British Gas immediate 10% cut in Standard Tariff electricity prices

penrhyn

Cardew wrote: »

Penrhyn,

Can that be correct?

Someone in my area using 20,500/3,300kWh on Click6 would be £140 better off than BG Standard.

So to save £682 surely you would sure have to have an annual bill of several thousand pounds????

Incidentally for my area(Midlands) on those figures Websaver3 is marginally cheaper.

It is even cheaper if you 'mix and match' Websaver3 and Click6 I believe.

If Phil Bentley has got it wrong, perhaps you can ask him for the rest of the discount to make it up to £682;)

EDIT.
Thinking about it I suppose he means that is your cumulative savings over a few years!!!

Would have been nice, sadly my cut and paste got a bit screwed up, it should have been £68, the 2 should have been a raised to the power of 2 2 (I'm sure there is a proper word for this) which refers to some notes at the bottom of the letter.

i.e. These.
2. Versus our standard tariff prices. Based on average annual consumption of 3,300 kWh for single rate electricity and, if dual fuel, 20,500 kWh for gas, paying by Monthly Direct Debit, averaged across all regions, rounded and including VAT. Prices as at 7 May 2009.

PS Well spotted.

1carminestocky

The Express (it's the Express so it MUST be true, lol) are of the firm opinion that this will spark a 'price war'. I think it may be more worthy of a 'a bit of jostling' description, TBH, but I'm sure the others will respond to BGs 'suprise' cut.

Premier_2

I suspect this is the end of the recent price cuts rather than the start of any new one.

In the recent price changes, effective about the beginning of April, all the other 5 major suppliers reduced their electricity prices - most by a claimed 8 -9 %. (although EDF only did so in selective regions) BG did not reduce their electricity price at all in their price changes mid February.

Perhaps this decision was prompted by a mass exodus of BG electricity customers to the cheaper alternative suppliers

silverfoxuk

I have just checked and according to energyhelpline.com, transferring from Click Energy 6 to Websaver 3 dual fuel would be slightly more expensive for me based on my (low) usage, £6 more expensive a year. But if I put in a higher useage it can work out at £18 cheaper so I suppose it depends on what you use.

Cardew

silverfoxuk wrote: »

I have just checked and according to energyhelpline.com, transferring from Click Energy 6 to Websaver 3 dual fuel would be slightly more expensive for me based on my (low) usage, £6 more expensive a year. But if I put in a higher useage it can work out at £18 cheaper so I suppose it depends on what you use.

Have you tried 'mixing and matching'.?

Often the loss of the dual fuel rebate is more than compensated for by getting just, say, gas on websaver3.

dopester

1carminestocky wrote: »

This IS Phil Bentley, of course. The bloke who predicted on 31/7/08 that we were entering 'an era of unprecendented high world energy prices'. I think he needs to give his crystal ball a polish....

In real adjusted terms, June 2008 domestic electricity prices were 50% higher than the price-lows in April 2003.

In real adjusted terms, June 2008 domestic gas prices were 89% higher than the price-lows in November 2000.

Source + graphs (PDF): http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsg-03995.pdf

KimYeovil

dopester wrote: »

Good tip. Just gone and done that, and updated it online.

It's a very poor tip. (But honest.)

A good tip (money saving wise) would be to take the reading now but wait for your bill. Only tell the supplier if they have overestimated the more expensive units.

Gerrard_8_lfc

Premier wrote: »

Perhaps this decision was prompted by a mass exodus of BG electricity customers to the cheaper alternative suppliers

BG have got 40,000 more since the price drop in gas, The strange thing is the Standard electricity is the cheapest on the market against other standard elec tariffs but our gas is rather average.

Anon

It seems that they are all playing a game for headlines - if I recall all have lowered electricity or gas, but not both at the same time. As a result, they now get another headline and another round of switching. People considering switching to BG Websaver 3 may wish to wait a little longer as there is a £30 sting if you want to switch again before December (though £20 of that would be recouped by switching through Quidco).

Splitting electricity and gas separately seems to be cheaper for us at the moment.

Anon

McTigger

Having compared usage against a number of suppliers/tariffs BG is cheapest for basic ELECTRICITY UNITS. In the real world however we all look for discounts and theirs aint all that good. I am switching to EON who are slightly more expensive but offer higher discounts so the end result is a cheaper bill. £70 back from Quidco and Tesco vouchers tops it off.