Energy Suppliers

SDK^ said:
No need to rub it in !!!!
You fixed before all of the price increases at the end of last year - just about timing of when people's fixed deals finish and renew.

When you come to renew, the prices will be a lot higher, electricity will be 3x (+) what you're currently paying. If you renew after 1st October then it will be higher than that, as that's when the price cap will be updated again (after 1st April)
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I am not rubbing it in.

I expect it to quadruple in October if things go the way they are.
 
Has anyone on utilita prepay smart meter heard what the new rates will be?

Currently paying

Elec : First 2 kWh each Day at 34.86p per kWh, thereafter at 20.24p. Standing Charge is £0

Gas : First 2 kWh each Day at 21.417p per kWh, thereafter at 3.987p. Standing Charge is £0.
 
What's the general advice right now then?

Our fix came to an end last year when things started to kick of, and there were no good deals so stayed on with Octopus on Variable.

We used to pay about 60 dual fuel.

They then changed that to about £75 when we went variable.

Since then I have manually gone in and upped it to £100 as it's clearly all on the up.

What are people saying now before April? Fix or stay put on variable?

I can fix with Octopus for £155ish now for 12 months, over double over the year but that's the same for everyone.

Not too clued up on it all, want to get shafted as little as possible :D
 
Richie said:
Ok... What debts exactly and why are the being pushed onto the other companies?

Individual account debts (as in Mr Smith's account is £50 in debit) are passed to the new company and Mr Smith still owes the new company the £50.

If BP went under, would the consumer expect to pay more for fuel at Esso to offset BP's debts (aside from profiteering by other companies I mean).

I'm genuinely asking as I've never heard of consumers bailing out bust companies before (not saying it hasn't happened, just saying I am not aware)
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This has all came about from ideology.

There is a theory that if you have lots of small players in a market, that increased retail level competition makes things better for the consumer, even though they all be supplied by one or the same few wholesalers.

The obvious problem is that to make consumers trust these new companies some kind of risk is associated if they have a credit balance they might lose it if the company goes bust, or may get cut off from electric supply, so a process was devised to prevent that happening.

Again ideology coming into play, someone has to cover the cost of these credit balances been preserved and the ideology has decided to protect industry, not have the cost born by the state, so instead its imposed on consumers.

Bear in mind the cost savings from this artificial competition, is usually in the form of people having to constantly hop between providers as this fake competition usually has better prices restricted to new customer or retention deals. It likely has loyal customers who dont fall into these two categories actually paying more than they would have otherwise as the deals have to be funded from somewhere.

You can probably tell from my wording I dont agree with this ideology. For me proper competition is at the wholesale level, in addition if there is to be subsidies to preserve credit balances, it should come from the state, with the state also trying to recover as much as those costs as possible by sending debt collectors after previous owners of the failed companies, although I would imagine every single one of these companies was probably setup as a PLC. (PLC another thing I am not a fan off as it allows owners to do a runner when business goes belly up). It probably should have been covered by the state and funded by general taxation.

I think lessons learnt from this is there needs to be ofgem regulation that prevents credit balances been built up, a credit account is you pay for the usage after its used, when its billed, so direct debit should match the bill. This means if a company goes belly up there is no credit balances to be covered by the new company. Its insane this isnt regulated, my credit balance at octopus at one point was almost a grand.
 
Just had the dreaded email from bulb, going up from £90pm to £167.58pm

3 bed semi family of 4

What a time to be alive, it was just 3 years ago where we were paying less than £40 a month in the summer months, disposal income just took a hit and with an extension planned this year it's not looking good for a holiday, again
 
Relentless81 said:
Have the government given any acknowledgement whatsoever about this whole issue and the potential for what's going to happen next winter? It looks like they are doing nothing and letting it happen, or have a missed something?
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Their ideology really is its the free market, and the state shouldnt interfere too much.
 
Ok so I just clicked on change tariff for octopus.

12m contract
1 - Moderate increase on SC for electric 19.74p to 23.76p day. Roughly 20%.
2 - Increase from 19.74p unit to 35.61p unit for electric. Roughly 85% or so? no calculator used.
3 - Moderate increase on gas SC from 23p to 26p day, approx 15%.
4 - Increase from 3.76p unit on Gas to 9.63p unit, approx 250% increase?

These are insane, given I have still a month of october cap left as well, this would be 6 months of april cap and 5 months of next october cap.

12 month offer vs April cap.

Electric SC 23.76p day vs 45.34p day
Electric unit price 35.6p vs 20.8p
Gas SC 26.10p vs 27.22p day
Gas unit price 9.63p vs 7.37p

Electric
10 units day usage, on 12m deal approx £113 every month.
10 units day usage, on price cap approx £76 every month

Gas is clearer in the differences so not bothered with calculations.

If we assume price cap doubles so 100% increase next Oct then I am basically better off on price cap by circa £40 month for 6 months, then worse off by circa £35 for next 6 months.

So this really needs to be a 2 year deal or even a 18 month deal at same rates, these companies know what they doing. Able to make these calculations thanks to Martin publishing the unit and SC rates instead of the silly vague average bill from ofgem.

Note the analysis is disregarding gas, my gas usage is extremely low, high gas users may well be better off on this 12m deal as the advantage is only 2p unit on April cap and could be much bigger deficit on Oct cap.
 
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pinkpound said:
Hate too think of the price i will pay come November when current tariff runs out

Tho we might all be like this by then thanks to you know who

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Think yourself lucky that you have "cheap" fuel till November.
The price increases are going to make many people go without food/heating and even taking their own lives over it. I don't think many even realise how much of an increase this is going to be, along with the inevitable increase later in the year plus further increases with the horrible things going on in the east right now.

I myself am going to have to be very careful come April with my electric/gas usage along with the increasing car fuel prices and food increases to have anything left after mortgage/bills. Minimum wage workers are in for a very hard period of time.
 
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