We have no gas in our village so our house has electric night storage heaters.
Just before Covid we’d looked at updating to a Fischer system. To do that we’d have had to go on a flat rate tariff. We decided against it and stuck with what we had on an E10 tariff (7hrs cheaper rate overnight and 3hrs in the afternoon).
Glad we did as although our daytime unit rate has gone up by 25% the nighttime price has dropped by 20%.
So it will cost us less to run the heaters this winter than last, and we can put the dishwasher and washing machine on timer overnight too.
That’s why the government figure of £2,500 cap on annual use is a complete red herring. It’s all about unit price and usage. You could quite easily exceed £2,500 (Mrs NI has an electric kiln!).
Capping won’t make any difference. You either use power or you don’t. Nor will cash handouts or six month discounts. Sure they’ll help out short term, but long term the only realistic way of making it affordable to all is to keep the unit price low.
The reason my provider gave for the increase was that wholesale prices had risen, even on renewables. This begs the question, are producers holding the consumers to ransom like in the plot of “Total Recall”? Are companies more interested in profits and dividends for their shareholders than providing essential services to the public?
I don’t know, but I do know that the problem won’t be solved by giving every household £400 over six months. As welcome as it is it doesn’t address the real issues.
