Energy price hikes - how much for YOU

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eccles
 
 
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Post by eccles »

That's quite a hefty jump in your tariff WR. I heard it would only be a penny or so different. Might be worth querying?
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Post by Patience »

Blimey! Shell Energy have reduced my DD from £175 to £126. 🎉
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Post by Furby »

British gas are migrating to a new computer system and thats being blamed for apps and websites not working but the phone lines stopped working automatically before I had put account number in so they couldn't have known I was or wasn't a migrated account at that stage. The auto phone probably can't work with the new accounts as they have letters in them. Shouldn't whoever designed the new system have thought of this though. They will have to build a pre question press 01 for A 26 for Z etc its not that difficult a program but hadn't been done in nearly 3 months now.

In the news today is British gas will be selling discounted heat pumps to replace gas boilers with government paying the discounts. I don't understand the science of heat pumps because in my house is always colder outside except at midnight on midsummers and will have to use electric heating help and so might as well just use electric heating. Makes no sense. My house doesn't have room anyway it can't go by the door, toilet pipe, sink pipe by window. Also even if heat pumps are great and there is a very narrow one available for terraced houses how wise is it to have something worth 10k outside your house. Sure to get robbed aren't they is there only me thinking of this.
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eccles
 
 
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Post by eccles »

The easiest way to understand heat pumps is that they work like a fridge in reverse. You put the fridge bit outside and the radiator at the back that gets warm inside. A problem is that temperature gradients are lower with heat pumps so houses have to be well insulated for them to work. With the UK's ancient housing stock this will be a big problem.
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Post by OurCreature »

I understand it can't be any old radiator either. I have read that for heat pumps to work at optimum efficiency the following will be required:-

Millions of houses will need to be retro-fitted with insulation. Will this be done properly in every case? The insulators need to check that stuff like builders' rubble from when the house first went up isn't packed into the cavity and if that is all right then they need to do the job properly. If you think that's going to go smoothly every time you also probably think the moon is made of green cheese.

In many cases a new central heating system will need to be installed because many older radiators aren't the right size for optimum output from the heat pump.

Whoever has a heat pump and all the rest of it done will need deep pockets, and also be lucky in finding an engineer who is actually qualified to do the installation.

Not all properties are suitable for heat pumps, as Furby has already outlined for her property. Even if they were I think most people would rather buy electric heaters for indoor use rather than go through the upheaval that installing heat pumps would entail.

I think that if HMG of whatever political persuasion is really serious about the need for heat pumps etc then they should make it a requirement that all new properties are powered by heat pumps or some other eco-friendly heating system. That seems to me the cheapest and easiest way of doing it. Older houses will fall down or be demolished eventually and then you can forget about them.
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Post by Furby »

Advantage of electric heaters is they can just be replaced and don't need expensive repairs and servicing. Gas is three times cheaper than electric but that doesnt factor in repair costs.

If they want to be shut of gas would be better just to work on making electric cheaper. Electric is dear because it is set to three times the cost of gas even if not made from gas and has all the other costs for subsidies to green things and poor peoples discounts and cannabis farms and other moonlighters who don't pay bills and costs of failed suppliers all added onto everyone else's electric.

Martin lewis had a new graph which did estimate that although prices will go up in April they "might" come down in July but still to dearer than now. At least thats more hopeful than when they were saying it's going to be up to 6000 a year. Could still happen though if the bad things that put bills up keep happening or new bad things happen.
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Energy price hikes - how much for YOU

Post by graceeliz »

My dad said he'll put my rent up if I put the heating on outside the scheduled times ;D We need to sweep the chimney, it's not drawing right so the log burner isn't belting out the heat it should.
Positivity!
One of the local old gentlemen donated his winter fuel allowance to the primary school I work at, which was absolutely delightful. Electric bills in schools has doubled or even tripled for some places, and it's not like we can turn off the heat or go down to four days. The kids all thought that was a nice thing to do and they sent a card round for all the younguns to sign, which is just, unbearably sweet. One of the year 5s even did a little cartoon heater drawing! Some people are just so kind.
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Furby
 
 
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Post by Furby »

Log burners are evil. Trees in parks are being chainsawed down here it is tragic. Wood can just be easily stolen unlike gas and electric (which can be but it's difficult to do) so it's probably going to get worse.

Grant shapps - who is the government minister famous for having a ferry company without ferries - is trying a clampdown on energy companies to stop them putting customers who can't or won't pay on pre payment meters. So stopping them doing their actual jobs of running an energy company they aren't charities. Seems unfair on the millions of people already on the things for this exact reason they aren't being converted back to credit meters. It's sad but most people just don't cut back within their means until they are forced to. If people are given free energy by not being expected to pay their own bills we all pay extra on our electric bills for it so I suppose grant shapps sees it as a political win for him without a treasury cost.

It's all very well saying help vulnerable customers but it would be helpful if energy companies were made to actually help customers at all. Customer services is almost non existent.
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Post by OurCreature »

The Labour Party is against prepayment meters being forced onto people as well, as in this Grauniad article on 13 January headed up Labour calls for halt to ‘shameful’ forced installation of prepayment meters

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... d-miliband

Unfortunately nobody told Labour controlled Islington Council, where the residents of a block of council flats who share a communal heating system discovered rather late in the day that they were all going to be put on prepayment meters as part of a revamp of their payment system; they paid a fixed charge for their heating but were going onto a system where they paid for the heat etc that they actually used to encourage them to use less. They thought they were going onto monthly credit billing until they were told different.

The Grauniad raised the matter with Islington Council who have suspended the programme for the moment while they discuss options with the residents. And perhaps pay more attention to Labour Party policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... ent-metres

I forgot this link the first time round - sorry!
Last edited by OurCreature on Mon Jan 23, 2023 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Furby »

Its a difficult problem because we can't be having people dropping dead from hypothermia from no heat and cholera from no washing and starving from no cooking but on the other hand it isn't fair to allow people unlimited free energy especially when that will be paid for by other people managing on less energy than the chosen ones.

My old idea of a limited amount only at cheap prices doesn't seem to be considered so far. The warm front grant is getting criticised because they changed it to only pay people in large houses this year previously it was people on benefits regardless of house size but fund capped and when it was all claimed it was gone too bad for anyone too late. Neither system is ideal but just paying people in large houses who could make big savings by living in one room and not heating the whole house doesn't seem very fair.

This evening between 5 and 6pm is when national grid think they will be struggling power cuts wise so are paying people not to use energy. Those of us on ordinary tariffs may as well put heaters on and make the tea then. Its not even freezing today don't know why today is the terrible day. It must be school children causing problems because most working people aren't even home 5 to 6 they are still on the bus or in traffic jams.
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Post by Patience »

Furby wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 5:10 am.
This evening between 5 and 6pm is when national grid think they will be struggling power cuts wise so are paying people not to use energy. Those of us on ordinary tariffs may as well put heaters on and make the tea then. Its not even freezing today don't know why today is the terrible day. It must be school children causing problems because most working people aren't even home 5 to 6 they are still on the bus or in traffic jams.
@Furby didn’t you hear? We are all working from home now on Mondays and switch the kettle on at approx 5pm? 😜
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Post by Furby »

Silly me not knowing that.

We survived the hour without power cuts and it's running again today for an extra half hour 4.30 to 6pm. Probably those people in the house at 5pm decided to stick the kettle on at 4.55pm and now 4.30 to 5 is struggling too.

Also is a fuss about it because the news are telling like its happening for smart meters but it's only for specially selected invited people as chosen by the energy companies.
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Post by Wildrover »

It is quite astonishing how much energy prices have increased. I took a reading exactly (to the minute) a week ago and since then I have used £61 of gas and £38 of electricity at the new tarriff rates i.e almost exactly £100 in total. Now admittedly it's been particularly cold in my part of the world relatively speaking, around -5C most nights and rarely getting above zero in the day but that still seems a lot of money for one week. To put it in perspective in the whole of January 2019 gas cost me £80 and electricity also £80.

I feel the same annoyance as BF about the way energy customers are allowed to treat their customers. I found this out as early as 18 when I moved from university flats to private rental. The house we rented had Arab students living there the year before and they had never bothered paying any bills the whole university year and gone back to the Middle East owing hundreds of pounds to various companies. The gas board refused to reconnect the gas unless we paid a £100 deposit in advance which was a lot at the time (about half the total annual bill) - our credit ratings were all fine but they said payment defaults are attached to addresses not individuals. This should be illegal - if a company is so inept at collecting payments they and their shareholders should bear the consequences not the customers. A similar (actually worse) situation exists today where payment defaults are just added to paying customers' bills in the form of higher tarriffs. This should also be illegal especially for monopoly or cartel businesses like the gas and elecricity industries. Can you imagine buying a house and being told that you have to pay an extra £10,000 because someone else didn't bother paying for theirs? It's an absurd situation.
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Post by eccles »

Email sent to E'on Next this morning following a request to increase my direct debit payments:

As of 1st February 2023 I am £26.14 in credit following the coldest months of the winter including a very harsh January. During the next five months which will take me to the year end I will almost certainly use far less energy. As a result, I expect my average for the year to be significantly lower than it is currently and your request to increase my monthly direct would result in a year end surplus. I therefore request that you do not change my direct debit payment from the current level.

Should I reach a significant account deficit in the coming months, then that is the time to think about increasing payments. I am a customer, not a creditor.

Best regards,


I should add that the above current account surplus follows my last bill which was on 25th January, so not only am I in credit but also almost fully paid up.
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Post by Furby »

The price caps are going up in april and also the government handouts which reduce our direct debits are stopping so if would be reasonable to put the debits up a lot wouldnt it?

I still haven't got anywhere with the gas. They have converted accounts from old gas to new gas and the new gas is all online but no plan seems in place for old converted customers without online accounts to contact them. Even the submit a meter reading for someone else option asks you to log on as that person with the persons account. That's never advice given for computers. There is a phone number for the old gas which is never ever answered and costs 15 pounds an hour to call. I looked on twitter and lots of people ask but it's always send us a DM with all your identity so we never see the answer. It doesn't seem a very good way to run a company relying on third party apps twitter or Facebook as only way to contact them with confidential identity information when a few months back twitter was rumoured to be closing.
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Post by eccles »

It's never easy is it Furby. :sad

I was only affected by a reduction of a couple of pounds a month by the introduction of the price cap because I'm on a fixed contract, therefore its removal will involve a similarly small increase. The £66 per month handout was refunded separately.

What I was objecting to with my email to E'on was that the idea of direct debits is that you build up a surplus in the late summer months, draw down on that during winter until there is a deficit, which gradually gets repaid in the spring and early summer and ending up with an approximate net zero at the end of the contract. The power companies always try it on so that you're never in deficit and end up with a big surplus at the end of the contract term. It means that you're paying for your energy in advance which is good for the company but a bad deal for the customer.
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Post by eccles »

I had forgotten that the government rebate scheme ends in March so an increase in my direct debit in April is entirely sensible after all. :blush I emailed E'on asking them to apply the increase as planned.
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As of 26/1/23 I am £260 in credit with E.ON but this is thanks to the £67 a month subsidy I have had so far - E.ON reduced my DD by the amount of the subsidy as my original DD was calculated to pay the cost of my fixed price plan which ends in early June. With the fact that I had a duff gas meter for the summer, I also owe E.ON just under £100 for the gas that I haven't paid for and for which they haven't yet billed me.

So I should really be £160 in credit, which is reasonable seeing that there are still 2 months of winter when the weather could turn cold again.
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Post by Furby »

I am ahead too. Everyone should be shouldnt they because debits were set on ofgem price cap and government cap reduced the prices to lower than that cap plus the 66 pounds. So unless people used more energy than last year or have other complicated bill arrangements they should be in credit on electric at least.

British gas are investigated because undercover discovered them putting pre payment meters in homes where people are legally allowed free energy and other customers expected to pay bigger bills. Anyone with children or disabled isn't supposed to ever be cut off but there's so many of them and bills are so big now the rest can't support it much longer. They need another solution maybe meters that allow only a limited amount free and then cut people off?

British gas seem to have wider problems and smart gas meters in general are stopping working because of some network thing but on top of that British gas aren't accepting customers own reading by any method other than twitter messages. So bills are being estimated and are people even in debt at all. As the phones aren't accepting customer questions either how can anyone question the bill. British gas are owned by big bad gas centrica aren't they so shouldnt collapse but if it wasn't for that I would suspect that was about to happen. Refusing to deal with customers is usually an early sign.
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Post by Furby »

I finally (only taken me three months) managed to get through and give a meter reading for gas. Hopefully this will stop an estimated bill. My usage will be lower even than a reasonable estimate (and the gas are not known for reasonable estimates) because of getting rid of cooker so i didn't want an estimate.

I don't qualify for any schemes except the 66 pounds and the previous council tax. There was a story about people who get extra help who didn't get it this time because their house has a wrong EPC score. I looked mine up in case it might apply to future schemes (though chancellor has said enough schemes already no more). My house isn't listed as I haven't sold it recently enough but others In my street and mums old street are. Now I know for a fact we are solld bricks but most of the houses listed said cavity wall no insulation. So who does those EPC anyway they can't be very highly trained people can they and is it fair to pay or not pay benefits based on obviously wrong data. I couldn't see who to complain to or I woild have because that data will have informed government to make decisions like spend even more money on useless cavity insulation when houses are solid brick and cant have it anyway. It won't just be the two streets I know of wrong will it.

https://find-energy-certificate.service ... f-property
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