Low energy user price fix question

darush

Hey all, oh my days these times are unprecedented and good luck to each and every one of us.

Just like so many of you probably, I just don't know what to do, but I don't feel like I fit into the videos that Martin has made.

I currently spend about £933 a year on energy, a use of 4589kwh on gas and 2705 kWh on eleccy, ish. Before the September price rise last year, I was closer to £700 a year. The fixes I can find would lock me in to an annual spend of £1439 for a year with oOvo. A price rise of just over £500, which is more than 40% rise (the magic number that Martin makes in his video). 

But that is significantly below the cap, although I suppose it's all relative because of the low usage factor. I'm just worried that if I don't fix to a level that would see me at £1400~, and April comes around and it's closer to £2k, I will be in a very bad place. This move already puts me into fuel poverty range. 

This all happened because of Green falling through and I was passed to shell energy during the intervention and now I'm bobbing around like an unflushable on a standard tarriff which I've never been on before.  If anyone has an opinion that may help me, or perhaps a similar situation and they have been advised on, I would really appreciate the input. Thank you in advance.

Dave

Neil_Jones

The "cap" £1200 figure is not a ceiling figure, so its not a case of spend £1200 in energy, happy days they can't charge me anymore.

The cap basically refers to the unit rates.  If you use more, you pay more.  Simple as.

QrizB

darush said:

I currently spend about £933 a year on energy, a use of 4589kwh on gas and 2705 kWh on eleccy, ish.

Your Shell tariff is at the current Ofgem cap.

If Shell increase the tariff to match the new cap in April, you will be paying around £1370/yr.

darush

Ok thank you both for replying, that's a massive help to understand :-)

EssexHebridean

You need to drill down into the rates of the tariff you’re on at the moment - and use those unit rates rather than a lump sum “cost of energy” figure to work things out. I’m in a broadly similar camp to you on physical costs - we’d been paying around £650 a year prior to last autumn. On the face of it that could mean that our power use is the same as yours, but in fact ours broke down to (in money terms) £620 on electric, £30 on gas - pretty much could not BE more different! Our unit rates will also appear different to yours - our current 28p a unit for electricity during the day would be shocking to you I’m sure - but that is balanced by being able to use electricity overnight at under 8p a unit. Again - thr comparison is meaningless because that’s not going to be a tariff you could get, and even if you could, it would work out vastly more expensive for you!

Remember the cap is a “price cap” not a “cost cap” - so a maximum amount you can be charged for a unit of a thing - in this case the “thing” being energy. If you buy more of the thing though, you still pay that individual amount for every unit of it. 

if I were you I’d look now and see what rates you’re being charged currently, and note those down ready for them to tell you what they plan to increase to. You can find a rough guide on the ofgem site I believe - it’ll be linked somewhere on here - but your supplier should inform you relatively soon anyway with luck. The chances are right now though that there isn’t likely to be a fix that will be any better for you than simply staying on a variable tariff which will be at the cap in any case. 

wild666

In 2018 I was paying 10.4p for electric and 1.97p for gas, these are the rates with VAT added, but the SC was £8.99 between both supplies. As a low user that was around £197.60 for electric and £17.34 for gas with £107.88 SC a total of £322.82 per year from April that will increase to £988.58 that over 200% since the end of 2018.

wrf12345

You have a triple whammy, coming off fixed rates you would be on variable at current rates which would double, but in April prices go up again and then standing charges alone will approach £300 in some areas but there will be some deals with lower s/c's and even higher electric/gas rates that may work better for you but it will mean paying three times more for electric and nearly four times more for gas with £100-150 s/c so £750-800 in total in April, fixed for a year if you move to BritGas but no exit fees so can leave if something better turns up. You can take off £120 for council tax (it is going up regardless so not £150) so you might get away with doubling it. May pay to just have the gas capped (some co's do it for free) which would save £150 at max rates in april inc s/c. Wait until end of March probably to avoid paying higher rates that are already locked into new deals.