Gas and electricity suppliers frontloading price hikes

pineapple

I didn't know about this till seeing a recent Watchdog.
Think your power is just going up by 11% or so? Think again.
In the case of Scottish Power for example the consumer is being hit by a 30% rise for the first units.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2011/09/energy_costs_update.html

macman

But the first tier units (225) represent less than a quarter of the bill for the average user consuming around 4,000kWh pa. So if the tier 2 rates hardly rise at all, the overall increase would be less than 11%.

pineapple

The problem is for those who are normally careful, live in a small property and consume a lot less than average. Like me!

spiro

The formula that the suppliers use to publish their percetnage increases is agreed with OFGEM to provide what is deemed to be an 'average' increase for an 'average' user.