Fuel Price Cap, Meter Readings and Martin Lewis hauled over the coals.

Devil#20

So I tried to log into my energy supplier this morning (EON) to send a meter reading and, not surprisingly, the website is down. They are blaming it on Martin Lewis advising people to send in their readings, which is a bit out of order really. Anyway, I was wondering if I take a picture of the meters on my phone will it store the EXIF meta data with the picture so that I can send it to them in a few days, when things have settled down, and they can check that I'm not giving them an inflated reading and accuse me of trying to game the system? If they can blame Martin Lewis for their website crashing then I wouldn't put it passed them to accuse customers of lying to them. 

Regarding the price cap. It's gone from £1277 to £1971. WTF does that actually mean? Quoted like that gives no timeframe. Week, month, 6month, year? I'm assuming that's a cap for the year but nowhere makes this clear. For the sake of argument let's assume it's for 1 year. Does that mean that they cannot charge you more than £1971 a year even if you use say £3k of fuel in the next year? It seems a bit of an arse about face way of applying the increase. Why don't they just increase the cost/unit of gas or electricity by 54.3% and apply that to each unit you use? Have I missed something? If the Queen is on a single meter then does that mean we, the British taxpayer, only have to pay £1971 for her gas/electricity this year? 

paganskins

Devil#20 said:

Does that mean that they cannot charge you more than £1971 a year even if you use say £3k of fuel in the next year?  

Nope.

Standing charge is capped – that's what you pay daily just to be connected to the grid regardless of whether you use anything or not.

And the unit cost of what you use is capped. The units you use you'll pay for, be it £5's worth or £5000's worth. And that's on top of the standing charge.

From Ofgem (hopefully it'll line up OK for you):

Current price cap period  (1 October 2021 - 31 March 2022)	Next price cap period                                   (1 April - 30 September 2022)
Electricity	£0.21 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.25	£0.28 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.45
Gas	£0.04 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.26	£0.07 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.27

TLDR; Between now and Sept Electricity has gone up and its standing charge is nearly doubling, and the unit cost of gas is nearly doubling.

bertie

how does one read their meeting ?

roberty

I am bracing myself for a shafting. I had smart meters put in but they have never worked and I gave up chasing them about it. It is easy enough to send the readings in

Devil#20

bertie said:

how does one read their meeting ?

From the minutes. Now corrected. :-)

fretmeister

The French have the right idea.

They noticed that the profit levels of the power companies have gone up massively anyway so they've passed a law preventing any higher than a 4% increase in the bills the consumers pay.


And in good old Blighty, our bills are going up 54% and BG have got an increase of about 45% in profits.

It's shit.

Paul_C

fretmeister said:

The French have the right idea.

They noticed that the profit levels of the power companies have gone up massively anyway so they've passed a law preventing any higher than a 4% increase in the bills the consumers pay.


And in good old Blighty, our bills are going up 54% and BG have got an increase of about 45% in profits.

It's shit.

It's only to be expected from a Tory government, vote the bastards out.

Devil#20

paganskins said:

Devil#20 said:

Does that mean that they cannot charge you more than £1971 a year even if you use say £3k of fuel in the next year?  

Nope.

Standing charge is capped – that's what you pay daily just to be connected to the grid regardless of whether you use anything or not.

And the unit cost of what you use is capped. The units you use you'll pay for, be it £5's worth or £5000's worth. And that's on top of the standing charge.

From Ofgem (hopefully it'll line up OK for you):

Current price cap period  (1 October 2021 - 31 March 2022)	Next price cap period                                   (1 April - 30 September 2022)
Electricity	£0.21 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.25	£0.28 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.45
Gas	£0.04 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.26	£0.07 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.27

TLDR; Between now and Sept Electricity has gone up and its standing charge is nearly doubling, and the unit cost of gas is nearly doubling.

So where does the £1271 to £1971 come into those calcs? The standing charge for dual fuel would only work out at £262.80/year from the above summary. 

Heartfeltdawn

Devil#20 said:

If the Queen is on a single meter then does that mean we, the British taxpayer, only have to pay £1971 for her gas/electricity this year? 

Now that Andrew's back living at home and isn't going to parties, her eleccy usage is right up. Bet he hasn't asked her to take the porn filter off the WiFi yet. 

bertie

Devil#20 said:

bertie said:

how does one read their meeting ?

From the minutes. Now corrected. :-)

taken from Bloomberg 

"Spokespeople for British Gas and EON confirmed that if customers take a reading on Thursday, they can still submit it at a later date."

Im EON Next (was NPower)  so have just taken photos of the two readings

Devil#20

bertie said:

Devil#20 said:

bertie said:

how does one read their meeting ?

From the minutes. Now corrected. :-)

taken from Bloomberg 

"Spokespeople for British Gas and EON confirmed that if customers take a reading on Thursday, they can still submit it at a later date."

Im EON Next (was NPower)  so have just taken photos of the two readings

Yup. That's who I'm with Bertie. Do you know if a mobile phone stores the EXIF meta data?

Winny_Pooh

Simplest way to see it:

If you are not on a fixed rate your monthly cost will go up around 55% 

The £ figures by OFGEM are based on a "medium" user's estimated cost over a year.

In my experience a "medium" user is a 2-3 bed terraced house with 2-3 occupants. Or an elec only flat with 2 occupants. (Elec only heating is more pricey overall) 

bertie

Devil#20 said:

bertie said:

Devil#20 said:

bertie said:

how does one read their meeting ?

From the minutes. Now corrected. :-)

taken from Bloomberg 

"Spokespeople for British Gas and EON confirmed that if customers take a reading on Thursday, they can still submit it at a later date."

Im EON Next (was NPower)  so have just taken photos of the two readings

Yup. That's who I'm with Bertie. Do you know if a mobile phone stores the EXIF meta data?

no idea  -  I guess  is it not kept in the .jpg ?    try copying it over to a laptop/PC see what data is available ?

Kittyfrisk

paganskins said:

Devil#20 said:

Does that mean that they cannot charge you more than £1971 a year even if you use say £3k of fuel in the next year?  

Nope.

Standing charge is capped – that's what you pay daily just to be connected to the grid regardless of whether you use anything or not.

And the unit cost of what you use is capped. The units you use you'll pay for, be it £5's worth or £5000's worth. And that's on top of the standing charge.

From Ofgem (hopefully it'll line up OK for you):

Current price cap period  (1 October 2021 - 31 March 2022)	Next price cap period                                   (1 April - 30 September 2022)
Electricity	£0.21 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.25	£0.28 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.45
Gas	£0.04 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.26	£0.07 per kWh Daily standing charge: £0.27

TLDR; Between now and Sept Electricity has gone up and its standing charge is nearly doubling, and the unit cost of gas is nearly doubling.

Good information.
  OFGEM state the new maximum variable price caps will be 45p for daily electricity standing charges & gas at 27p.

However Octopus (just for example) have new daily electricity standing charges from April above 45p for 8 out of 14 supply areas & gas standing charges of 27.22p across all areas.
https://www.octopusreferral.link/octopus-energy-tariffs/
(Flexible tariffs are shown lower down on the linked page).



What am I missing about fixed price caps here? It can't be the 5% VAT or some other hidden variable can it?

thecolourbox

Heartfeltdawn said:

Devil#20 said:

If the Queen is on a single meter then does that mean we, the British taxpayer, only have to pay £1971 for her gas/electricity this year? 

Now that Andrew's back living at home and isn't going to parties, her eleccy usage is right up. Bet he hasn't asked her to take the porn filter off the WiFi yet. 

At least he probably won't need the air con on in the hot weather

blobb

SO Energy:

Hi all, if you are unable to get through to our call lines. Please send us a DM. Please include your Reads, Acc Number, Email and Address. If you can't provide the Acc Number, please provide your registered phone number instead. We'll make sure to get a reply ASAP. Thanks

With that in mind, if our customers note down or take a photo of their reads and submit it via online account or over email (help@so.energy) any time up to midnight, Sunday 3 April, we will backdate the reading to today and not take it as submitted after the price cap increase

This will give us the chance to get our systems up and running again, and remove the stress for our customers who are trying to submit ahead of the increase. We apologise sincerely for the alarm and upset this issue has caused.

EricTheWeary

Took a bunch of refreshes to submit in the Shell site. 
In fairness to Lewis lots of people saying the same thing. 

bertie

EON - Next  front page of their website ( @Devil#20 )

==================================================
Sorry, we're experiencing higher than usual levels of website traffic.If you're having trouble logging in to your account, don't worry, you have until 9 April to give us your meter readings online for 31 March. Smart meter customers don't need to do anything as your readings will automatically be shared with us.If you're on Smart PAYG, you can use your emergency credit if you can't top up. You won't be disconnected between 4pm and 10am, so you can try again tomorrow.We apologise for any inconvenience.

EricTheWeary

…and when you see Martin Lewis with his wife on shows are you addressing the TV in your best old lady voice ‘so Lara what first attracted you to the millionaire Martin Lewis?’ 

fretmeister

bertie said:

EON - Next  front page of their website ( @Devil#20 )

==================================================

• Sorry, we're experiencing higher than usual levels of website traffic.

  If you're having trouble logging in to your account, don't worry, you have until 9 April to give us your meter readings online for 31 March. Smart meter customers don't need to do anything as your readings will automatically be shared with us.

  If you're on Smart PAYG, you can use your emergency credit if you can't top up. You won't be disconnected between 4pm and 10am, so you can try again tomorrow.

  We apologise for any inconvenience.

We've got a smart meter and it stopped working and they don't do anything about it.

Twats.

RandallFlagg

In Stewart Lee's stage voice "I hate Martin Lewis and I hate electricity"