Price Fixing... am I missing something

Sunnysider

Have been thinking about price fixing today. This was before the program this evening.

Looking at British Gas rates though for ELECTRICITY (I'm in Seeboard region) I'm picking up these rates:

Standard Rates from here http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/click5_elec.pdf

Tier 1 21.605
Tier 2 7.077

Their price fix rates from here are http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/price_guarantee_dec_elec.pdf

Tier 1 24.266
Tier 2 10.170

This means that the price fix rates are currently

Tier 1 12.31% higher
Tier 2 43.7% higher

Therefore given that the 'talk' is of up to 40% rise in prices by price fixing now you are pretty much paying the maximum predicted increase from day 1, so would only be better off if prices go up very quickly and by more than the predicted 40%

I then looked at Eon. They have presented me with a quote which states "E.ON guarantee that your electricity and gas bills will be lower than British Gas standard bills – now and until 1 September 2009. This guarantee applies to customers with average electricity consumption of 3,300kWh and above, and average gas consumption of 20,500 kWh and above, including all discounts"

However...

Their prices are

Normal units up to 500 kWhs per year23.6691 penceNormal units10.3677 pence per kWh

Now both of these (which are standard rates) appear to be higher than BG's fixed and even standard rates.

Am I missing something here?

Seems as if BG standard rate isn't so bad after all?...

Ducks_Bum

The EON tariff you mention there is nothing to do with Price fixing or capping, it's simply a guarantee that they'll beat BG. They probably will anyway so you're effectively signing up to their standard prices which will suffer price rises later in the year. I would stayaway from this tariff.

If they are British Gas's fixed rates then I would also stayaway from that as you'll be able to get cheaper fixed prices from EON or Scottish Power online.

stewie_griffin

The units prices that you've quoted as being BG's standard rates are actually their Click Energy 5 prices (and they also exclude VAT which some of the other prices might include).

Their standard prices are here:

http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/Standard%20Electricity%20prices.pdf

pwoodroffe

I am normally pretty sharp with home finances but I too think I might be missing the point with energy price fixing somehow.
I am with EDF and my last quarterly bills were as follows:
Gas 5348 Kwh £121.34
Elec 1246 units £117.62
TOTAL £238.96

If I compare this to the cheapest recommended gas/elec FIX (Scottish power) the prices for the same usage come out at:
Gas 5348 Kwh £227
Elec 1246 units £206
TOTAL £433

If I add the expected 40% increase to my current bill above it comes to £333 per quarter which is still £100 pq less than SP.

I dont understand!!!
And yet CP claims I would be only 5% worse off than I am now

u109230

I've been with EDF since April '07, dual fuel online v5 direct debit tariff.

On my last bill (Jan to Apr '08), the tariff was;

Electric (first 900 units/pa) = 9.29p/unit, rest 5.87p
Gas (first 185('ish) cubic feet) = 3.489p/Kwh, rest 2.359p

I've had no recent communications from EDF re tariff increases or being moved onto another (more expensive?) tariff altogether. Currently I'm staying put.

Anyone got experiences on EDF's policy in this area of tariff increases? - will they just discontinue the v5 online tariff & move all such customers onto a hideous new rate?

monoxideuk

Sunnysider wrote: »

Have been thinking about price fixing today. This was before the program this evening.

Looking at British Gas rates though for ELECTRICITY (I'm in Seeboard region) I'm picking up these rates:

Standard Rates from here http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/click5_elec.pdf

Tier 1 21.605
Tier 2 7.077

Their price fix rates from here are http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/price_guarantee_dec_elec.pdf

Tier 1 24.266
Tier 2 10.170

This means that the price fix rates are currently

Tier 1 12.31% higher
Tier 2 43.7% higher

Therefore given that the 'talk' is of up to 40% rise in prices by price fixing now you are pretty much paying the maximum predicted increase from day 1, so would only be better off if prices go up very quickly and by more than the predicted 40%

I then looked at Eon. They have presented me with a quote which states "E.ON guarantee that your electricity and gas bills will be lower than British Gas standard bills – now and until 1 September 2009. This guarantee applies to customers with average electricity consumption of 3,300kWh and above, and average gas consumption of 20,500 kWh and above, including all discounts"

However...

Their prices are

Normal units up to 500 kWhs per year23.6691 penceNormal units10.3677 pence per kWh

Now both of these (which are standard rates) appear to be higher than BG's fixed and even standard rates.

Am I missing something here?

Seems as if BG standard rate isn't so bad after all?...

As previously said your using the click energy 5 tariff info from bg which has an online discount which is considerable cheaper than there standard, plus the tariff info does not include VAT of 5%.

So really:

BG standard tariff:

Tier 1 23.205p for the first 125 kWh per quarter
Tier 2 9.725p thereafter

(including 5% VAT)

BG price Guarantee December 2009

Tier 1 25.479p for the first 125 kWh per quarter
Tier 2 10.679p thereafter

(including VAT)


so electric premium compared to there standard

Tier 1 9.7% Increase
Tier 2 9.8% Increase

So an average of 10% increase on the electric

Gas

British Gas Standard tariff


Tier 1 6.459p for the first 670 kWh per quarter
Tier 2 2.709p thereafter

(Including 5% VAT)

British gas price guarantee December 2009

Tier 1 7.092p for the first 670 kWh per quarter,
Tier 2 2.975p thereafter

(including VAT 5%)

So gas premium increase

Tier 1 9.8% increase
Tier 2 9.8% increase

Another 10% increase

So if this is the case and the expected 40% increase on both gas and electric you will be making a massive saving over the protected time.

**hope my maths is spot on **

Hope this helps

SwanJon

and (as they saying goes) there's the rub.
The premiums suggested are over standard tariffs, so if you are not on an online tariff it is a smaller increase. But as online tariffs are available we should also compare with them, and so the premium looks bigger.

So do you fix (losing online discount & paying premium), or do you take the online discount now and wait and see what happens to the prices.
This is a gamble either way, but I wouldn't choose to just stay on the standard tariff - that is the only one sure to lose out.

pwoodroffe - could you have used the Tier 1 price when doing your comparisons? I think SP only charge them for the first 1470 kwh(gas) and 225 kWh (ele) per quarter. That might make the figures a bit more realistic - or you might be on a special rate with EDF.