The Future Of Gas & Elec Prices

ahll

Hi Ok before I ring them can anyone tell me what the Scottish Power capped rate is for both Gas and Electricity ?

I went on their website but nothing came up when I selected a capped rate !

djohn2002uk

Different areas all have different rates with all the companies so being in the South West I can't tell you.

What I can tell you is that it's £2.50/month for each fuel above the standard rate and I anticipate that rises are going to be significantly higher than that in March.

ahll

"Different areas all have different rates with all the companies so being in the South West I can't tell you."

Ok thanks I didnt realise the companies charged you differntent prices depending on where you are ! Why is that ?

I am in West Yorkshire if anyone can tell me the capped rate for Scotish Power

djohn2002uk

ahll wrote:

"Different areas all have different rates with all the companies so being in the South West I can't tell you."

Ok thanks I didnt realise the companies charged you differntent prices depending on where you are ! Why is that ?

It seems that the regulator has fixed what the original supplier must charge, in our case Southern Electric, in your case it may have been Yorkshire Electricity (Not Sure). Each area seems to be different but when you ask another company for a price, they will beat it to get your custom and your local company are not allowed to drop their prices because they are the "dominant supplier". When they cease to be the dominant supplier then they can play the same game as the other companies. Because of this, your local company can go into other areas and not being in a dominant position there, can cut their prices to below the "Dominant supplier" in that area.
This was done to promote competition but has a negative impact on your local supplier and more seriously for British Gas who are the "Dominant Supplier" nationwide so they cannot compete anywhere on gas but can anywhere on electricity.
That's the best way I can explain it and in my opinion it's not the best solution because Southern Electric are our local supplier and have by far the best customer service yet I am forced to go elsewhere to save money.

ahll

Thanks for the information. Your are right BG do charge you if you want to come off the capped rate..they only dont charge if you are moving house !

"The cancellation charges are £20 for electricity and £30 for gas. This charge will not be applied if the agreement is cancelled due to a home move."

djohn2002uk

moh877 wrote:

BGas provide FIXED prices not Capped.

British Gas do Capped Prices. Where the unit price is Capped for a period of time.

Staywarm do a Fixed Price. Where you use what you want for a Fixed Price per month.

jockettuk

boyfriend has had powergen for nearly 2 yrs now and never had a problem with them.. if needed to ring got through ok etc.. me im with bg and i will be glad to get rid of them when i move in july.. we will of course be looking at the other companies when i move in with in in july but so far poweregen been the best for him

cozzie

Not sure if anyone else has heard this, but, the radio adverts for BG states that the capped/fixed (whichever it is) will be based on the 1st March prices.

It's included in the part where they talk really quickly at the end of the advert and hope that you are already discussing the offer or can't hear them well enough.

djohn2002uk

moh877 wrote:

I beg to differ. :cool:
British Gas provide Fixed prices per unit until 2009. And not Capped for example if the unit price was to fall the price that customers on the Price Protection 2009 would stay the same, if they provided Capped the price per unit would drop.
This is one difference between Fixed per unit and Capped per unit there are others, if you still do not get it go to the mortgage board and I am sure that everyone will fill you in in regards to the difference between a Fixed Rate mortgage and a Capped Rate mortgage.

It has nothing to do with mortgages.
And I suggest you ring Scottish Power (who I am with on a capped rate), or Powergen and ask them if you pay less if the price drops.
The whole idea of a capped rate is that you take a risk that prices will continue rising. That is why so many analysts have been advising caution over BGs long term capped price to 2009 when it is expected that gas prices will fall in the next couple of years, once the price fixing in Europe has been sorted.
BG, on their site refer to fixing prices and also price protection and even frozen prices. They all add up to the same thing that other companies refer to as capped prices, and even The Daily Telegraph refer to it as a capped price:-
The British Gas increases will not affect dual-fuel users who have signed price capping agreements. The company has extended this programme, offering dual-fuel customers price protection until April 2009 and is confident it can avoid any further rises for the rest of the year.

Staywarm and another scheme which was run in South Wales is a fixed price over 12 month periods.

Cardew

This semantic argument illustrates how imprecise the English language can be and why we pay lawyers huge sums to get the wording on legal documents correct.

For what its worth I believe that the generally accepted convention is that a fixed tariff is just that – it will not change. A capped tariff is one that cannot increase but could conceivable decrease. Thus as I saw nothing in the BG fixed(sorry) to 2010 offer to indicate that there was a possibility of a price decrease, I believe BG correctly termed it a fixed price offer.

However in the context of energy prices I suggest that fixed and capped mean exactly the same thing.

In mortgage terms a fixed rate is self explanatory. For a capped rate it details to what level the rate will fall - normally in relation to the Bank of England base rate.