Last year's fixed rates now higher than new predicted bills

jonrivers

Just a comment/enquiry about all those MSE followers like me who last year 'did the right thing' when average energy bills were being predicted to rise to £5000, even £6000, and therefore fixed at rates below this. 

In my case, I found a fix with EDF at £3000 for two years (to July 2024) but others will I'm sure have panicked and fixed at still higher rates. If the current, very different forecasts of £2100 for next year's average bill (from July) are true many MSE followers will be paying at least 50% more for our energy than those who didn't fix. This seems highly unfair, particularly when exit fees have also increased to very high levels.

MSE had lots of information and advice about these fixed rates last summer, emphasising how important it was to fix if you were worried about paying the predicted bills (who wasn't?!) with one sentence right at the end about the usual caveats. Will MSE now be campaigning on this situation? I don't see anything about it in the forums, on the website or the weekly email but there must be MANY of us in the same boat.

Mstty

What exactly are you fixed rates per kWh.

When you say you fixed for £3000 that doesn't really help

TheMilkmansDad

Its the unit rates that are fixed not a total £ amount. What are you current unit and standing charge rates?

Alnat1

You don't fix energy tariffs for an amount in £s, you fix the cost of a kWh of gas and/or electricity and the standing charge/s per day. How much you pay will depend on how much you use.

If you could give details of those charges and the amount in kWh that you've used over the last 12 months (from actual meter readings if possible) then someone here will be able to work out the costs for you.

Swipe

Fixing has always been a gamble. You win some, you lose some. You can't really complain when it doesn't go your way.

jonrivers

Apologies, I was just giving the 'average household' amount for context (to compare to the widely-reported average bill of approximately £2100 predicted for next year). Anyway, unit rates are as follows:

Elec standing charge 51.62p / day
Elec / kWh 33.86p

Gas standing charge 27.22p / day

Gas / kWh 10.426p

Many thanks 

elsien

If there’s no penalty, there’s nothing to stop you from jumping ship now. That’s all the things I always check if I’m looking at fixes it how much it’s going to cost me to leave it.

EssexHebridean

If the unit rates on your fix were higher than the unit rates on the Energy Price Guarantee, why did you not jump off the fix in September when you were given the option, without incurring exit fees? There was masses on both here and the MSE main site, back then explaining the ins and outs of the various options, and including the risks that prices could fall later in your fix and so all calculations should take that possibility into account.

If the discrepancy is significant, it might be worth you paying the exit fees to jump out - although I seem to recall that EDF were one who had the exorbitant £150 per fuel fees. 

Scot_39

That's how most fixes work.

You agree to pay a fixed price per kWh - and not to pay more for the duration.

Their were some misguided marketing of non fixes - that were actually trackers.

But you take the downside risk, with the upside protection.

The only difference now is the scope of the price swings.

Fixes in stable times with big 6 - often involved a premium over standard rate initially, but no inflation indexing in future.

And many people accepted that.

The notion of a fix being cheaper for the whole duration - part of the mentality that saw 30+ suppliers collapse.

Mstty

How much are you exit fees?

How much gas and electricity do you use and then take into account the rather flakey predictions from cornwall insights and work out if it's worth leaving the fix or not. 

Scot_39

jonrivers said:

Apologies, I was just giving the 'average household' amount for context (to compare to the widely-reported average bill of approximately £2100 predicted for next year). Anyway, unit rates are as follows:

Elec standing charge 51.62p / day
Elec / kWh 33.86p

Gas standing charge 27.22p / day

Gas / kWh 10.426p

Many thanks 

Are you sure these aren't the epg compensated ( discounted ) tariff rates ?.

The EPG was applied to fixes above the EPG threshold as maximum discount.

So whereas a variable tariff got the full 17p / 31.8p electric discount, so a fix at say 40p only got 6p to bring it down to the 34p average epg level.

Whereas a fix at 55p would only have in theory reduced to 38p initially, then 34p in Jan ?)

Other suppliers simply switched fixed users onto standard rates, promising to put back onto fixes if the old fix became cheaper again during its original validity period.