My mum 85 low user is looking for a new energy deal for gas and electric Was on a fixed price deal

BellaBlondykeTheThird

Unless you are personally looking after your mum's account I wouldn't advise Tracker.

As others have said some fixed deals with £0 exit fees from Octopus look good as you can chop and change as others come to the market later this year.

Scot_39

t0rt0ise said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Perplexing that people have mentioned Tracker but not that the formula has changed - so new customers, and all customers from next Thursday, will have unit rates a few p higher than they have been historically on Tracker.  Which is easy enough mentally to add on to the historic data, but only if you know to do it.  Mentioning historic data without that caveat only gives someone half the picture.

For context, I think it's a fantastic tariff and I truly wish everyone knew about it to be able to make an informed decision, but it's not for everyone, for various individual reasons.  It's also the polar opposite of the mentality of fixing for price certainty.

For most people engaged with their energy usage and able to keep an eye on the price without it causing stress, yes it should be worth it.  

It's because it's become popular that the price has gone up. When everybody knows about it the price will go so high it probably won't be worth it. The company has to make a profit.

Trackers - and proper fixed term trackers - have existed in other countries for years and been popular - as have consistently worked out cheaper on average - few years back in US think my apartment deal was only forecast c10% cheaper  - I wasn't there when the big freeze blew that out of water.  As I know some burned by their deals in our Texas offices a while back - some of that was iirc rebated after state intervention.

Tracker in UK has been remarkable cheap for most of last year and comes with an easy opt out - not fixed term - and a tight cap even when increased to £1 retail cf Texas $9 wholesale iirc at time.

The Octopus correction (thanks @Spoonie_Turtle) - Agile tracker peak price - not daily tracker - effectively hit that cap in Dec 22 when prices hit over £400 /MWh wholesale for 2 weeks or so.

In a falling market - in one with overcapacity on a windy day etc - it has easy potential to be cheaper.

But the market is no longer falling anywhere near as fast - e.g. Ofgem true cap dropped over £2300 since last Jan, dwarfs forecast £300-350 savings forecast Q2/3/4 this year - and that alone will inevitably have an impact on rate differences.

Spoonie_Turtle

Scot_39 said:

t0rt0ise said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Perplexing that people have mentioned Tracker but not that the formula has changed - so new customers, and all customers from next Thursday, will have unit rates a few p higher than they have been historically on Tracker.  Which is easy enough mentally to add on to the historic data, but only if you know to do it.  Mentioning historic data without that caveat only gives someone half the picture.

For context, I think it's a fantastic tariff and I truly wish everyone knew about it to be able to make an informed decision, but it's not for everyone, for various individual reasons.  It's also the polar opposite of the mentality of fixing for price certainty.

For most people engaged with their energy usage and able to keep an eye on the price without it causing stress, yes it should be worth it.  

It's because it's become popular that the price has gone up. When everybody knows about it the price will go so high it probably won't be worth it. The company has to make a profit.

The Octopus tracker effrctively hit that cap in Dec 22 when prices hit over £400 /MWh wholesale for 2 weeks or so.

You might be thinking of the SVT rather than the actual unit rate cap on Tracker.  One day in Dec22 the full unit rate nearly hit 80p/kWh, which with the EPG discount was charged at 61p ± depending on the region.  The rest of the time it was within 17p/kWh of the SVT and so sat at the SVT because of the discount.  [And if Nordpool hadn't hidden the historical day-ahead data we would be able to work out how far from the SVT it truly was.]


(Graph shows the price of Nov22 Tracker electric for 30th Nov 2022 - 1st Jan 2023.)

Not wishing to detract or distract from anyone's points, just correcting a relevant mistake.

Scot_39

Sorry @Spoonie_Turtle and others

It must have been agile peak not tracker I was thinking of when talked about limits kicking in.

Yes - just used the energy stats dashboard to look at Nov / Dec - hitting the 82.1p - £1 - 17.9p pseudo EPG discount for several days over the 3 weeks (late Nov - mid Dec)

https://dashboards.energy-stats.uk/d/5cZqqmf4z/user-dashboard?orgId=1&from=1668384000000&to=1672531199000

Looks like max 1/2 hrly rates hit the 82.1p for a total of 14 days over c3 weeks - but yes agile - and max only - not mean agiile and not tracker.