When will competition resume?

Thrugelmir

wittynamegoeshere said:

 They don't actually produce anything, we could all just buy power from National Grid and not bother with having what's basically a sales agent.

Who is "they"?  Care to share some names.

 Does National Grid generate and sell all the power that the UK consumes? 

markin

The Big 6 seemed to just ignore the competition, and for now the is no competition for them to ignore. I think it will be a year before the little fish try again, the ones left standing were gifted customers or didn't want any more.

spot1034

I suspect that when the wholesale price falls enough to make fixes attractive, there will be fierce competition between the remaining suppliers which are predominantly large with plenty of financial muscle, so they will be able to snap up good prices when the opportunity arises. I think there will be a battle for market share, which is important to such businesses and they won't want to see theirs slip because the competition is stealing their customers. Don't forget many consumers are presently with suppliers they didn't choose, and might be relatively easy to tempt away. 

savers_united

Energy providers have been and are still selling at a loss. If you look at wholesale prices since the latest cap came Into force in October Gas has often been more than double the price on the open market and Electricity also at times nearly double, so they have been absorbing those losses for months, they are not suddenly going to offer fixed deals that lose even more money. When the time is right and the figures add up then yes they may start offering competitive prices again but first we need a sustained lowering of the wholesale prices. 

wittynamegoeshere

The truth will emerge in April I suppose.  Personally I think we're all being stitched up, but I hope to be proved wrong when they all viciously compete for our custom in a cut-throat fight to the death, just like they never did previously.

I expect, with the demise of the upstarts, that we'll be back to the old ways where the big companies announce price rises on consecutive days.  That is if they ever get back below the cap in the first place.

Perhaps there is a chance that now people are spending much more on power and there's so much more awareness then people will be more willing to switch than they were in the past.  Hopefully the first one to break ranks and offer a sub-cap price will get a few headlines and a pile of new customers.

Thrugelmir

wittynamegoeshere said:

The truth will emerge in April I suppose.  Personally I think we're all being stitched up, but I hope to be proved wrong when they all viciously compete for our custom in a cut-throat fight to the death, just like they never did previously.

I expect, with the demise of the upstarts, that we'll be back to the old ways where the big companies announce price rises on consecutive days.  That is if they ever get back below the cap in the first place.

Perhaps there is a chance that now people are spending much more on power and there's so much more awareness then people will be more willing to switch than they were in the past.  Hopefully the first one to break ranks and offer a sub-cap price will get a few headlines and a pile of new customers.

Plenty of ramble but no hard facts. You avoided answering the questions I posed?  MSE isn't Facebook (Thank God).  

wittynamegoeshere

I haven't got any nits for you to pick at fortunately, and didn't want to get into whatever game you were attempting to play.

Obviously suppliers don't produce a thing.  The last time I checked they didn't employ anyone who runs a power station or maintains a cable.  They're just agents, who buy at a low price and sell at a high price.

I do understand that this forum is frequented by lots of energy supplier staff, who defend the status quo at all costs.

MWT

wittynamegoeshere said:

Obviously suppliers don't produce a thing.  The last time I checked they didn't employ anyone who runs a power station or maintains a cable.  They're just agents, who buy at a low price and sell at a high price.

I do understand that this forum is frequented by lots of energy supplier staff, who defend the status quo at all costs.

Repeating the same inaccurate statements doesn't make them any more valid than when you said them the first time, and if disagreeing with you makes me  'energy supplier staff' then I'm definitely missing out on my salary somehow

wittynamegoeshere

Hurrah for the wonderful energy industry!  Yay, take all my money and never be criticised.

[Deleted User]

No need to compete, all the smaller firms are going bust and Ofgem are shovelling all the customers back to the big 6 which the big 6 wanted all along.