Home Energy Rates

IOWJJBTM2025

Am new to Forum.
I am with Home Energy for my Energy Supplier and am currently happy on their Fair Variable Dual Tariff since September 2025. The rate has not changed since I moved to them.
For my estimated usage it is £2101 per year - I should note that this includes charging my electric Car.
There are no exit fees so am free to move.
I am a member of the cheap energy club and looking at fixed deals which all have exit fees and the cheapest 12 month fixes are at least £129 per year (£10 per month) more than I am currently paying.
My question is when I look on my current supplier on the cheap energy club it shows my predicted Price Cap cost over the next year will rise considerably - 
1st Jan 2026 plus 19% = from £2101 to £2500 per year
1st April 2026 plus another 8% = from £2500 to £2690 per year

When I look at the main MSE price CAP predictions it shows
1st October 2025 - Up 2% (I never saw any increase from Home Energy)
1st January 2026 - Down 1%
1st April 2026 - Up 5%

Does anyone know why the Home Energy predictions are so high.

Qyburn

Do you have a smart meter? Given you have an electric car it might be worth looking at specific EV tariffs. It will depend on how much you use charging your car.

QrizB

IOWJJBTM2025 said:
Does anyone know why the Home Energy predictions are so high.

Welcome to the forum.

Do Home Energy discount their standard variable tariff to below the Ofgem cap? The MSE Cheap Energy Club doesn't know whether that discount will continue, and so will assume that the tariff will follow the cap when it changes every three months.

EssexHebridean

When comparing tariffs it's better to compare the actual costs of the standing charge and unit rate, not the estimate of how much you will pay.

Shedman

QrizB said:

IOWJJBTM2025 said:
Does anyone know why the Home Energy predictions are so high.

Welcome to the forum.

Do Home Energy discount their standard variable tariff to below the Ofgem cap? The MSE Cheap Energy Club doesn't know whether that discount will continue, and so will assume that the tariff will follow the cap when it changes every three months.

Yes they do discount unit rates by around 20% to 25% (eg Southern Region is 20.48p vs Ofgem cap rate of 26.48p - electric only) so your explanation is likely spot on.

Although with the current large intake of squashed Tomatoes in a very short time frame I do question whether they are putting their business model in jeopardy given the not very comforting financials on Companies House.

IOWJJBTM2025

Thanks everyone for your comments.
I have looked at electric car tariffs and when comparing the cost of my standard gas & Electric goes up along with the standing charge so in the end the overall cost goes up and I will also have to mess around with schedule charging during the night - currently I just plug the car in and charge it up to 80% whenever it gets to 30% and it takes 5 hours to charge.
My electric usage per week is the same throughout the year with the main drains being the car and the electric shower. However the Gas usage peaks in the winter due to the central heating so it is now that I want to get the best gas tariff.
Home Energy tariff has not changed since I moved to them 3 months ago and is 5.48p per kWh with a standing charge of 29.46p per day.
I am getting emails saying that if you are on a capped tariff you should move now.
As stated in my original post MSE says the Cap prediction went up on 1st October by 2% - My rate did not increase. MSE also predicts that on 1st January 2026 the Cap will reduce by 0.5%.
MSE then says that they predict Home Energy will increase by 19% on 1st January 2026.
I have no exit fee from Home Energy so can move at any time.
My question are where does the 19% predicted increase come from and should I move sooner onto a fixed tariff because the current offers may not be available in January?

WiserMiser

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

My electric usage per week is the same throughout the year with the main drains being the car and the electric shower.

If you have gas, you shouldn't be using an electric shower.  Your kWh rate for electricity is likely to be about three or four times that of gas.

IOWJJBTM2025

WiserMiser said:

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

My electric usage per week is the same throughout the year with the main drains being the car and the electric shower.

If you have gas, you shouldn't be using an electric shower.  Your kWh rate for electricity is likely to be about three or four times that of gas.

Thanks for this suggestion. It would not be a big job to install a feed as the hot water supply for a shower was included when the boiler was installed. I remember looking at this a few years ago and concluded that there was little saving but I could have got my sums wrong back then so I have just scratched my head again.
I have an 8.5 kW Shower and the boiler is a combi 32kW.
Note that in the summer the incoming water temperature to the house is warm so we use the low power setting on the electric shower to get a very decent flow of hot water (5.6 kW) between May and October. We are just at the point now where to get a decent flow we need to switch to high power setting.
To work out the electric shower in winter for 1 hour per day the cost would be 8.5 kW x 21.59p/kWh = £1.84.
To work out the electric shower in summer for 1 hour per day the cost would be 5.6 kW x 21.59p/kWh =£1.21.
Am not sure how efficient the combi boiler is and is the boiler just running flat out whilst the shower is running?
If assume it is 100% then it would be 32 kW x 5.48p/kWh = £1.75.
Cost for using Boiler for a year for the shower = £1.75 x 365 = £638.75.
Cost for using Elec Shower for a year for the shower = £1.84 x 182.5 + £1.21 x 182.5 = £556.62.

With very limited thought I am struggling to see how much saving I can achieve but I realise I my be missing something or have a decimal point in the wrong place. Another thought is how to regulate the temperature to get consistent flow from the boiler -  because in the summer we have turn up the water temperature on the boiler otherwise when we are filling up the sink with hot water the temp pulses hot and cold due to the boiler stopping and starting at lower output temps.
It seems such a waste to heat water up and then cool it down by mixing with cold water.

In addition, with the cost of water going through the roof it is good to ensure the flow rate is at a reasonable rate. The optimum rate for a decent shower is around 10 litres per minute. At maximum flow our shower fills a 1 litre Jug in just 2 seconds which equates to 30 litres per minute or 1.8 cubic meters per hour.
I have just worked out that 1 cubic meter of water now costs £6.26 (6.3p/litre) excluding standing charges of 40p per day. It has come to something where the cost of water is more that the electricity or gas ! It was not long ago that water was 1p for 3 litres.

However many thanks for the comment - Any suggestion where I can save money is very welcome and am very happy to reconsider.

victor2

WiserMiser said:

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

My electric usage per week is the same throughout the year with the main drains being the car and the electric shower.

If you have gas, you shouldn't be using an electric shower.  Your kWh rate for electricity is likely to be about three or four times that of gas.

Indeed, but a gas powered shower will use considerably more energy than an electric one.

Having had an electric shower replaced by one connectede to our new combi boiler, I did a comparison. The OH took a shower lasting just under 6 minutes and it used 2.29kWh of gas, where the same time under our electric shower would have used 0.86kWh. Suddenly, the cost gets much closer, gas is cheaper, but not by much. In addition, the gas shower took over 30 seconds to reach full heat, where the electric one was pretty much instantaneous. But the gas shower with better water pressure was much nicer to stand under.

WiserMiser

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

WiserMiser said:

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

My electric usage per week is the same throughout the year with the main drains being the car and the electric shower.

If you have gas, you shouldn't be using an electric shower.  Your kWh rate for electricity is likely to be about three or four times that of gas.

I have just worked out that 1 cubic meter of water now costs £6.26 (6.3p/litre) excluding standing charges of 40p per day.

You've got your sums wrong.  A cubic metre is 1000 litres, so the cost per litre is 0.626p.

If you use the same flow rate and water temperature for the gas shower, expect it to run at the equivalent of 8.5/0.95= 8.96kW (assuming 95% efficiency). So it'll only use about a quarter of the gas you've calculated.🙂

QrizB

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

I have an 8.5 kW Shower and the boiler is a combi 32kW.
Note that in the summer the incoming water temperature to the house is warm so we use the low power setting on the electric shower to get a very decent flow of hot water (5.6 kW) between May and October. We are just at the point now where to get a decent flow we need to switch to high power setting.
To work out the electric shower in winter for 1 hour per day the cost would be 8.5 kW x 21.59p/kWh = £1.84.
To work out the electric shower in summer for 1 hour per day the cost would be 5.6 kW x 21.59p/kWh =£1.21.
Am not sure how efficient the combi boiler is and is the boiler just running flat out whilst the shower is running?
If assume it is 100% then it would be 32 kW x 5.48p/kWh = £1.75.

That's where you maths have fallen over.

Heating a ml of water by 1C uses 4.2 Joules (watt-seconds).

A typical mains-pressure mixer shower will deliver 10 litres per minute, 170ml per second.

At a feed water temperature of 10C (cold), and a shower temperature of 40C (hot), heating 170ml by 30C will take (170 x 30 x 4.2) 21420 J, ie 21.4 kW. Not 32 kW.

21.4 kW x 5.48p/kWh = £1.17 per hour. Not £1.75.

Of course, if you're happier with a lower flow rate (ie. not turning it on full bore) of around 4 litres per minute on your shower to match the 8.5 kW you're currently enjoying, the sum becomes:

8.5 kW x 548p/kWh = £0.47 per hour.

Cost for using Boiler for a year for the shower = £1.75 x 365 = £638.75.
Cost for using Elec Shower for a year for the shower = £1.84 x 182.5 + £1.21 x 182.5 = £556.62.

£1.17 x 365 = £427.05.

or £0.47 x 365 = £171.55

(This assumes an hour of showering a day; I don't know of that's reasonable for you househld, or not, but it wouldn't be for mine!)

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

In addition, with the cost of water going through the roof it is good to ensure the flow rate is at a reasonable rate. The optimum rate for a decent shower is around 10 litres per minute.

As shown above, your 8.5 kW electric shower is unlikely to be achieving anything like 10 litres per minute. More like 4-5 lpm, depending on the cold feed temperature.

I note that this one, for example, is rated to deliver 3.5 lpm at 1 bar pressure:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/triton-t80-easi-fit-white-chrome-8-5kw-electric-shower/3570t