anyone else on the edf blue price promise April 2014 tariff ?

Tyler_Du

I'm on the edf blue price promise 2014 tariff and I'm trying to decide whether to switch to the npower 2017 tariff. My last bill from edf showed my annual usage as 3220 kWh elec and 20200 kWh gas which is just under £100pm, when I plug these figures in to the npower site for that tariff it quotes me £130pm, strange thing is when I plug my kWh figures into npower it thinks I'm a business user and will only quote me if I use my annual costs.

What are other people in a similar situation planning on doing?

dogshome

All N'power systems are suspect at the present time due to dodgy software, but this maybe just a case of you inadvertantly adding an extra 0 when entering the Gas use.

Try entering the figs. on the Switchwithwhich site - This brings up the usual list of suppliers & prices, but on each one there is a 'Compare tariff' icon which when pressed brings up all the fine detail of that suppliers tariff, directly alongside the fine detail of your present one

davidm_uk

I'm also on the EDF Blue Price Promise April 2014 tariff, paying £120/month for duel fuel.

I've used the MSE Cheap energy club website to look longer fixed price deals and it shows (amongst others) the EDF Blue +Price Freeeeze November 2016, for the same annual usage, at £154 /month, the same as when I looked at the EDF site for my account and the switching options on there.

I've just knocked up a quick and simple spreadsheet mapping things out unto the end of Nov 2016. On my current scheme I assumed an x% increase in May 2014 (when the price freeze runs out) and x% increase in May 2015 and again in May 2016.

To get the total cost of both schemes over the period to be the same, the x% price increase will have to be 16%. That seems quite high.

I'm disinclined to go for the long term fix on this basis.

Are they prices really likely to go up that much each year, or are EDF just playing really safe (or trying to get our cash early).

NittyGritty

I assume you also factored in the increase in price of your new tariff also, whatever that will be each and every year till 2016, as each and every new tariff will also have a price increase

TonySoprano

Long term tariffs are too expensive at the moment IMO they are using the media hype to extract more money and you may end up paying more. I did a simple calculation and I concluded that over the past few years on 3 seperate energy companies I have been with on fix deals my increases have only been around 5- 8 percent year on year besides every year you switch you get cashback and other incentives like MandS vouchers which offsets the percentage increase. IMO your on one of the best deals at the mo so stick with it and then take the best fixed deal when your expires

The secret is to know your daily usage, not monthly or yearly. Once you have this do your own comparison and calculations using the tariff rates on the details tab at the switch sites.

Switch sites make assumptions which can influence the figures negatively

Always look to switch around 2 months before your deal expires and you can use that 2 months to monitor the market. If a deal comes along grab it as it will take around 4-6 weeks to complete. Switching sooner would mean you lose the full benefits of your current deal you may as well throw money down the drain.

macman

Switch now and you'll lose the whole winter on the (relatively) cheap EDF fix.
Are we expecting another cold winter? If so, probably better to stay put and take your chances in the spring. The impact of any switch then won't really hit until autumn 2014.

MillicentBystander

What is rarely factored in when we get this sort of question is how much extra you will have paid until the long term fix's price attains parity status with the cheapest variable tariff at the time. On some of these examples here the extra cost per year on the long term fix is as much as £400! It's certainly something that should be considered in full before committing.

davidm_uk

MillicentBystander wrote: »

What is rarely factored in when we get this sort of question is how much extra you will have paid until the long term fix's price attains parity status with the cheapest variable tariff at the time. On some of these examples here the extra cost per year on the long term fix is as much as £400! It's certainly something that should be considered in full before committing.

Well that's pretty much what I did with the spreadsheet. Prices following the end of my current fix would have to go up by 16% per year before I would gain by switching to the EDF November 2016 fixed deal now.

I will now wait at least until my current fix runs out at the end of April 2014.

matelodave

First Utility v9 has a good rate till April 2015 (better even than the Scottish Power Dec 2014 and it runs for four months longer), might be worth seeing how much extra it will be over the next 19 months (which includes two winters) - a sight cheaper than the Npower 2017 tariff, not sure how it compares with the EDF one.

I've done a few sums on the Npower one and it will cost me over £400 extra in the first year and then the extra cost starts to taper off but fuel would have to go up 16-18% year on year before it broke even by the end of 2016.

macman

I wonder if that nice Mr Miliband is fixing or switching now?

brewerdave

macman wrote: »

I wonder if that nice Mr Miliband is fixing or switching now?

Priceless macman :rotfl: