Energy credit

NH98

I'd love some advice about energy credit.My monthly energy payments have increased from £152 to £296 and I have now found myself in £980 worth of credit.Do I ask for a part rebate or leave it as is to cover future hikes?

Exile28

It's really up to you. You should be able to get a refund with that amount, but it'll depend on how much effort you want to spend, your financial situation, energy prices and if your on a fixed tariff.

If you can be bothered I'd probably recommend me getting it refunded and sticking it a savings account until the costs go up.

Can you confirm your account is accurate and not based on estimated readings?

pochase

Who is your supplier?

BG and EDF only bill every six month, in the meantime all payments are shown as a credit.

Otherwise what is your annual usage? Are you on a SVT?

chris_n

pochase said:

Who is your supplier?

BG and EDF only bill every six month, in the meantime all payments are shown as a credit.

Otherwise what is your annual usage? Are you on a SVT?

It's past time this was stopped and monthly bills mandated. How anyone can keep track without a spreadsheet is beyond me. 

Achnamara

Would increasing my credit balance reduce the new Direct Debits that will be coming. All my readings are up today.

[Deleted User]

Being further in credit puts you further "ahead of the game" and should let you choose lower DD in future (because the calculations wouldn't show you as going negative).

After the complaints of suppliers "holding on to too much customer money" previously though, some started to auto-refund excessive credit balances.  I don't know if any still do, and given the present predictions the definition of excessive might need to change.

pochase

Yes it will.

The basic formula your supplier will use is

predicted bill for x months - minus credit/ plus debt = amount y / x (month) = direct debit

So if they predict £1200 for 6 months that will be £200 direct debit if you don't have a credit, but if you have a credit of £300 it will £1200 minus£ 300 = £900 divided by 6 = £150 direct debit.

I am not sure why you would not keep the money in a savings account instead, but it will work.

EssexHebridean

Something to bear in mind though is that going forwards any lowering (or not increasing) of your DD now risk "false optimism" - it is vital that you continue to work out how much your DD would be if it were not for that credit balance being taken into account, otherwise once you've run through the credit you're likely to see a sudden extremely sharp increase which you may then find leaves you in a financial hole. My suggestion would be to either as already suggested - get some of the credit refunded and stash into savings ready for the higher bills, or indeed to start now stashing aside a little extra each month to cope with the increase when it comes.  (If you go with either of these options though I'd also ensure that you have the discipline to ensure that the money is "ringfenced" and ONLY touched when needed for energy bills).