At last some good news for owners of second homes: Ofgem has ordered electricity providers to offer tariffs which have no standing charges, but where instead householders pay more per unit of electricity consumed. True, it isn’t second-home owners which Ofgem had in mind when it came up with the idea, rather low income consumers whom it believes are losing out under the current system. But there is no question as to whom will be the biggest beneficiaries: people who only use their properties occasionally. If you visit your Cornish clifftop mansion for only four weeks a year you stand to make a substantial saving.
Standing charges have become the latest bugbear for poverty campaigners. According to Martin Lewis, they amount to a ‘poll tax’. But there is sound logic behind them. It costs money to maintain an electricity connection to a property. Wires must be maintained, as must substations and other electricity infrastructure.