MSE News: Energy Price Cap to FALL 12.3% on 1 April AND prepay becomes the cheapest way to pay.

MSE_Clare

Energy regulator Ofgem has announced the new Energy Price Cap, with prices set to fall by 12% on average from April – falling to their lowest level in two years. Yet despite this, energy bills remain much higher than before the energy crisis hit. We've the latest info below.

Martin Lewis: Energy Price Cap to FALL 12.3% on 1 April AND prepay becomes the cheapest way to pay. The 5 big things you need to know

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t0rt0ise

New cap from April 2024.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/get-energy-price-cap-standing-charges-and-unit-rates-region

superkoopauk

MSE story here

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/02/energy-bills-to-fall-as-new-price-cap-announced/

So if you are on smart SVT and you don't want to switch it will make sense to switch to prepay on 1st April (which wouldn't stop you switching if a good deal came up)

mrsmac59

How wonderful the news is today regarding drop in energy prices per kwh.
They give with one hand and take away in the other. Why could they not drop daily standing charge, instead they have to increase it totally immoral.People are struggling enough with living costs.

tghe-retford

Bad news for very low electric users in the Northern region, you're now likely paying more in the standing charge than for your usage. And it's close to equilibrium for low users (using my own usage numbers).

jrawle

mrsmac59 said:

How wonderful the news is today regarding drop in energy prices per kwh.
They give with one hand and take away in the other. Why could they not drop daily standing charge, instead they have to increase it totally immoral.People are struggling enough with living costs.

According to the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68353627

The regulator will add £28 to everyone's bill over a year to cover the cost of dealing with £3.1bn of debt that customers owe to suppliers.

That will pay for some debt to be written off for energy companies to offer repayment plans.

So the rise in standing charge is to help out people struggling to pay. Everyone contributes equally to this. You can't assume people with high usage are all people who are easily able to pay their bills, so should contribute more to this "social fund".

SAC2334

Prepay gas in Yorkshire region is coming down from 7.18 p /kwh to 5.79 p/kwh a 19.35 % drop  .Will that provoke direct debit payers on smart meters to ask their suppliers to switch their meters over to prepay mode . It should do if they are not going to go on Octopus  Tracker .Prepay standing charges dropping down to credit meter levels too. 

TheElectricCow

Some quick calculations based on last year’s consumption suggest I’m going to be £5.01 worse off for April-June on my September Octo-fix than if I was on SVT, but factoring in Jan-March savings from the fix makes the overall difference negligible. With this in mind I’m still happy with my decision to fix after seeing April’s figures.

Tracker/Agile currently both still come out on top by a sizeable margin for me though, so unless things get shaken up over the coming months those are still looking like the best next move.

MikeJXE

Not done the calculations yet but I will still be happy with my Octopus September fix

I will be using very little gas over the next 6 months and only 10kWh of electric a week 

Swipe

Is it really worth switching to pre-pay though? I think I'd rather just pay the extra to stay on credit

jrawle

Swipe said:

Is it really worth switching to pre-pay though? I think I'd rather just pay the extra to stay on credit

How many people who pay by fixed direct debit are really on "credit" these days, though? It seems most suppliers set the monthly payment deliberately high so that people are always in credit anyway, effectively pre-paying.