HUGE increase in monthly gas and electricity bill imminent

Anthony21289

EssexHebridean said:

Absolutely. The weekly emails from MSE have been covering this situation for months now along with giving the "sit tight" advice - I'd suggest signing up to receive them (And encouraging your SIL to do the same!) as that might help you to keep up to date on things like this in the future. 

Thanks for the suggestion - but I have been getting the weekly emails since they first started, amy years ago !! It was measuring what the media have been saying "prices will go up by 50% etc" against the message I received from Scottish Power a few days ago (300% increase) that stimulated me to post on this Forum.

QrizB

Anthony21289 said:

Thank you for all the responses to my comment about Smart controls. All very interesting, but ours works fine and not my current concern, which is about what is going to happen from April.

Right at the moment the cheapest tariff on the market is the Ofgem-capped variable tariff. On that tariff gas is around 4.1p/kwh and electricity is around 21p/kWh (with regional variations).

In April the cap will increase. Some people are saying "it will rise by 50%". If it does, and does so uniformly, gas will become 6.15p/kWh and electricity will become 31.5p/kWh. Right at the moment there are 12m and 24m fixed tariffs cheaper than 31.5p/kWh for electricity but I've not seen one anywhere near 6.15p/kWh for gas.

However, a uniform 50% rise isn't the most likely outcome. I'm expecting the gas cap to be a lot higher than that (see this thread).

The April cap is due to be announced on the 7th of February, in less than a fortnight. We'll know more then.