Martin Lewis: Energy price cap to rise by 51% on 1 April - should you fix now?

837843

Many providers have gone bust. Can't access my previous consumption info with Avro -current site thows up blank pages - but wisely kept separate notes. How can you find out how 'safe' your new provider will be b4 doing all the spadework which could amount to nothing? 'Going Broke Chances Score' for remaining providers would be useful. Someone like ML could get his head around the data from defunct companies & compare any similarities with surviving companies providing a 'Warning Analaysis' when considering what your next best move would be. In the last 12 months previously recommended companies, (recommended from more than 1 source) eg. Peoples Energy & Avro have gone to the wall.

JonC100

We got the letter from Utility Warehouse on 17th Feb; expected increases in unit prices for gas and electricity. However, it's a different story with the standing charges. Gas SC has a very small increase. Electricity SC is increased by 103%!  First call to UW eventually advised that it was an error and that replacement letters were being sent. Second call (today) initially said that the increase was correct, and that the previous information was wrong. I was then referred to the Energy Specialist team (?) who kept me on hold for a long time and then said he would ring back. A relation, also with UW at my suggestion, has seen an increase of about 140% in the electricity SC.  I suspect an attempt to sneak through what appears to be a small windfall increras with the price cap increase.  But the Electricity SC increase is worth £50m a year to UW, while there can be no justification for any more than an inflationary increase of, say, 2 - 3% instead of well over 100 %. 
Maybe other suppliers have puled the same trick, Be warned!

superkoopauk

Not sure how it is a "trick".  Suppliers will simply be raising the standing charge to the level allowed by Ofgem?

Astria

I'm sure JonC will not be happy when next April the SC is increased again by at least 11p.

MWT

JonC100 said:

I suspect an attempt to sneak through what appears to be a small windfall increras with the price cap increase.  But the Electricity SC increase is worth £50m a year to UW, while there can be no justification for any more than an inflationary increase of, say, 2 - 3% instead of well over 100 %. 
Maybe other suppliers have puled the same trick, Be warned!

It is not a 'trick' the part you are missing is that the electricity standing charge also carries all the levies imposed by Ofgem, and in this case, the big increase is in the levy which recovers the cost of the 'Supplier of Last Resort' scheme which has been used to protect the customer balances and other additional costs of short term energy contracts.
So it is legitimate and not a mistake or a trick...

yippeekiay

Just got a letter from Eon today & my electricity standing charges are doubling. I too am annoyed at this as a very low user, especially in the coming warmer/lighter months. I'm going to be paying more for the standing charge alone from April (even if I don't use any power) than I am paying for the standing charge AND electricity I'm using daily now.

We are encouraged to use less energy then are shafted on the daily charges to make up for their losses.

I really miss those zero standing charge tariffs that used to be around but are forever consigned to the history books now

QrizB

yippeekiay said:

We are encouraged to use less energy then are shafted on the daily charges to make up for their losses.

You'll be pleased, then, to learn that as of April you'll be saving 7p/kWh more for every kWh that you don't use, compared to now.

Astria

You could always store batteries and have solar panels and maybe even a gas powered generator, then you wouldn't need to pay the standing charge, but that's like to cost a lot more than several years worth of standing charges.