EDF heating unit increase of 111%

deadwoodftuo

Hello, early this year on this forum a contributor, Rosie1001 I think,  posted stating how she had been an npower customer, as I was then, but had joined EDF. She explained how she had also been a Super Tariff customer with npower but joined EDF on a simple 2 rate Economy tariff which meant the afternoon heater charge was the same as the overnight charge. npowers pm charge (2 hours) was grossly more than the overnight charge. I became an EDF customer in April and have just been notified of the 1st October price increase (I have just had to chase this instead of it being sent automatically) although EDF have managed to send me numerous letters regarding smart meters (which I have declined for the present) and a 6 month statement in September
EDF have now increased my 2 hour pm charge for my storage heaters by 111% - from 11.18 p to 23.58 p. I foolishly believed that my increases would be around the 12% that was in the media in September time and so was not concerned too much about not receiving a price increase letter. It is too late now for me to look for alternative suppliers, I feel I have been completely duped / suckered in whatever you want to call it.

I would like to hear on the Forum from any similar ex npower Super Tariff customers who joined EDF as I did and have experienced the same price increase as I need to check I am not being singled out with this increase. 

The way I see it myself or anyone can economise as much as they want, it makes no difference, the energy companies will just increase your charges to make the profit they want from your account. Your charges only partly reflect the cost of gas or electricity, profit per customer is the main driver. This business strategy is wholly supported by the government, Ofcom and the energy ombudsman. 
I cannot print here what I think of EDF, its CEO and his associates (and Ofgem) who's salaries and packages total millions and lets not forget the mp's on a minimum of £80k plus expenses who are untouched by the energy price increase. 
The public need to get organised and en masse refuse to pay bills completely, millions of people only know the energy supply industry as it is now and not before when there was the Central Electricity Generating Board and localised suppliers such as NEEB etc. Thanks for any input given.

[Deleted User]

deadwoodftuo said:

The way I see it myself or anyone can economise as much as they want, it makes no difference, the energy companies will just increase your charges to make the profit they want from your account.

If they could do that, they wouldn't be going out of business. 

They'd simply increase charges to whatever they wanted.

Neil_Jones

deadwoodftuo said:

The way I see it myself or anyone can economise as much as they want, it makes no difference, the energy companies will just increase your charges to make the profit they want from your account. Your charges only partly reflect the cost of gas or electricity, profit per customer is the main driver. This business strategy is wholly supported by the government, Ofcom and the energy ombudsman. 
I cannot print here what I think of EDF, its CEO and his associates (and Ofgem) who's salaries and packages total millions and lets not forget the mp's on a minimum of £80k plus expenses who are untouched by the energy price increase. 
The public need to get organised and en masse refuse to pay bills completely, millions of people only know the energy supply industry as it is now and not before when there was the Central Electricity Generating Board and localised suppliers such as NEEB etc. Thanks for any input given.

And what good is an en masse refuse to pay bills going to achieve exactly? You seem to be suggesting a return to nationalisation.  Assuming everything else played out the same way, you'd still be paying 23p per kWh.

And its not exactly a state secret that your 23.5 unit rate is not about the cost, it never has been.  Many other factors influence the price.  Like if you go and fill up the car and pay £1.40 a litre, the price of petrol wholesale is only about 35p a litre and hasn't fluctuated much if at all over the last 20 years, two thirds of the price you pay at the pump is tax.

If you're not on the right tariff for you, that's your responsibility to sort out.  It sounds like if you have a couple of peak hour hours in the afternoon it may be a legacy tariff/Eco 10 that only a handful of suppliers support these days.

[Deleted User]

When a supplier is permitted to change a tariff (eg; a variable tariff) then under its Licence Conditions it is required to give consumers notice of the proposed change if the new tariff is higher than the existing tariff that the consumer is on. EDF appears to have complied with this Licence obligation. 

On receipt of a notice from a supplier, the consumer has three options: one, do nothing and just accept the tariff change; two, agree a different tariff with the existing supplier, or, three, switch away. I accept that this is difficult with complex metering. 

The latest fixed tariffs on offer have increased by a similar margin to what you have been offered. The tariffs reflect the massive hike in wholesale costs. Refusing to pay will just result in endless arguments; the possibility of a PAYGO meter; possible disconnection, and a Court case. 

Going on a rant about CEO’s pay etc, it is unlikely to win you a Court case. Re-nationalisation also comes at a cost that consumers would have to pay and there would be no guarantees that future prices would be cheaper.

deadwoodftuo

Thank you for the edification, I had not realised wholesale prices had increased 111% from April to September, I was sure there was information on the internet and the MSE web site regarding an approximate 12% increase in energy costs from October. I must have misread and not seen there were two 1's side by side.

QrizB

Here's a chart of day-ahead UK wholesale electricity prices in £ per MWh (so divide by 10 to give pence per kWh) from https://www.catalyst-commercial.co.uk/wholesale-electricity-prices/ :

That page also has charts of forward-purchase prices of electricity for Summer 22 and Winter 22, which might be of interest to some forumites.

Ectophile

It sounds like you're on something like the old Economy 10 tariff.  There were a number of these created over the years, primarily for all-electric homes.

The electricity companies have decided that they don't want all these legacy tariffs.  They are creating new ones which only work on smart meters.  The only other ones they want customers to be on are single rate or Economy 7.

For years, the energy companies have been creeping up the price of legacy tariffs until customers finally get the hint and switch to single rate or E7.

deadwoodftuo

Ectophile, you are absolutely correct, but when I moved into this property 21 years ago a visiting technician from my local electricity board who had come to advise on heater sizes told me they had a new tariff called Super Tariff which had split charging periods and was much more economical than the lump one 7 hour system - Economy 7 that I had in my previous property. The difference one year later was npower now owned the company and 6 months later declared S. Tariff a non standard tariff which blocked me from price freeze tariffs - a price drop one year I was excluded from, my price increases were always much higher than that announced - this they could do by declaring my tariff non standard.
My meter was even declared not standard I could not find one supplier to take me on unless I went back to E7 which is why i was with npower for 20 years and now 5 months after joining EDF they more than double my 2 hour afternoon rate charge.
In transitional weather the 2 hour charge is enough but the increase is meant to force me use the 5 hour overnight charge when I do not need to.
Over the years I have written to or emailed every energy minister, prime minister, energy watch, ofgem, my own mp's etc, a complete waste of time 95% of letters or emails do not even generate an acknowledgement. 
The name of the game is supposed to be clean energy used economically but consumers are not able to practice this when faced with international energy suppliers who can do virtually as they like with unit costs and tariffs.
I declined a smart meter installation when I went with EDF as there were still too many nightmare reports from consumers, EDF did not comment on this or suggest it may increase costs but I am now left wondering.
 If world gas prices plummet and stay down early in 2022 the energy companies will still want a huge increase in April.

coffeehound

Neil_Jones said:

You seem to be suggesting a return to nationalisation.  

Well to be fair, with EDF you are returning to nationalisation, just with the French government, not the UK  

deadwoodftuo

EDF is owned by the French state? I didn't know that.  But If I know nothing else I know this -  I took a mortgage out on my first home in 1981, this is my 3rd home which I moved into in 1999, some people baulk at the thought of nationalising the uk power industry but none of this grief existed prior to giving it to private industry. For sure people still complained about energy price increases but targeted 111% increases never existed.

[Deleted User]

deadwoodftuo said:

EDF is owned by the French state? I didn't know that.  But If I know nothing else I know this -  I took a mortgage out on my first home in 1981, this is my 3rd home which I moved into in 1999, some people baulk at the thought of nationalising the uk power industry but none of this grief existed prior to giving it to private industry. For sure people still complained about energy price increases but targeted 111% increases never existed.

Private or public would make no difference to the recent increase in wholesale prices. Re-nationalisation would also be expensive. The Government could not just step in without paying suppliers significant compensation.

To put these rises into context, Octopus produces daily gas tracker wholesale prices. The wholesale price today is 6.075p/kWh: a year ago today it was 1.283p/kWh. The high over the past 12 months was 9.283p/kWh. So what is happening? Economies are waking up post Covid; more countries are shying away from electricity produced by coal in favour of gas; Asian countries are prepared to pay what it takes to get all the LNG, and Russia is playing ‘hardball’. To add to our woes, the Government has allowed gas reserves to dwindle; the wind turbines have failed to turn, and we have a shambles of a nuclear energy sector with reactors being decommissioned or left on long-term maintenance. What would Boris Johnson Energy be able to do that Octopus; EDF et al cannot?