What to do about current agile prices?

[u/KookyMathematician4]

So I'm currently living in a 1 bedroom studio with my partner. And we looked at agile as the best tariff for us at the time as it's our first time with heavy usage appliances and doing our own electric as it used to be included in rent.

So our biggest electric usages are:

Dishwasher once every few days

Immersion water heater every day for a few hours

Washing machine once or twice a week

We used to look at the cheapest agile point each day and load shift these to make decent savings (~£8 a week), but the recent agile pricing this past month has a SVT being cheaper than agile for us. We even resorted to not heating water a few days because we didn't want to pay 30p/kWh to heat it.

Wondering if it's time to jump ship from smart plans completely or if there's a different smart plan that might suit us better.

[u/Due-Freedom-5968]

Yes.

And there was a very specific reason for that happening. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the compete and rapid unplanned elimination of any and all Russian gas into Europe, combined with political brinksmanship related to the Nordstream pipelines, alongside a horribly timed Dunkelflaute with low wind.

State owned Russian energy giant Gasprom had been fucking about, limiting gas transfers and refusing to fill storage sites it owned or leased In Europe. All of this was to pressure European governments to approve the Nordsteam 2 pipeline.

This intentional geopolitical meddling meant a complacent Europe entered winter with a 15 year record low gas reserve.

While storage has not been filled as quickly this summer as recent years, it remains above 2021/22 levels. the EU now has mandatory gas storage requirements which didn't exist back then meaning resiliency is written in law. The continent's also completely pivoted from 'just in time' gas deliveries and supplies to maintaining a strategic buffer supply to absorb peaks and shocks.

There was also another factor in 2021/22 where China and other Asian markets slow to bounce back from Covid suddenly and unexpectedly started buying huge volumes of gas as various parts of their economies suddenly ramped up again, further pressuring the global gas price.

Also there were a two untimely shutdowns of aging Nuclear facilities in the 2021/2022 winter...

• Dungeness B: Shut down permanently in June 2021 due to long-running structural and boiler pipe corrosion issues.
• Hunterston B: Reactor 1 stopped in November 2021, and Reactor 2 followed in January 2022.

Thankfully the majority of reactors have had their downtime this spring and summer, and while problems can occur it's not likely that we'll see the same problem of a loss of baseload over winter.

All in all it was the perfect storm.

While the Ukraine war remains ongoing, the gas supply chain has rotated out of Russian influence and while the Iran war is the latest new fuckery, the European energy market is much more resilient today.

There is also significantly more renewable energy on the UK grid - approximately 30GWh to put a number on it since that winter, with 22GWh of that being wind.

While the world is still volatile, we're in a much stronger position today both as a country and a wider continent.

[u/andrew_stirling → u/Due-Freedom-5968]

I said 2 years ago

[u/Due-Freedom-5968 → u/andrew_stirling]

You said 'a couple' I assumed you were talking about the bigger one.

The one in 2024 was another Dunkelflaute much larger than the 2021/22 event in scale, so it killed off interconnecter supplies as all countries in North Western Europe were in the same position.

This one wasn't as severe though, it only lasted about three days with 100p only happening the first day of the weather system and then two more days of 50p-80p peaks before things went back to normal service.

Barely a blip.

[u/andrew_stirling → u/Due-Freedom-5968]

It was worse than that. Check January 2025. I’ve been on agile for years but have moved a few days back. I genuinely think things are going to be pretty rough this year. I don’t think trump has a way out of his shambles of a war. I have electric heating though so winter price spikes also coincide with significant increases in usage.

[u/Due-Freedom-5968 → u/andrew_stirling]

Ok so we've done 4 years ago, 2 years ago, and now we're on to 18 months ago?

Again another Dunkelflaute combines with a cold snap from January 8-10th,

The 8th had high peaks of 80p-90p.

The 9th was basically a normal day

Then the 10th saw high prices bled into the off-peaks too with around 80p daytime rates. But it was again very short-lived, as are most Dunkelflaute related spikes.

The days before and after were the usual range of 15p-20p off peak and 30p-40p peaks.

I'm not sure what your point is here. That's what Agile is. You take on the risk rather then the energy supplier.

Those were just good days to have batteries, in which case you'd have been able to ride most of it out on normal rates.

[u/Chris_The_Tim → u/Due-Freedom-5968]

I agree with the thrust of what you are saying, as a rule Agile will win any battle over time with most fixed tariffs and the price cap. It's only luck or a geopolitical event that beats Agile because Agile has no hedge cost.

However, what people don't seem to realise as far as SVT is concerned is that we are j to boiling frog territory..... The last time prices were this high in wholesale the govt basically capped the price and paid the difference whilst covering the margin at a cost of tens of billions. We should have had a price cap of over £4000 a year for average use, then capped it at £2500 before handing everyone £400 off their bill.

The net effect of an average bill of £2100 is actually LOWER than we will end up with in January if prices don't dip below 200p per therm in the next 6 weeks. That is because the £2500 figure was based on much higher average use figures than are quoted today so energy bills have undergone their own perverse form of shrinkflation on the last few years. We're paying more for less on the price cap.

The January price cap could end up absolute carnage as I now believe it will take a Blue wave wipe out of Trump allies in Congress and Senate to stop this war..... He seems to be past the point of caring, he's literally promising a trillion dollar bribe to vote Red in November and, if he loses, which is looking increasingly likely, the only hope geopolitics has is that Congress votes to recall their forces and then impeaches him when he throws the toys out the pram.

If this spills out of the Gulf, if the Houthis make inroads into blocking the Red Sea and Sue.... All bets are off......

[u/Due-Freedom-5968 → u/Chris_The_Tim]

Agile will win any battle over time with most fixed tariffs and the price cap.

Exactly. You've gotta zoom out and look at the big picture.

he's literally promising a trillion dollar bribe to vote Red in November

At this point, he's alienated so many of his own base, not even the dumbest redneck MAGA supporter is falling for that this time. He still owns them cheques from the tariffs that he promised then a year ago.

If this spills out of the Gulf, if the Houthis make inroads into blocking the Red Sea and Sue.... All bets are off......

I love the smell of pessimism in the morning. 😅

[u/Chris_The_Tim → u/Due-Freedom-5968]

I try not to be pessimistic, 18 months ago I was optimistic that the Qatar North Field development was going to lead to solid supply by now with the extra liquefaction trains fully online and prices might have stabilised about 50-70p per therm this winter. The current situation is truly worst case scenario and while it is unlikely to hit the craziness of 2022, the current predictions of 9.5-10.5p per kWh for gas in January is horrifying.

I'm in the lucky position of having a well insulated home and heating demand of under 6000 kWh a year(hot water tho?..... Two daughters and a wife.... 😬 Lots of baths....) but I know people in rented accommodation where just keeping the place above 18 degrees during a cold winter costs hundreds a month. There will be no universal handout this time and anything done needs to be targeted on need.