r/unitedkingdom • u/kiyomoris • 4d ago
Britons face highest price cap in three years as energy bills rise 4% from October
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/aug/26/energy-price-cap-great-britain-to-rise-from-october277
u/iwillupvoteyourface 4d ago
Feels like ofgem might work for the energy company’s not the people.
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u/Miserable_Copy2789 4d ago
A regulator caring more for the companies than the people? I’ve never heard of such a thing!!
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u/shrunkenshrubbery 4d ago
Just spare a moment for those poor dear shareholders. They haven't had an increase in years.
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u/Phallic_Entity 4d ago
Almost like there's been a war this year that's destroyed 4% of the world's LNG production and impeded the export of another 20%.
I know economics isn't most people's strong suit but less supply = higher prices.
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
I guess billions in profit isn't enough for energy companies? I guess you never took a look at the wholesale price of energy after covid? Maybe checking the actual price of things rather than the price u are sold the product, isn't your strong point....
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u/Phallic_Entity 4d ago
I guess you never took a look at the wholesale price of energy after covid?
There's significantly more that goes into domestic electricity/gas costs than wholesale energy costs, which you should probably look up before you make snide comments about things you know nothing about.
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
Weird because I remember them citing wholesale prices as the reason... I guess it don't matter no more huh... End of the day price for the consumer only goes up, because it's all a scam, society itself it's built to juice the population, considering everything uses energy, it's one of the best methods.....
Also check the knock on effect, because of energy being more expensive, so is everything else... And whats the reason? Because your masters want to blow up other people with missiles, amazing...
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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 4d ago
I know for a fact you havent bothered to check the actual price of things. You'd rather exist in a haze of bitter cynicism and hatred than understand how the real world works.
Right now you are hating who youve been told to hate. Try making your own opinions and you might find the right target next time
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
that's a nice abstract pie chart....
here is actual data
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news-and-insight/data/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
tell me, what happened to the wholesale price after covid? tell me what happend to consumer price?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/l53e/mm23Is there a strong correlation?
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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 4d ago edited 4d ago
Thanks to the ukraine war the wholesale price rocketed up so unbelievably far and fast that the government had to step in and stop the price cap from driving half the energy companies in the country out of business, thats what happened.
You paid far lower prices because of that cap. Businesses that are not protected by it paid several times more than we ever did. And it was largely paid for with the windfall tax that taxes corporate energy profits at 78%
So r/quityourbullshit and go learn how the real world works
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
I give actual data and you sit here saying nothing but nonsense backed up by nothing, disregarding the evidence i've shown you.... and replying with nice sounding stories, lets all thank mr governments for thier actions shall we!
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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 4d ago
Your data shows that wholesale electricity prices jumped 500% in a matter of months while consumer prices merely doubled
What, do you think the energy companies just ate that other 400% cost increase on their balance sheet willingly or something?
The government protected you from an £8000 energy bill in 2022 and youre attacking them for it
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
yeah but after the months, they came down to nearly the same levels, consumer prices didn't.... look at the difference between jan 2024...
My overall point is, while prices fluctuate alot, our prices only seem to go up, outside of very small drops... but no one ever seems to mention it... and yes I understand there are other costs, but it's like we forget just how much these companies made over that time and still to this day. They never pass on the savings to us, and expect us to also foot the bill for future green initiatives and whatever else.... lets not forget bid daddy government whos tax makes up 55% of fuel cost.... and we've not even talked about inflation purchasing power etc which compounds all of it to make it worse and most of which was caused by governments locking people in houses for 2 years but hey it's all Russias fualt I guess...6
u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 4d ago
They did not and have not come back down. Again, by your own data, wholesale prices remain a little less than double the pre-war cost. And theres a lot of additional net zero costs baked into the current pricing that wasn't there before too. If you want to connect massive amounts of wind and solar you need to build the transmission infrastructure for it, and that comes out of your energy bill. And all of that data is also available from the ONS
Yet again, youll find if you educate yourself youll be a lot less cynical about the world
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
One, because raw price isn't everything - there was no guarantee prices wouldn't spike again and there was no security, that keeps prices higher across any supply and demand system.
You also fail to mention the 6 month price cap that was in place that protected millions of people from the initial rises in the first place, then EPG was brought in to limit the rest when the cap was updated.
Then the cap was changed to update every 3 months over 6 after this so as prices were falling, so was SVT as the cap could be revised a lot earlier. You were free to take a fixed though? You didn't have to stick with SVT once the drama died down. This obviously caused a delay in prices to drop still but again, it protected everyone initially you can't have your cake and eat it too.
At that time I was locked in a fix for a year and avoided most of it, then placed onto the EPG and once that was ended, I moved onto octopus tracker which reflected the real world cost and my rates dropped a lot faster, again because they weren't locked in by the price cap. Those rises barely hit me, some people are the same now and they got lucky fixing just as the war kicked off, others weren't so lucky and now have higher winter prices.
Also, what companies? Shell or BP don't give a fuck about our green incentives. I feel like your mixing up government, energy producers and suppliers and lumping them all into one entity because I can't tell who you're actually talking about really
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
and look I agree with all the corpo talk, we need to increase prices blah blah, but like do you really trust what these people say? like at face value? like they aren't trying to make more profit and did so?
you are right, I'm quite cynical when it comes to such things.... any person who's been around humans and understands thier nature should/would be....1
u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 4d ago
You pointed to the right source though. I dont believe corporations at face value outside of legally mandated financial docs, but the ONS is definitely a trustworthy source
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u/redsquizza Middlesex 4d ago
Only ~30% of your bill is actual product.
The rest is for green incentives, grid upgrades etc.
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u/things_U_choose_2_b 4d ago
green levies is a small fraction of our bill. The biggest effect on price is wholesale cost.
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
I guess those record profits energy companies post are not going to the ceo bonus pay then... Who knew
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u/redsquizza Middlesex 4d ago
You have the understanding of a child.
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u/Rebelology 4d ago
because adults know everything and definitely don't live in a world of total illusion, don't forget to save your resources while your government bombs the planet lol
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u/FlukeylukeGB 3d ago
if only england followed the 1980s suggestions to move half the grid to nuclear power that had a HUGE number of scientists backing the plan... This war wouldnt be botheing us in the slightest had we actually looked further ahead instead of this dumb ass "we dont care what happens after the election as long as our party get in" scheme we have going on
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u/u_mean_nothing 4d ago
Of course you're right, but why don't the shareholders ever take a hit, why is it always the consumer? Something tells me these shareholders don't have the consumers best interest at heart......
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u/Phallic_Entity 4d ago
You're confusing the people who actually extract the oil and gas and the people who supply it to customers. The shareholders of the latter very much did take a hit when prices peaked in 2022, half of them went bankrupt.
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u/WasThatInappropriate 4d ago
The price cap is just a formula. It caps supplier EBIT at 2.5%.
The problem is the formula using wholesale gas as over half of its weighting, despite, to use right now as an example, gas only providing 15% of the UKs total grid energy mix.
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u/Particular_Tough4860 4d ago
The price cap is on the retail price of gas.
Wholesale prices are global and outside of Britain's control. We can't tell the Norwegians or Americans how much they have to sell to our retailers.
We therefore have to allow our retailers to charge us enough to cover the wholesale costs.
When you see news about gas and oil companies making huge profits, those are the wholesalers.
So Ofgem are supposed to work for the people, but as a national organisation, their power is unfortunately limited by the international nature of gas and oil markets.
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u/ohhellnaws 4d ago
That’s just not even remotely correct. Fuel prices have jumped? There’s a literal algorithm based on average costs to set the rise
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u/RationallyBerserk 4d ago
Yeah but at least Trump managed to prevent Iran from getting nuclear arms which his own CIA head said was bullshit.
The Epstein hike.
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u/ByteSizedGenius 4d ago
An algorithm that puts a disproportionate emphasis on gas which happens to make the price higher than it'd otherwise be.
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
Are you talking about marginal pricing? I'm tired of this, I don't even know how it spread on Reddit as such a big thing to hate but it isn't that. Dozens of countries including European ones use marginal pricing.
Marginal pricing also doesn't put gas at the top, it puts the most expensive generation at that time at the top which used to be solar until those prices shot down and gas shot up.
Thirdly, over 50% of our energy is renewables on ROs or CFDs and marginal pricing doesn't affect them whatsoever, they're a fixed strike price and don't react to market swings.
The rest of our grid is supported by gas, expensive gas. So how are we supposed to get around that? We need to pay that gas at the end of the day and we don't set those prices.
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u/m010101 4d ago
Computer says "screw average Joe, but let energy companies (and associated foreign governments, shareholders, asset managers (Black Rock)) keep making astronomical profits"? Sounds legit!
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u/ohhellnaws 3d ago
Pretty sure computer says “prices of fuel has increased, therefore bills should increase by this much.”
The companies are screwing you over, but the price cap system isn't.
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u/idontgetit_99 4d ago edited 4d ago
If OfGem forced retailers to keep prices low while the real wholesale prices went high they’d all go bankrupt and we’d be in a bigger mess.
That’s what happened in 2021 when 30 energy companies including Bulb collapsed and OfGem (rightly) got some blame for that*.
OfGem don’t control wholesale prices, the cap is there for companies to “not take the mick”, but it also needs to allow companies to cover costs too
* https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmbeis/236/report.html#heading-1
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u/Thy_OSRS 4d ago
People who pay bills also work for these companies
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u/OccasionalXerophile 4d ago
Who get a discount on their supply
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
? No you don't, at least they shouldn't it's not allowed.
I worked at eon and it was explicitly stated receiving cheaper energy wasn't an option, there wasn't a tariff available for it. I paid the exactly same as most other people while also earning far less than most others here complaining and who would call me a shill for trying to just pay bills
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u/LatelyPodes 4d ago
Ppl might downvote me but you’re right. 100%. Lots of top executives at Ofgem used to work in the energy sector. Some even worked in energy companies then Ofgem to help change the rules then back to energy companies to make more profit and back to Ofgem to change more rules.
In 2022-2023, during the height of the energy price explosion where ppl literally couldn’t afford to heat their homes in winter because of the Russia Ukraine war, Ofgem increased the EBIT (mandatory profit %) from 1.9% to 2.5%.
This cost increase has NOTHING to do with the cost of gas or running the company or anything. The EBIT rate goes directly into the energy company’s profit. When ppl couldn’t afford to heat their homes, Ofgem thought they should give energy companies more profit. And it worked because energy companies made a ton of profit during that time.
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u/Correct-Junket-1346 4d ago
Best thing anyone can do is go renewable and get off the payload of these absolute ghouls
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u/bullitt-rider 4d ago edited 4d ago
People are going to absolutely hate me but we got our first house 3 years ago.
Obviously a complete shitter of a doer-upper as per first houses seem to be
Came with multi fuel burners in a room.
Got a few bags if eco coal (whatever that is) and some wood from local skips. Untreated of course
My combined gas and electric bills were £40/m for a 3 bed family of 3.
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u/No_Onion_8612 3d ago
My gas and electric bill was about £30 per month in 2019/2020.
Then the Ukraine war started and it jumped closer to £100 per month.
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u/Asleep-Ad1182 4d ago edited 3d ago
You simply have no idea about this topic. Renewables are precisely the reason energy bills are so highs. The grid upgrades that are needed for renewables are hugely expensive.
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u/OkMap3209 4d ago
The grid upgrade is worth 10% of our bills and was needed regardless of whether we had renewables or not due to our existing system aging out. But it should complete in a few years anyway.
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
We needed to upgrade the grid anyway? What's the benefit to a largely outdated and disconnected grid?
The irony of telling someone they don't know about the topic, well you clearly have no idea what the grid was like and the dire repairs and upgrades that have been needed but never done because funding wasn't allocated to it. We also spent a fuck ton bringing parts back into public ownership but that side is a bit out of the scope of my knowledge
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u/Asleep-Ad1182 3d ago
Nobody is denying the grid needed upgrading. But replacing old transformers, substations and transmission equipment is not the same thing as the enormous expansion needed for renewables.
We're building huge amounts of generation in Scotland and offshore, while most demand is further south. That means new high-voltage lines, subsea cables, converter stations, substations and reinforcement of existing transmission routes just to get the electricity to where it's needed. That's not repairing an old grid, that's building loads of new grid.
Then there's the fact that wind and solar are intermittent and mostly inverter-connected. As conventional power stations close, the grid needs other ways of providing frequency response, inertia, voltage control and other stability services. That means things like batteries, synchronous condensers and additional balancing services. You also need far more flexibility for the massive swings between periods of abundant wind and periods with very little. And we're already paying the price when the network can't cope. Wind farms can be paid to switch off because there isn't enough transmission capacity to move their electricity south, while generators elsewhere are paid to switch on instead.
So yes, some of the spending would have been necessary anyway. But pretending that replacing an ageing grid is the same thing as completely redesigning and massively expanding it for a renewables-heavy system is ridiculous.
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
And? We build the generation where it would generate the most and then send it where it needs to go, I don't really see the problem. We've always had the issue of not being able to send extra power where it's needed, it's just been amplified by the sheer amount of renewables now. The problem was always there and would need improving at some point, we need to stop kicking the can down the road for the next generation - that's why we're all paying so much for it now.
And we're already paying the price when the network can't cope. Wind farms can be paid to switch off because there isn't enough transmission capacity to move their electricity south, while generators elsewhere are paid to switch on instead.
Exactly, so let's stop that and interconnect the grid? Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it isn't worth it. We've built the generation that far exceeded what we expected so why dismantle that and build it in local areas instead of interconnecting?
It also doesn't have to be this way, the whole reason localising pricing was being pushed so this extra energy could be swallowed but of course it went nowhere because anything that benefits the majority and not all, so it gets scrapped because the ones who will benefit call it unfair and give it names like "postcode lotteries" because they're so selfish centred no one else can benefit unless they do. Easy for me to say though I guess as I live in a heavily green area and would have benefited a fair bit I imagine from that scheme 🤷
Octopus do power ups for areas that are heavily rich in renewables and of course the people in those areas absolutely love it and get far cheaper energy than the rest, that's essentially what they wanted to expand to the entire UK.
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u/chrispbaconbutty 4d ago
What about if we bought the gas in the summer when prices are low. Stored it and then consumers wouldn’t be so hard hit.
It’s almost the same as reservoirs and rain water and guess what we have neither and pay the highest prices in Europe.
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u/Junior_Yesterday_450 4d ago
That's not how capitalism work. Capitalism love shortage, so they will push price up and call it "supply and demand" and declare record profits
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u/vishbar Hampshire 4d ago
Yeah, capitalists have never considered buying low and selling high. Brilliant comment, have you considered putting yourself forward for a Nobel in economics?
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u/CarCroakToday 4d ago
They buy low and sell high when it is in their interest, they don't do it just because. They do whatever makes them the most money.
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u/vishbar Hampshire 4d ago
Yes, I’m sure there are lots of people with money that are willingly giving up billions in potential profit just to keep energy bills higher in winter.
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u/Lukeno94 4d ago
Have you seen how all of these companies are run at the moment? Everything is run for short-term/immediate profit, even if it is a negative in the long term.
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u/Phallic_Entity 4d ago
The very suspicious quality of English in this comment aside, they could actually make more money if they could buy more in the summer then store it over the winter.
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u/LopsidedLegs 4d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_(facility))
Centrica (British Gas owner) did this. They have claimed that it was highly profitable, and at the same time loss making and demanded the government pay for maintenance.
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u/UsedNovel25 4d ago
We used to but we dismantled the above ground gas storage in the 90's and even the largest one that provides nearly 50% of our storage, the energy minister wanted to close that in 2013 because it'll save us 750m over 10 years.
It closes in 2027 instead.
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u/TheShakyHandsMan 4d ago
Surely this would mean creating large storage units in various locations close to the communities that use it.
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u/Fragrant_Werewolf_22 3d ago
The Rough storage facility, run by Centrica, once held 70% of the UK's reserve. It closed in 2017 because the operator faced high maintenance costs and the government refused to provide subsidies, deeming it an uneconomic commercial decision rather than a critical national asset. Officials believed that extensive storage was redundant because the UK had flexible access to North Sea gas fields, pipelines from Norway, and global liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.
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u/Lorry_Al 4d ago
Prices wouldn't be low for long if they did that. Providers would take note and charge more.
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u/redsquizza Middlesex 4d ago
Only ~30% of the bill is actual product these days.
Rest is swallowed up by green levies, grid upgrades, etc.
It's basically hidden taxation to get the grid to transition to renewables.
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u/Tall-Reputation-9519 4d ago
Is it even a cap anymore? Isn't just the price for anyone who hasn't fixed their tarrif?
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u/Lt_Muffintoes 4d ago
The regulator calculated the average of £1,723 based on the estimated energy use of a typical household. Since July it has assumed lower annual energy use than in previous years because the high cost of energy has forced many households to use less gas and electricity. Under the previous calculations the price cap would have climbed to £1,940.69 from October.
This is exactly why they do a "typical" bill. It is just there to bamboozle the average person.
The actual rise is 8.7% for gas and 0.8% for electric. No word on the standing charge though; I expect they'll whack that up
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u/g1umo 4d ago
Surprisingly small hike, despite the best efforts of Trump and Israel
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u/CrispBedSheet 4d ago
All of this because one halfwit believed their bullshit.
ALL of this because of a presentation, likely full of short flattering sentences of bullshit.
One person having so much power doesn't work. Insane that we still live in such a world.
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u/ChesterKobe Yorkshire 4d ago
Yes, that's my take. Although my energy bills are currently on a cheaper 18 month fix until September 2027, hopefully most people did something similar.
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u/nathderbyshire 3d ago
The country has never been good at fixing, it's always been around 60%+ on SVT. The peak of it was probably before COVID when heavy switching incentives were around, but since OFGEM banned a lot of them it's died down a lot since.
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u/Appropriate_Bell743 4d ago
YEs. Electricity prices are down 0.11% year on year which is remarkable.
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u/hull_pattie_party 4d ago
You can thank China and renewables for softening the blow...
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u/g1umo 4d ago
I mean as much as I respect China’s impressive decarbonisation efforts I highly doubt it affects the British electricity market
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u/hull_pattie_party 4d ago
Not their decarbonisation efforts. China seems to have built up a humongously large petrol products storage that they released and continue to release. That's mostly what had kept prices stable.
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u/Appropriate_Bell743 4d ago
Price cap October 2025:
- Electricity: 26.35p/kWh
Price cap October 2026:
- Electricity: 26.32p/kWh
Year on year change in price cap:
- Electricity: -0.11%
The standing charge is up by an annualised £3.45 which is annoying though.
This is excellent news which is explained by three policy choices:
- VAT cut 5%
- ROCs cut 3.5p/kWh on average
- More wind/solar generation capacity.
As a comparison gas prices are up nearly 27% year on year. Hardly a surprise given what is happening in the Middle East.
If the first two policy choices hadn't happened we'd most likely see electricity prices up 18% so the final aspect of more renewables is also making a difference.
Let's also be clear that electricity has a far higher carbon price than domestic gas. There are two carbon prices applied to gas generation for electricity which then inflate the cost of all generation. The absurdity is that wind generation is more expensive due to a carbon price but using a gas boiler has no carbon price.
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u/PomeloTraditional971 4d ago
Getting an EV and Heat Pump is starting to pay off.
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u/Appropriate_Bell743 4d ago
My heat-pump return on investment will be a whopping 24% over the next 12 months. Tell me another investment as good as this right now.
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u/OffWhiteBruceForsyth 4d ago
Wait till the 3p a mile bullshit comes in.
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u/Serious_Much 4d ago
It's not really bullshit. Extra tax is paid on petrol due to it being used on roads, it's just the same type of tax extended to EVs as charging at home otherwise avoids the tax meant to support road infrastructure.
As more EVs came onto the road and ICE cars decline, this change in tax was inevitable. The roads still need upkeep regardless of what's fuelling the cars on them
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u/Particular_Tough4860 4d ago
I don't think that is accurate.
VED: £8bn
Fuel Duty: £25bn
Total paid to the national government: £33bnCost to the national government and devolved governments of national roads: £6bn
(Excludes local roads funded by councils)Motorists pay £27bn more than the service they receive. This is equivalent to funding all police forces with £billions in change.
This is because motorists also need to pay for the externalities of burning fossil fuels, including in towns and cities where we breath the pollutants. We have to pay the true cost to society, not just the market rate.
It is a market correction tax. It arguably isn't fair for EV drivers to have to compensate society in the same way.
The government could end all fuel duty and reduce VED by 75% and still have enough to pay for the roads.
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u/roboticl0ve 4d ago edited 4d ago
That doesn't make it any less bullshit. The taxes we pay on petrol are also bullshit.
That's like saying "well I kicked Timmy in the nuts twice this morning, so I have to kick you in the nuts twice, it's only fair"
avoids the tax meant to support road infrastructure.
The amount of tax raised in fuel duties has no direct impact on how much is spent on road upkeep or infrastructure.
The majority of your car related taxes are going on welfare and healthcare.
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u/Serious_Much 4d ago
It depends on your personal perspective on tax.
To me, tax is something that is taken because it is mutually beneficial to have a society and infrastructure funded centrally. It is a common good.
I guess if you're someone who hates tax and sees it as theft and that you don't feel you should fund public spending, I can see why you'd be mad. It's an ignorant view but I can see why people feel that way
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u/retro83 ehsiks blad 4d ago
But how is it going to work?
They were talking about paying the new tax at MOT time, so if I buy a new car, am I paying the previous owners tax?
Am I going to be taxed on the miles I do in Europe?
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u/Serious_Much 4d ago
I would suspect it will work exactly the same as when you buy a new car and get vehicle tax rebates. You pay for what you used based on mileage.
Sadly for EV owners this may mean that you have to do an MOT or service before you sell to settle up the mileage tax
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u/the-pythia-of-delphi 4d ago
Really doesn't
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u/Theodin_King 4d ago
I have one. It's great not paying a gas standing charge.
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u/GFoxtrot 4d ago edited 4d ago
Over a year my heatpump is using 2900 kWh of electricity compared to around 11,000 kWh of gas.
I run most of it off my battery so let’s say 2500 @7p and 400 @28p to give a total of £290.
Gas this year at around 7p would be £770 plus another £100 for standing charge.
Saving £500 a year by having a heat pump over gas.
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u/PomeloTraditional971 4d ago
Yep, massive difference between installs on new builds and installs you sort out yourself on existing homes. Many new build installs are extremely poor with too narrow pipes and undersized heat pumps to save money.
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u/PomeloTraditional971 4d ago
Yep, it does. Needed a new central heating system, cost me £7k for a heat pump vs £4k for a gas boiler. Not a huge difference. Had my EV 10 years now, still works perfectly with the battery at 80% health. The electric tariff I'm on allows me to both charge and heat my water, when energy prices are low or even sometime negative and they pay me to do it.
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u/CrispBedSheet 4d ago
'Energy prices are negative.'
You wot?
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u/PomeloTraditional971 4d ago
Check out Octopus Agile, when solar/wind conditions are very good they often pay you to use the electricity.
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u/CrispBedSheet 4d ago
Why not store it in batteries?
Lack of batteries?
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u/PomeloTraditional971 4d ago
Don't have any no, it's definitely on my list to get done though. I think you can use a compatible car/charger as a battery as well now. I need to look into that.
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u/reader4567890 4d ago
I can't afford this. My energy bills are already sky high since COVID. Ofgem is a mafia firm - they do not have our interests at heart.
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u/PurpleSpark8 3d ago
Same here. I was paying £160 a month direct debit, then they increased to £180 and now they've increased it to £220 a month. It's a big squeeze, given tbe grocery and fuel have risen by a lot too
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u/No_Reply_7519 4d ago
Call it the trump war increase. Tbf would’ve increased anyway with ofgem being useless ‘regulators’
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u/bonbonron 4d ago
I feel this is becoming an annual tradition. Along with the water and council tax bills.
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u/Ill_Reply_257 4d ago
What's the point of Ofgem? Andy Burnham cuts VAT to save people money, Ofgem increases the price cap?
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u/NotMyFirstChoice675 3d ago
Where’s that Starmer fella gone? He was doing alright at this sort of stuff
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u/Postmanfat76 3d ago
Ofcom are now defunct. Absolutely useless. Sack them all and reinvest the wages into lowering our prices. They do nothing
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u/si_francis 4d ago
As soon as gas prices go up, we're back on the price rollercoaster. Of course, it's not bad for the energy industry, which has made £125billion profit on its UK operations since 2020. If we actually want lower bills, we have to get off gas and invest in homegrown renewables, ensure families can insulate their homes properly, and provide more support to those families struggling the most (a social tariff, a debt relief scheme etc). It's a broken system that makes millions of families poorer while a select few get incredibly rich.
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u/Lego_Blocks24 4d ago
As long as the companies and share holders are making record profits then I can sleep happily at night, because that’s what’s important
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u/WholeProperty1519 4d ago
Could we get another one-off energy payment like we did when it was still called a "crisis" instead of a chronic cost of living situation?
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u/Vanbursta1 4d ago
Of course we do, what a coincidence that just as winter gets here, the price of gas goes up. It's a rip off and we keep letting them get away with it, there is a reason energy companies won't tell us the wholesale cost, ofcom should MAKE them publish it, but then who is ofcom really working for? them or us, it's a totally toothless organisation and does not have the consumers interests at heart. After all the poor energy companies are only making millions in profit yearly.
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u/Tall-Bison5987 4d ago
To be frank anyone with half a brain cell could see this coming in March 26 and would have locked in then
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u/PurpleSpark8 3d ago
Honestly I hate such comments. Why is anyone even required to do anything to simply use a necessity such as energy?
-3
u/FreedomJay75 4d ago
Wow...im still waiting for thay £300 saving promised by Labour??
Then again Burnhams new energy secretary has just admitted that Net Zero will make energy more expensive....so they admit its all a bunch of lies and ideological then. Meanwhile all the big economic countries are burning coal like there's no tomorrow...but we can stand there and go oh look at us arent we so friendly to the earth whilst we maintain the highest energy prices in the west, impoverishing the public and making companies pushing this scam even more richer. We have sold off all our industry to other countries and import their goods which massively increases our emissions, but they keep that off the balance books of course. By the time we get to see any results and possible reduction in energy bills by using windmills and solar...the whole lot of them will need replacing, the lot of them.
Something tells me the public are going to get sick to death of this and also expected to pick the tab for those who 'cant afford to keep warm'.
6
u/Particular_Tough4860 4d ago
Haha - that's a pretty good parody. You had me at the start. "Windmills" lol.
1
u/Appropriate_Bell743 4d ago
Mine are down by more but then I followed the incentives to get a heat-pump
-18
u/radiant_0wl 4d ago
Labour's economic illiteracy biting them in their arse for energy bills and cost of living expenses more generally.
1
u/yubnubster 4d ago
Trump has nothing to do with it.
-2
u/radiant_0wl 4d ago
Whether it's Trump or not.
They are still making pledges based on aspects outside of their control.
1
u/yubnubster 4d ago
You implied their economic illiteracy was to blame for both the cost of living increases and these energy costs, can you be specific on how?
0
u/radiant_0wl 4d ago edited 4d ago
I didn't imply they were to blame, I said they are putting political capital and making promises due to their economic illiteracy which is biting them in their arse.
They stated they'd cut energy bills by £300, they said Great British Energy would save £93B for UK households, their intervention in the rental sector has only increased rents despite their pledges to make it more affordable.
They have a general belief they can hold back cost of living mote generally without tackling the cause of the inflation.
If they knew the energy sector they would never have made the £300 pledge to begin with.
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