A year of consultations followed until the regulator eventually proposed that all energy suppliers must offer all their customers, tariffs that have ‘low or no’ standing charges.
In May of this year, Martin Lewis’s website reported the following:
Under Ofgem's latest plans, four of the big energy firms (British Gas, EDF, E.on and Octopus) will be trialling low or no standing charge tariffs during 2026. Each supplier will offer at least one version of the tariff to specific households for one year. The trial has not been finalised, but we'll update this guide when we have more details.
Living in a household that uses little energy, would I be classed as one of the SPECIFIC households? What I think is meant by the phrase ‘specific households’ is either those on benefits or those with large energy debt. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to wait to be asked so I emailed Octopus to enquire when they would be trialling these new low or no standing charge tariffs.
At first, the eager-to-please Octopeep who replied to my email sent across details of existing tariffs that might tickle my fancy, none of which reflected standing charges any lower than that of my current tariff. They’d completely ignored my question relating to ‘low or no’ tariffs. Blanked me like a unprinted A4 page.
Not one to give up in these instances, I then challenged the Octopeep further, suggesting they respond to the actual question which was when will Octopus be offering their customers low or no standing charge tariffs?
Eventually, an emailed reply was received as follows:
I can confirm that Ofgem has mentioned a tariff with a low standing charge will be available from April. While Octopus will not have this tariff available from the 1st of April, we are still working through the details and it may be launched sometime after. Please note, it’s not a no standing charge tariff but one with a reduced standing charge, a 'Low standing charge' tariff.
No surprises. Of course, the likelihood of there being a ‘NO’ standing charge tariff was pretty slim at the outset since the cost of all those green levies, network maintenance costs and anything else has to be recovered from all punters via this charge.
And now that energy costs are going to go into orbit following the war in the Middle East, energy suppliers are going to be dragging their heels over the introduction of a ‘LOW’ standing charge tariff particularly if consumption costs are then capped by Ofgem or customers reduce their consumption levels to economise.
Having made this proposal, will Ofgem now be checking up on suppliers to see if they comply with the spirit of this new requirement? I suspect not since Ofgem fails to live up to my expectations of a regulator that is there to protect the interests of energy consumers, preferring instead to keep suppliers sweet. A regulator with teeth would be chasing up suppliers with a deadline for the introduction of the new tariff. Not Ofgem because it's generally toothless, spineless, useless – no better than a piece of fluff wedged in a belly-button.
Since there is little evidence that Octopus will be making these new tariffs available before next winter then I’ve signed up to another energy fix until June 2027 to keep the household ship afloat on an even keel.
Rest assured, I will be keeping a beady eye on the Octopus to see if it eventually introduces a low standing charge tariff.
And in case you are wondering what happened to summer fun, online tickets for Alton Towers are still reflecting a 20% rate of VAT so I’m still waiting to see those marvellous reductions as proposed by the Reevester being rolled out to the public.
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