@majordennisbloodnok could you post the actual figures, I will compare them with the ones I got from ofgem.  As you say they aren't consistent which is weird.  The ofgem figures were price cap rates from the point the cap was introduced, Octopus tracker claims to be based on wholesale price but I can't see that obviously explains the difference.

Of course hrst pumps aren't just about saving money or carbon.  Correctly installed and operated they deliver a higher standard of comfort.  However nobody talks about that for some reason.

I wonder why @deltona hasn't posted again give he asked the question.

Posted by: @batpred

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I am happy I am not advising government and surely the gov of the time would have been well advised. 

I admire your optimism, @batpred, and I'd love to hope you're right.

Where you are certainly right, though, is that there's a lot of overlap in what we each are saying. From my perspective, I agree that ideally the cost of fossil fuels should not just include the cost of obtaining it but also the cost of dealing with the consequences of its use. However, that's not a financial jump many people can afford to make and penalising those less well off to ease the overall public conscience is neither appropriate nor practical. If I had a strategy that could sort out that conundrum perhaps I'd run for election but I don't and I'm not. Please note, I'm not suggesting for a moment that you might be advocating any form of penalising; I'm merely laying out the fundamental disconnect between where we are now and where we want to be in the future.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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However, that's not a financial jump many people can afford to make and penalising those less well off to ease the overall public conscience is neither appropriate nor practical.

Er not sure it penalises the less well off who use less fuel.

If tt cost has to be paid it has to be paid somehow either through charges or tax or catastrophe if nothing is done.  The less well off generally comes out worse from any catastrophe. 

Your argument is the standard 'we can't afford it' argument which is frequently made by rich people who can (I'm not saying you are in that category, just saying that a lot of the 'we can't afford it arguments' are put forward by rich people who are immune from the consequences and can afford it, but don't want to.

Posted by: @jamespa

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@majordennisbloodnok could you post the actual figures, I will compare them with the ones I got from ofgem.  As you say they aren't consistent which is weird.  The ofgem figures were price cap rates from the point the cap was introduced, Octopus tracker claims to be based on wholesale price but I can't see that obviously explains the difference.

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No problem. Here you are.

Posted by: @jamespa

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Of course heat pumps aren't just about saving money or carbon.  Correctly installed and operated they deliver a higher standard of comfort.  However nobody talks about that for some reason.

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I agree, but in most cases I suspect those nuances aren't relevant to boiler owners who haven't experienced a heat pump serviced house. My guess is they don't know what they don't know and so are already satisfied in their ignorance*.

*Not meant to sound condescending; ignorance in its true meaning without the snide baggage.

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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However, that's not a financial jump many people can afford to make and penalising those less well off to ease the overall public conscience is neither appropriate nor practical.

Er not sure it penalises the less well off who use less fuel.

If tt cost has to be paid it has to be paid somehow either through charges or tax or catastrophe if nothing is done.  The less well off generally comes out worse from any catastrophe. 

Your argument is the standard 'we can't afford it' argument which is frequently made by rich people who can (I'm not saying you are in that category, just saying that a lot of the 'we can't afford it arguments' are put forward by rich people who are immune from the consequences and can afford it, but don't want to.

If you have a household on the bread line and then simply hike the cost of gas with a carbon capture tax, you've backed that household into a corner they can't escape. That helps no-one.

The "we can't afford it" argument employed by many of the wealthy is, of course, a specious one since they patently CAN afford it. On the contrary, I'm not advocating we do nothing on the grounds of economics; I'm advocating that we use more carrot and less stick instead. The cost of electricity is grossly inflated at the moment, bearing little connection to the cost of production and supply, so my first inclination is towards trying to reduce the leccy cost to make a shift from fossil fuels easier for lower income families - reducing their barriers to change rather than increasing penalties to stay as they are. However, I'm painfully aware the pricing link between gas and leccy is a complex one that makes my head hurt, so it would take a better man than me to draw up an actual workable plan for put into place my preferences.

@majordennisbloodnok 

The optimist in me thinks the extra costs on electricity are being used to fund the upgrades that will make it a credible low carbon option, even to the sceptics. Perhaps that measure was acceptable since the electricity industry will profit in the end, through increased consumption?

Gas could only dream of being decarbonised since hydrogen is not going to be available in high volumes from non carbon sources any time soon and the carbon capture is at small pilot stage. If it had legs to stand on, every gas power station would be now capturing and storing the CO2 it emits?

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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If you have a household on the bread line and then simply hike the cost of gas with a carbon capture tax, you've backed that household into a corner they can't escape. That helps no-one 

Benefits could go up to compensate.  I'm not saying this combination is the right idea but if it does make sense for the polluter (rather than taxpayers or randomly chosen victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) to pay then make it so and deal with the negatives by another means!

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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If you have a household on the bread line and then simply hike the cost of gas with a carbon capture tax, you've backed that household into a corner they can't escape. That helps no-one 

Benefits could go up to compensate.  I'm not saying this combination is the right idea but if it does make sense for the polluter (rather than taxpayers or randomly chosen victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) to pay then make it so and deal with the negatives by another means!

Quite true. That’s certainly another way of tackling the problem.

To be frank, I don’t care how we rebalance things as long as the burden sits with those who can shoulder it and those who can’t are protected - the way I’d hope any civilised society would want to operate. That last part is my only key criterion for the method of change used.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Posted by: @jamespa

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@majordennisbloodnok could you post the actual figures, I will compare them with the ones I got from ofgem.  As you say they aren't consistent which is weird.  The ofgem figures were price cap rates from the point the cap was introduced, Octopus tracker claims to be based on wholesale price but I can't see that obviously explains the difference.

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No problem. Here you are.

tracker_south_eastern_england.xlsx

Posted by: @jamespa

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Im looking into these and my figures.  The think that I dont understand about yours are that they seem to vary quite a lot from day to day and from the price cap https://www.electricityprices.org.uk/history-of-the-energy-price-cap/

This obviously begs the question 'what do we mean by electricity price anyway?  I would suggest for most people the price cap rate is the appropriate one, but that only existed from 2019 onwards.  My data is actually from ONS but, looking again at their figures, it may include standing charge.  Needs a bit more investigation which I will do, however it may take some time as I am currently away.

The data I provided was downloaded from https://agilebuddy.uk/historic/download, so at least on the face of it, it’s independent of Octopus (i.e. doesn’t have Octopus marking its own homework). It may, of course, behind the scenes just be providing data provided by Octopus and therefore not be as independent as it seems. I don’t know.

However, since I chose the South East England region, the prices were purporting to be actual prices, not averaged ones. I chose the Tracker tariff purely so that it was a like for like comparison of gas and leccy (gas data only being available through the tracker tariff). Both energy types were explicitly listed on that site as prices per kWh, not per “unit”.

If all this is true, clearly it’s comparing like with like for any given day and so inflation can be ignored - it’s only the ratio that matters. You raised  good point earlier about price caps and I didn’t check to see what was going on in that regard; even now i haven’t managed to find some time to do so.

It may, of course, be that Octopus put a larger markup on their leccy tracker prices than on other of their leccy tariffs so as to, for instance, subsidise some of their more popular ToU tariffs. That would certainly have the effect we’re seeing, although I’ve seen no actual evidence of that being the case so a theory like that would be pure supposition.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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However, since I chose the South East England region, the prices were purporting to be actual prices, not averaged ones

The point I was making about averages (in any region) is that the average of the half hourly, or daily, price over a year is not the same as the average price paid.  If most of the consumption is when the price is highest (which is very likely the case) then the average price paid will be closer to the highest price than the unweighted average of the daily/half hourly prices.

I don't think we can, and quite possibly never will, be able to explain the divergence of the ONS price per kWh from the Octopus price per kWh.  What this shows is that these things are even more difficult than i first thought.

That said my gut feeling when thinking about the politics of the spark gap is first to look at standard variable (now price capped) tarrifs because that is the default and many (probably too many) don't diverge from the default.