the NHS, police and social care system where it currently is, let alone improve.

They wouldn't have wanted to be paying for the continued maintenance of gasometers or other unused storage, or paying more for gas than it could be bought for from abroad - well, except with hindsight maybe. No-one foresaw the current Ukraine situation did they, really, and more so no-one realised what effect it might have on us.

 

[tsedge]

But it's because "we" want cheap, we are apparently not prepared to pay for stuff. It's visible all over the place - the state of the NHS and other public services, poor customer services in other industries to name a couple.

People want tax to come down, not to go up, yet tax rises are needed just to keep the NHS, police and social care system where it currently is, let alone improve.

The NHS doesn’t need more money- we now spend as much as most European countries on it - but we get far worse service and outcomes.

It needs dramatic reform- not the people, who by and large are excellent- but the system/structure which is inflexible, bureaucratic and horrifically bad at being patient-centred in any way at all.

Unfortunately, this kind of reform is impossible because it is the most politically sensitive institution of all. As a sacred cow, we seemed doomed to shovel more and more money in for no improvement.