Home gas prices. No price dip this lockdown?

face-t

I'm planning to switch.

Should I expect gas price dips any time this lockdown - like it was last time almost year ago?

Does anyone have a crystal ball?

Edit: is there on average, best month to swap energy/gas provider - month in a year when prices usually dip?

Neil_Jones

Gas is bought weeks, months, sometimes years in advance, they don't just look at a gas tank and go oh crap, its nearly empty lets get more, doesn't work like that.

You can see some of the variations here which may give you an idea of where we are and where we may be going::

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/all-charts/policy-area/gas-wholesale-markets

face-t

Neil_Jones said:

Gas is bought weeks, months, sometimes years in advance, they don't just look at a gas tank and go oh crap, its nearly empty lets get more, doesn't work like that.

You can see some of the variations here which may give you an idea of where we are and where we may be going::

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/all-charts/policy-area/gas-wholesale-markets

I just read about storage.

Gas Storage in the GB Market3/ 1227/03/2019The 14TWh of storage exclusively composed of Medium Range Storages(MRS), which are cycled up to 4times per year. This means that over each 12-monthperiod, the volume is injected and withdrawn 4times on average.

If I get it right the storage get refilled like 4x a year. Would you be talking about gas bought as contracts, but then prices are still low and for households they are not very low - even my contract is pre-covid, I get higher quotes today.

From your charts - if they would follow trend - I get it will only go up, since last year situation is unlikely to happen again.

Neil_Jones

Remember its not all about the gas on its own.  There are overheads as well, the gas companies have to pay for staff, for buildings for staff to work from (plus electricity at a minimum, insurance, office furniture etc), for the computer systems, levies, and so on and so forth.  Staff don't work for nothing after all.

[Deleted User]

This might explain what is happening on the Spot Market:

[Deleted User]

This was July last year:

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Dolor said:

https://octopus.energy/tracker-demo-list/?headless=true

It looks like price projection, suggesting the prices might come down soon, being worth to put myself on variable for some time and to fix it later in a year

[Deleted User]

face-t said:

Dolor said:

https://octopus.energy/tracker-demo-list/?headless=true

It looks like price projection, suggesting the prices might come down soon, being worth to put myself on variable for some time and to fix it later in a year

How so? There is much more commercial activity going on in the preset lockdown than was the case in the Summer. The prices in the upper table are the actual daily prices per kWh paid by Octopus customers  (by region) on the Tracker Gas tariff. Octopus’ fixed gas tariff has increased twice in the past 6 weeks. Ovo has also increased its fixed gas tariff in recent days.

[Deleted User]

Mor informed opinion here:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/374970/united-kingdom-uk-gas-price-forecast/

https://www.ukpower.co.uk/gas_electricity_news/power-cuts-avoided-but-price-rises-on-the-way

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Dolor said:

How so?

I only refer to Octopus graphs , attached, but reading your links... Very interesting reading. I'm not going to say that is it clear to me what to do now.

Trends and opinions are build on some data, informations etc. Who is more believable.

Following purely this graph, gas price could rise for a week or 2.

With the BritNed link unavailable (that’s the undersea interconnector that transports electricity from mainland Europe to the UK) and the wind almost at a standstill

Great stuff we have less of Nuclear plants everyday.

Updated January 2021

The UK generates about 20% of its electricity from nuclear, but almost half of current capacity is to be retired by 2025.

UK energy policy since the 2008 Energy Act has largely been built around reducing carbon dioxide emissions rather than security of supply or cost.

I think it was Germany that lately couldn't balance power grid, relying too much on renewable sources, now building another coal plant.

[Deleted User]

If you are with Octopus and it’s no exit fee tariffs then I would suggest that the short term solution is obvious. I was on Tracker but I fixed three weeks ago.