Electricity Switch - Best Course if Action?

Arunmor

Our fixed electricity deal (no gas) finishes on 2nd of September I can switch to a new tariff for 12 or 24 months (virtually identical) to day that will save me 13.5% BUT I have a £75 penalty for leaving early.  My  annual savings against my current plan would be £350.  We use about 8,700KWh/annum (GSHP).

Do I switch now or wait until  the contract expiry my £75 penalty will be offset by about £20 savings.  Do I fix for 1 or 2 years?  I'm minded to fix for 2 years, I gut says the government's plans for GB energy will have an adverse effect on energy prices?.

I think my only unknown (apart from the future) is will today's deals start to disappear before the autumn fix is announced and when will the autumn fix be announced?

MeteredOut

You can start a switch from 49 days before your contract end date with no exit penalties applied. It looks like you're already in that period.

Whether you fix or not is up to you. Do you want to know how much you want to pay for each unit of electricity, or are you ok with paying either more or less, but you won't know till after the fact?

Not sure why GB energy (if it happens) would affect energy prices. Energy prices are a global thing. No-one is going to be able to tell you where prices are going - read all the other threads where people have asked the same thing over the past few weeks/months.

Arunmor

We are paying a premium for electricity to cover upgrades to the grid etc and those costs are only going to rise.  GB energy will cost a shed load of money to set up.

I'm going to fix, especially with the rises coming in the next two quarters.  I know what my current rates are and when I fix (assuming I don't miss the boat) I know what I will pay.  As I said my gut says two years.

Thanks for the 49 days piece of info that means I might as well start my switch now.

MeteredOut

Arunmor said:

We are paying a premium for electricity to cover upgrades to the grid etc and those costs are only going to rise.  GB energy will cost a shed load of money to set up.

I'm going to fix, especially with the rises coming in the next two quarters.  I know what my current rates are and when I fix (assuming I don't miss the boat) I know what I will pay.  As I said my gut says two years.

Thanks for the 49 days piece of info that means I might as well start my switch now.

If that happens, I suspect it could be a couple of years out but that they'd be tempted to put any such costs onto the standing charge.

There would a huge backlash against that, but if fixing is your protection against this check your chosen supplier fixes both standing charge and unit rates (I'm sure I read some only fix the unit rates). And check the T&Cs - some suppliers (if not all) have get-out clauses for things like government intervention, so even if the SC is fixed, it might not be as fixed as you expect...