Energy news in general

MattMattMattUK

littleteapot said:

The logic when fixing for 2 years from April 2022 was that it would give us some breathing space to save and make improvements to our house and learn how to adjust our lifestyle before the proverbial brown stuff really hits the fan.

You made the right choice I think, I nearly took the EDF fix in May at 36.6p per kWh, but what stopped me was the £300 exit fee and the two year lock in. Now with current projections it looks like I made a bad decision there!

savers_united

Fixing in the current climate is just delaying the inevitable, when your in a fix your often locked out of other fixed products that may be slightly more expensive but offer longer security, when your deal ends the jump can be quite large especially for those who do not monitor prices until their renewel offer comes through. It's all a gamble, working out if I had entered a more costly 2 year fix at the start of all this when Martin advised to stick with the SVT would been better off.

The only real way to offset the rising costs is to cut back but understand that is not always easy and limits to what you can do especially with high standing charges

si_74

Delaying the inevitable, by paying less than the inevitable for as long as possible seems like quite sound logic to me.

Mstty

@savers_united

I completely disagree. The fix we took and lots of others did here too with Eon Next will save us an estimated £1350 from October 2022 - April 2024(projecting 47p per kWh for electricity). It costs us no more than the current cap from April 2022-Oct 2023.

There are also zero exit fees should a jump become possible to a long term deal. Offering longer term security should the market confirm higher prices for the next xxx years.

Some of this is just down to pot luck of the SOLR process and whether you ended up with Eon,BG, Octopus, EDF etc.

But looking forward I would always look for a fix deal with low to no exit fees and trim the energy use accordingly.

Delaying the inevitable? Or just protecting ourselves for 2 years, saving money to put towards a solar installation and perhaps in 2 years time the landscape may be a little nicer or at least so sunshine on the horizon.

brewerdave

Mstty said:

Delaying the inevitable? Or just protecting ourselves for 2 years, saving money to put towards a solar installation and perhaps in 2 years time the landscape may be a little nicer or at least so sunshine on the horizon.

Don't know what the situation is like in your neck of the woods, but a 2 year lead time for a solar installation seems about right as the "reliable" installers round here ,won't even quote at the moment !!

Mstty

brewerdave said:

Mstty said:

Delaying the inevitable? Or just protecting ourselves for 2 years, saving money to put towards a solar installation and perhaps in 2 years time the landscape may be a little nicer or at least so sunshine on the horizon.

Don't know what the situation is like in your neck of the woods, but a 2 year lead time for a solar installation seems about right as the "reliable" installers round here ,won't even quote at the moment !!

That's about right for reputable firms👍 survey booked for next month.

MattMattMattUK

brewerdave said:

Mstty said:

Delaying the inevitable? Or just protecting ourselves for 2 years, saving money to put towards a solar installation and perhaps in 2 years time the landscape may be a little nicer or at least so sunshine on the horizon.

Don't know what the situation is like in your neck of the woods, but a 2 year lead time for a solar installation seems about right as the "reliable" installers round here ,won't even quote at the moment !!

That is why you make friends with a reliable solar installer! Unfortunately I live in a flat, so not much use to me at the moment...

littleteapot

savers_united said:

Fixing in the current climate is just delaying the inevitable, when your in a fix your often locked out of other fixed products that may be slightly more expensive but offer longer security, when your deal ends the jump can be quite large especially for those who do not monitor prices until their renewel offer comes through. It's all a gamble, working out if I had entered a more costly 2 year fix at the start of all this when Martin advised to stick with the SVT would been better off.

The only real way to offset the rising costs is to cut back but understand that is not always easy and limits to what you can do especially with high standing charges

Over a period of 10 years, fixing in slots of 2 years probably makes no significant impact to the overall cost compared to staying on a price-capped rate.

But the benefit of fixing at a 'low rate' for 2 years at the beginning of steep price rises gives one time to adapt to the 'new normal' prices. Whether that be simply by changing energy usage habits, or keeping some cash available to invest in improvements to energy efficiency e.g. insulation, windows/doors, appliances. Or in the case of those who are already struggling financially it means they can at least afford to feed their family and/or pay the rent for another couple of years.

savers_united

Mstty said:

@savers_united

I completely disagree. The fix we took and lots of others did here too with Eon Next will save us an estimated £1350 from October 2022 - April 2024(projecting 47p per kWh for electricity). It costs us no more than the current cap from April 2022-Oct 2023.

There are also zero exit fees should a jump become possible to a long term deal. Offering longer term security should the market confirm higher prices for the next xxx years.

Some of this is just down to pot luck of the SOLR process and whether you ended up with Eon,BG, Octopus, EDF etc.

But looking forward I would always look for a fix deal with low to no exit fees and trim the energy use accordingly.

Delaying the inevitable? Or just protecting ourselves for 2 years, saving money to put towards a solar installation and perhaps in 2 years time the landscape may be a little nicer or at least so sunshine on the horizon.

I was only pointing out that fixes are a gamble in themselves, especially when we now have some with £300 exit fees. If you have a no exit fee and a rate you can afford of course that gives both security and should a better deal pop up opportunity to switch.

There are those who fixed for a year around this time last year at attractive rates compared to today but not much better than the SVT has been on average the past 12mths, they are now coming to an end and face big increases, whereas those who could see how the market was heading jumped off the SVT and fixed earlier this year for 2 years and will likely be better off on average over the next 2 years, and so it starts again, when prices keep rising the best you can do is limit the damage but that is only for so long.

It's the dilemma of keeping a lower rate to the end of the fix or jumping early onto a higher rate fixed that could work out cheaper over a longer term. 

markin

Is this a good time to shut down our top performing nuclear plant? Hinkley Point B is switched off just as country faces crippling energy cost crisis       

Henry Edwards, an editor at the energy specialists S&P Global, told the BBC he expected the closure of Hinkley would hit consumers by forcing up the price of gas.

He said: ‘If you take a generator out of the market that’s fully paid off, and doesn’t have the gas price premium that replacement power will have or the carbon cost then, yes, the wholesale price will rise.’

Power firm EDF, which owns the plant, said: ‘Hinkley B has reliably produced zero-carbon electricity for over 46 years, more than 15 years longer than envisaged when built, and will complete its generating phase as the most productive nuclear site the UK has ever had.’

Hinkley B’s life cannot be extended any further due to cracks in its graphite core, described by energy expert Dr Paul Dorfman, of Sussex University, as an ‘end-of-life condition’. The power station was originally supposed to be switched off in 2016, but careful management of the technology kept it going until yesterday.