What rates are you being offered by your provider at the moment?

pochase

I assume you mean by prices the capped maximum for the tariff.

From the contract side there is no guarantee that they cannot be increased, but Octopus states that will not be the case, and up to now Octopus has honoured the caps for the 12 months.

The_Hawk

pochase said:

I assume you mean by prices the capped maximum for the tariff.

From the contract side there is no guarantee that they cannot be increased, but Octopus states that will not be the case, and up to now Octopus has honoured the caps for the 12 months.

I've just (today) switched my gas to Octopus Tracker (I'm on Octopus Go for electricity), so I'm hoping that the cap is honoured.

There's also the 'risk' that government intervention (if it ever happens) may make the flexible tariffs more desirable. However, with Octopus, there's always the option of easily returning to a flexible tariff if necessary.

The way I look at it I'm gambling just over a month of higher gas prices (at a low usage time of year), against a degree of certainty for the next 12 months.

pearl123

The price cap for energy bills could rise to £5,341 by April next year, a new forecast warns.

Consultancy firm Cornwall Insight issued the estimate in its final forecast for the year, with households facing an 80 per

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/energy-bills-price-cap-forecast-april-b2150100.html

pochase

That is the "cheap" forecast.

Auxilione has the April 2023 at £6078. That is 94.5p and 26.3p.

SteveCooper

pochase said:

SteveCooper said:

Last projections for price cap changes that I have seen 

That are old predictions, their newest ones from 9th of August are

Thanks for the updated  latest info 

in my post i did say

” Last projections for price cap changes that I have seen “ 👍

pochase

And my information is also outdated again. Here is todays prediction, which is also their final prediction for October cap.

sungold66

Metalingus84 said:

sungold66 said:

Our current tariff with EON Next ends on Oct 6th and we've been offered one new tariff that looks good, quoted at £196 per month/£2359 year (about double what we're paying now),  but its flexible which is very scary and I guess could go up to anything.

Daily standing charge	43.39p	27.22p
Unit rate	28.46p per kWh	7.48p per kWh
Assumed annual usage	5,616kWh	6,730kWh

The second offer is Next Onlinev19 which will be 3 times what we're paying now £390 month,/ £4680 year  but its fixed

Daily standing charge	43.39p	27.22p
Unit rate	60.51p per kWh	15.23p per kWh
Assumed annual usage	5,616kWh	6,730kWh

Im really torn between the cheaper but very risky flexible one or the the fixed but basically unaffordable one. What if we go for the higher fixed tariff and then the prices go up less that expected. Is there any way of knowing how much rates are likely to increase by or what the most they can go up is before 0ct 1st.?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated

We had this email today. My understanding is the variable one would likely change in October anyway and shoot up to similar to the fixed they are offering. 
Me and the wife and have sat down and worked out lots of figures. 
Online suggests our avg bill on a variable rate would be £4 cheaper each month than the fixed from October. 
We are tempted to lock in the fixed deal due to expected rises next year.

My only concern is if the Government decide to do anything with locking in the price cap for earlier this year once the leadership contest ends. But, at least its £0 exit fees so I guess it won't matter. I know Martin Lewis on the blog thinks thos is unlikely tho.

Thanks for responding and for doing the maths so I don't get another headache! My feeling was to go for the fixed just for the security. My other worry is that they swap and change the tariffs available all the time and if we gamble on the lower flexible rate and it shoots up the next best fixed tariff on offer now might not still be available.

Metalingus84

sungold66 said:

Metalingus84 said:

sungold66 said:

Our current tariff with EON Next ends on Oct 6th and we've been offered one new tariff that looks good, quoted at £196 per month/£2359 year (about double what we're paying now),  but its flexible which is very scary and I guess could go up to anything.

Daily standing charge	43.39p	27.22p
Unit rate	28.46p per kWh	7.48p per kWh
Assumed annual usage	5,616kWh	6,730kWh

The second offer is Next Onlinev19 which will be 3 times what we're paying now £390 month,/ £4680 year  but its fixed

Daily standing charge	43.39p	27.22p
Unit rate	60.51p per kWh	15.23p per kWh
Assumed annual usage	5,616kWh	6,730kWh

Im really torn between the cheaper but very risky flexible one or the the fixed but basically unaffordable one. What if we go for the higher fixed tariff and then the prices go up less that expected. Is there any way of knowing how much rates are likely to increase by or what the most they can go up is before 0ct 1st.?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated

We had this email today. My understanding is the variable one would likely change in October anyway and shoot up to similar to the fixed they are offering. 
Me and the wife and have sat down and worked out lots of figures. 
Online suggests our avg bill on a variable rate would be £4 cheaper each month than the fixed from October. 
We are tempted to lock in the fixed deal due to expected rises next year.

My only concern is if the Government decide to do anything with locking in the price cap for earlier this year once the leadership contest ends. But, at least its £0 exit fees so I guess it won't matter. I know Martin Lewis on the blog thinks thos is unlikely tho.

Thanks for responding and for doing the maths so I don't get another headache! My feeling was to go for the fixed just for the security. My other worry is that they swap and change the tariffs available all the time and if we gamble on the lower flexible rate and it shoots up the next best fixed tariff on offer now might not still be available.

It's a difficult choice isn't it. It looks like the v19 prices are slightly higher than what is predicted for October, but then the forecast for Jan and April look worse again, so fixing may work out better. We just don't know, especially if more help and support is offered how that would effect people on fixed term deals (if they take away green levy % we may miss out if on fixed?)
Who knows. We keep agreeing on fixed and then change our mind a few minutes later!

Doc_N

I'm sticking with the variable rate for the foreseeable future - simply because the British Gas one year fix (see post above) is £795 per month, as against a likely £593 per month capped rate from 1 October (and £326 now).

Taking into account the period of three months 'overpayment between' 1 October and 31 December, this seems like a very bad deal, given that we don't yet know the size of the increases in January and April, we don't know whether the new government will freeze the existing price cap to buy votes (they have a track record of buying votes, and things look very bad for them at the moment) and there's always the possibility that the Russian war might end much sooner than expected.  If that happens prices will plummet.

There's also the point that this is effectively gambling on prices, but with the energy companies holding all the cards. They set the prices, and you can be very sure that they're setting them in the full expectation of winning rather than losing the bet! 

Mstty

What are you doing about your gas usage of 33,000 kWh a year. Probably a good bit of reduction on the 4500kwh of elec as well?

That will be the easiest way to bring down your energy bill @Doc_N