Is this what prices are becoming?

JohnSwift10

I'm with Green energy and since I got an email about the price increasing I checked with switch with which and got the shock of my life.£191 more than Green.
I will stick with them until they catch up.

[Deleted User]

By then, other fixed price tariffs may have increased. I have just ditched my fixed gas tariff early to ensure that I get a modest price increase for the coming Winter period. I got in at 3.19p/kWh: a week later, the fixed price has risen to 3.79p/kWh. Why - it is due to a massive increase in the price of gas. Gas is also being used to produce 40% of our electricity.

Correction: with today’s sun, gas generation is down to 33.5%.

DiseasedBunny

That’s because they won’t have updated the green tarrifs yet - I used the green variable tarrif as its the option that’s the closet to their new rates and there were lots of cheaper options 

PZ19

[Deleted User] said:

By then, other fixed price tariffs may have increased. I have just ditched my fixed gas tariff early to ensure that I get a modest price increase for the coming Winter period. I got in at 3.19p/kWh: a week later, the fixed price has risen to 3.79p/kWh. Why - it is due to a massive increase in the price of gas. Gas is also being used to produce 40% of our electricity.

Correction: with today’s sun, gas generation is down to 33.5%.

On Igloos price increase email they said wholesale gas prices have increased 180% since start of the year.  My tariff increased 43%. It’s insane, no idea how lot of people can afford those kind of rises

cattom

prices now will only ever go up. so use the comparison sites and go with who ever is best price for your needs. 

DiseasedBunny

PZ19 said:

[Deleted User] said:

By then, other fixed price tariffs may have increased. I have just ditched my fixed gas tariff early to ensure that I get a modest price increase for the coming Winter period. I got in at 3.19p/kWh: a week later, the fixed price has risen to 3.79p/kWh. Why - it is due to a massive increase in the price of gas. Gas is also being used to produce 40% of our electricity.

Correction: with today’s sun, gas generation is down to 33.5%.

On Igloos price increase email they said wholesale gas prices have increased 180% since start of the year.  My tariff increased 43%. It’s insane, no idea how lot of people can afford those kind of rises

Yep, which pretty much guarantees it will go up again in April, as they need to recoup the percentage deficit

JohnSwift10

cattom said:

prices now will only ever go up. so use the comparison sites and go with who ever is best price for your needs. 

Yes but the best price is £191 more a year than I am paying now.

Would you switch to that now?

cattom

the answer is no. stay where you are for the time being. and get a fixed price with it if you can.

QrizB

JohnSwift10 said:

cattom said:

prices now will only ever go up. so use the comparison sites and go with who ever is best price for your needs. 

Yes but the best price is £191 more a year than I am paying now.
Would you switch to that now?

Well, I guess the question is "do you feel lucky"?

You've had the email saying that Green's prices are going up, so you've got 4 weeks(?) left at your current prices. Are you confident that prices won't rise again in that time? Or will you find that the best price is, say, £250 more than you're currently paying when you do the comparison again in 4 weeks, in which case the £5 you've saved by not switching sooner will have been a false economy?

You could see whether UW will let you choose your switching date for the end of the month, getting the benefit of 4 weeks on your current rate but not risking further rises?

spot1034

cattom said:

prices now will only ever go up. so use the comparison sites and go with who ever is best price for your needs. 

Bookmark this post! It is usually the case that a sharp spike in prices in any market such as energy is followed by a retreat. At some point, these wholesale prices WILL start to fall. However, the one thing I can't help you with is whether we are at or near the peak and we might see a fall back from where we are right now, or whether we still have a way to go and the short term advice to act as fast as you can to fix before we see further increases is sound.

My own situation is that I am just over half way through fixed contracts which run until the end of January in the case of gas and February for electricity. I am paying a price which you couldn't get near now, and it would be ludicrous for me to bail out of these early to go for a new fix right now just out of fear that I might have to pay even more to renew in a few months time. Markets can be very sensitive to all sorts of things and if - for example - the weather turns out to be very mild over the winter months, we might well see prices easing quite significantly by the time we get to the early part of next year. On the other hand it could go the other way in the short term due to weather, supply problems, something else - no one knows.

But look at Zog's prices for gas - I've looked at these as I'm with them and I am kicking myself for not going for a two year fix rather than one, which would have been a very smart move as things have turned out. However, at the time there was a significant penalty for opting for the two year fix which meant paying a higher price in the first year. Right now though, the difference between a 1 and 2 year fix for me would be trivial, just a few pounds a year or a few pence per week. What does that tell you? It means that they don't expect prices to keep rising. If they did, that tiny margin would be significantly wider.

Neil_Jones

I think I wrote on here previously when my most recent fix ended, the difference in Zog's prices was such that the variable tariff (at the time) was cheaper than the two year fix and the difference between a 12mth fix and a 24mth fix was literally nothing, so it was a no brainer to take the 2 year fix.  (I managed to get a unit rate less than 3p per kWh, 2.9916 or something like that, but two or three days later it had been replaced with a 3.2, 3.5 and 3.75 unit rates, all in the space of the last three months!)