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

QrizB

dhokes said:

QrizB said:

dhokes said:

QrizB said:

For £7/yr it isn't going to make a huge difference whether you switch to Ovo or stay with the many-tentacled one.

Unless there are price increases within the year though, right?

You're comparing fixes, though? Loyal Octopus 12m £1582 vs. Ovo 2-yr Fixed £1575?

Yes, 12 months fixed vs 24 months fixed.

So what makes you ask "Unless there are price increases within the year though, right?" when you're comparing a difference of £7/yr on two fixed-rate tariffs?

Alnat1

Daniel, when you move you will have to sign up with the company that is currently supplying the house you are moving to. You will need to give them meter readings from the day you take ownership (take pics) and these should, hopefully, match those given by the previous occupier to close their account. After 21 days you are free to move to another company if you want to.

PeteM79

Hi all.  im on Peoples first fixed plan with British Gas.  this expires at the end of the month.  Ive been quoted an increase from £1983 pa to £2571 on a fixed 2023 deal.  However, i have found Utility Warehouse offering standing charges of 25.8p for gas and 47.1p for electric with unit cost of 7.28 for gas and 27.36 for electric.  This is a variable rate.  If i went with the switch, is this rate liable to increase in October?

si_74

PeteM79 said:

Hi all.  im on Peoples first fixed plan with British Gas.  this expires at the end of the month.  Ive been quoted an increase from £1983 pa to £2571 on a fixed 2023 deal.  However, i have found Utility Warehouse offering standing charges of 25.8p for gas and 47.1p for electric with unit cost of 7.28 for gas and 27.36 for electric.  This is a variable rate.  If i went with the switch, is this rate liable to increase in October?

The utility warehouse offer is basically the price cap standard variable rate, which will, by all predictions, go up significantly in October. I believe you will move onto the same rate with British Gas automatically when your fixed rate ends, unless you agree to a new fixed rate of course. Put a call or livechat with BG to check what your rate will be if you do nothing. There is no point in moving if you will get the same rate staying where you are.

pochase

PeteM79 said:

Hi all.  im on Peoples first fixed plan with British Gas.  this expires at the end of the month.  Ive been quoted an increase from £1983 pa to £2571 on a fixed 2023 deal.  However, i have found Utility Warehouse offering standing charges of 25.8p for gas and 47.1p for electric with unit cost of 7.28 for gas and 27.36 for electric.  This is a variable rate.  If i went with the switch, is this rate liable to increase in October?

The Utility Warehouse tariff you are quoting is the SVT (standard variable tariff) and is the tariff regulated by the cap. It is currently more or less the same for all suppliers, including BG and it will increase this October. Current estimates are in the region of 45% increase.

Mstty

SuperHans1 said:

dhokes said:

"those wanting price certainty shouldn't be fixing at a rate more than 40% over the current price cap."

How should that percentage rate be calculate btw? Does that just mean I should compare the current gas/electricity unit charge that I'm being charged against the new rates offered? Or compare the current annual amount against the new estimated annual amount based on the same usage?

I'm currently with Avro Flexible Avro October 2021 v1. According to my last bill, my estimated annual cost is £1146. The Loyal Customer 12M Fixed would be around £1582 which is around 38% which seems worthwhile to fix. However, I've also just got a quote from OVO Energy and their 2 Year Fixed would be around £1575 using the annual usage values from my Octopus Energy bill. That seems like worthwhile to fix if I want the certainty, right?

I'm also on the same tariff having been moved to Octopus after Avro collapsed. Make sure to check the annual unit estimate that Octopus are basing their figures on. When we moved to Octopus we had a mild winter and their estimated annual usage looks to have a far lower gas usage compared to what I estimate that I will use based on previous years.

Flexible Avro

Electricity

Standing charge 43.12p /day

Unit 28.46p /kWh

Gas

Standing charge 27.22p /day

Unit 7.48p /kWh

Loyal Octopus 12M Fixed

Electricity

Standing charge 43.12p /day

Unit 40.32p /kWh

Early exit fee £0

Gas

Standing charge 27.22p /day

Unit rate 11.38p /kWh

Early exit fee £0

The standing charges are the same for both tariffs but the new unit rates are over 50% higher.

I am finding this all very confusing, the Octopus comparison suggests that my annual estimated charge is only an increase of 32.5% between the two tariffs but this is based on 33.4% lower gas usage then the previous year. I can't work out if it is worth switching to the new tariff or not.

Sadly octopus have not had any competitive fixed deals and as such anyone moved to them as SOLR when there energy company went bust will have missed out on the opportunity to fix over the last few weeks/months where other companies such as EDF and BG and EON have had some decent fixed rates.

Octopus are good for other things but not good for fixed rates sadly.

Filed

Hope this helps some people:

As a British Gas customer on the standard rate, I was offered the Exclusive Jul 23v2 fixed deal via e-mail. I rang up and was offered the Loyalty Jun23v2 fixed deal. This was a better rate and not available on the app or site to me. So it's worth ringing up to see what's available for your account.

The rundown for me (per year as this is a annual fixed rate - though you can leave with no penalty if you stick with BG):
4 bed, 2 adults, 2 toddlers.

• 14,200kWh Gas per year
• 3,300kWh Elec per year

Standard tariff - Baseline
Exclusive Jul23v2 - 33.77% higher price than Standard Tariff
Loyalty Jun23v2 - 29.30% higher price than Standard Tariff

For me, the Loyalty Jun23v2 brought the cost increase well below the 35% suggested by ML, so jumped on it today.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO CONSIDER: THE Loyalty Jun23v2 & Exclusive Jul23v2 OFFERS END ON 15TH JUNE (Source - Asked them to check when the offers end when on the phone).

As these fixed tariffs offer you to leave for a better fixed tariff for no exit fees (with BG though!), I believe it's worth tying in now if you wish to fix.

Cheers,
James

blobbi

We are currently with BG having been a people energy customer. We have high energy usage and have been offered the Junev2 BG fixed rate.

BG, the Super transparent company that they are, have recently helpfully suggested that the rate they have set could be reduced from the equivalent of a 40% increase, to a 20% increase. I wonder if they have done this on purpose?


We are getting solar and batteries installed in Sept/Oct. We are dual fuel and so whilst we may see a saving in elect, I am not convinced this will be seen with gas. we aim to move to an Octopus smart tariff to charge the batteries at night, but their offering on gas prices is very very high. 

So my question really is - will it be worth switching or should we airing until the solar installed and move to Octopus at that point? 

dhokes

QrizB said:

dhokes said:

QrizB said:

dhokes said:

QrizB said:

For £7/yr it isn't going to make a huge difference whether you switch to Ovo or stay with the many-tentacled one.

Unless there are price increases within the year though, right?

You're comparing fixes, though? Loyal Octopus 12m £1582 vs. Ovo 2-yr Fixed £1575?

Yes, 12 months fixed vs 24 months fixed.

So what makes you ask "Unless there are price increases within the year though, right?" when you're comparing a difference of £7/yr on two fixed-rate tariffs?

I'm assuming prices will rise again in within the next 2 years and so after the 1 year fix rate ends with Octopus, the cost in the following year would mean I'd end up paying more than Ovo's £1575 (?). I understand that's a guess and I could be wrong.

QrizB

dhokes said:

I'm assuming prices will rise again in within the next 2 years and so after the 1 year fix rate ends with Octopus, the cost in the following year would mean I'd end up paying more than Ovo's £1575 (?). I understand that's a guess and I could be wrong.

Prices are currently well above the long-term average. Market forces* should cause them to fall again, and there's a fair chance the fall will start next spring/summer.

Although we said the same thing last year!

* You can build a wind farm or solar farm (etc) and make money selling electricity at 6p/kWh wholesale. With wholesale prices above 10p/kWh, there's larger profits to be made and a strong incentive on people to build more generating capacity. However it takes a couple of years to build one, so there's a delay between prices rising and capacity coming on-line.

At 10p/kWh even Hinkley Point C starts to look like a good idea, but that's not due on-line until late 2025.