Price cap increases- To fix or not to fix?

No. I’m very much a ‘better the devil you know’ sort of bloke. I haven’t even looked to see how they manage standing charges. If the ‘pledge’ only applies to unit rates, then it would mean perhaps less than 2% below the price cap for me, or around £5 a year. That’s not worth the hassle of changing supplier.

For info - my December DD went in today and so I’ve just pressed the fix button and got shown this:

That £187 is way too high but I now have a month to argue it down to the £133/£134 that it should be.

Could you share your calculations that arrive at the figure of £133? And can you see where the £187 figure comes from?

@Firedog  A screenshot from my calculation spreadsheet is below.
I still can’t work out where they are getting the £187 from.
It must be the FAC for gas but I have no Idea what figure they are using, and they have different figures in different places.

Even after fixing last night the fun and games continues.

I’m currently not even sure just what rates I have fixed at - the figures given in the two emails I was sent are different to the figures currently on the ‘Plan’ page of my account.

I’m going to give things a few days to settle down before getting on to them to reduce the DD amount, I may leave it until the new year.

Beware of the VAT! The email figures include it, but the ones on the Plan page and bills don’t.

I haven’t looked at your calculations yet, but it would be a good idea to make sure that VAT is either included or excluded everywhere so you don’t end up comparing apples to goats.

Meanwhile, I dread to think that your gas FAC may have succumbed to the same fault that we’ve seen some other customers suffer: that the OVO system wrongly assumes that your gas usage is being measured in ft³ instead of m³. This would introduce an error with a factor of 2.83. Admittedly, this would bring your AQ in kWh down below what you expect, which is untraditional - any FAC is always overestimated in my experience. But still, worth checking just in case. Your latest bill might give a clue.

VAT - of course that makes the differences showing there. (Slaps head, why didn’t I think of that).

As for the FAC I don’t think it’s because of metric vs imperial, but I suppose that it is possible that they have it wrong in the FAC calculation and correct in the biling.
The billing has been fine, the metric volumes as metered convert to the stated kWh.

I do apreciate that they are always going to overestimate slightly, just to cover themselves, but it seems too much of an overestimation.
I also note that we do agree on the FAC for electricity so they aren’t overestimating there.

I now have until 20th Jan before the next DD is due and they haven’t actually emailed me yet with a figure for the new DD. (So there’s still time for them to get it right).

For info - my December DD went in today and so I’ve just pressed the fix button and got shown this:

That £187 is way too high but I now have a month to argue it down to the £133/£134 that it should be.

I’ve re-read that message that popped up after I fixed. (Glad I screenshotted it and posted it here).

I’d only concentrated on the bold £187 when it popped up, it does jump out at you, but it does also state there that they won’t change the current DD, and they haven’t done. (yet).
They have now enabled the button to for me to change the amount myself, that button wasn’t enabled for me before.

So my DD amount is still showing at the £150 that I have been paying.
I think that I’ll leave it there for now, even though I reckon that it’s higher than needed that extra will pay off my debit balance more quickly.

I believe that I can now do this, and it’s quite interesting.

If I ignore the posted OVO FAC for gas and instead use double my own estmated anual usage for gas, (ie 18400 instead of my 9200) then using the rates including VAT it calculates out as a required monthly DD of £186.92.
That’s close enough for me.

So it looks as if the OVO DD calculator might have an erroneous doubling in there for gas usage? Or is being fed a figure that is twice what it should be? Or even being fed the correct figure twice?
Difficult to be sure without seeing the actual algorithms being used, but as I say interesting.

My issue is the standing charge being a light user as i cant control it.

These are my % SC v unit costs (excl VAT)

20Jun/19 jul 

Elec  was  54.8%

Gas  was 692.7% !!!

20 Nov/19 dec bill 

Elec was 32.5%

Gas was 13.7%

Once my Dec/Jan bill comes in i will be able to see what my standing charge v unit costs are for a whole year. Will be interesting!

It makes obtaining my power move credit (since i started in Sep) all the more important which covers 46.5% of my standing charges when the credit was £10, and 69.8% with the current £15 which i should just about manage under the new winter target.

Power move plus i have only just made over 50p so far all the events so insignificant for a low user.

As to fixing i just dont know, because its the SC thats the impact more for me.

This was one of the main reasons why I chose to fix. When reputable prophets predicted an 8p/day increase in the standing charge for electricity on 1 April, I got my calculator out. The odd 0.05p/unit here or there makes little difference to low users like us, but an 8p hike in the SC means a guaranteed annual cost increase of ~£20. I suggest you do your own sums!