Home Energy Rates

IOWJJBTM2025

Hi All,
Many thanks for all your comments and advice.
As I see it I could use my combi boiler to supply a shower.
I can buy a unit with a thermostatic valve that will simply connect in place of the existing bath taps. There is a built in valve that allows me to direct water to a shower head or into the bath. It costs approx £200 and I have family that would be able to install.
I assume that the boiler will supply water at 60 degrees and the thermostatic valve in the new unit will add cold water to reduce the temperature to 40 degrees. I also assume that I would need to ensure that the flow is large enough so that the boiler does not keep switching on and off.
Am still scratching my head that I am heating up water to cool it down again which is not the best efficiency.
As mentioned above it may take some time to save the cost of the new unit.

As for my original question I have worked out what MSE forecast for Home Energy costs are.
At the moment Home Energy for my usage is discounting the Price Cap by 18%.
What MSE are doing in their predictions are calculating that Home Energy will revert to Price Cap on 1st Jan'26.

I have done some calcs to work out what Price Cap Costs for a year would be including the announced rise in Jan'26, A 4% increase in Apr'26 and a 1% reduction in Jul'26. My Energy Cost on Price Cap would be £2,539 per year.
Looking at 12 month Fixes I have the worked out the following costs:-
EDF Simple Fix = £2,295 / Ecotricity = £2,237

I have also looked at EV fixed tariffs as follows: -
Fuse Energy = £2,303 / Next Drive = £2,282
I am not a big fan of EV Tariffs as it would mean having to setup scheduled charging in the early hours of the morning. Charging the car has been ok but there are a handful of times when charging has failed and either the wall charger or the car has had to be reset. Currently if the car gets to 40% I plug in the car and charge up to 80% which takes 4 hours. I can do this at any time of the day.

All the above fixes would cost £150 early exit fees if better offers are released.

I have no clue as to what Home Energy variable Tariff costs will be in the future.
My Octopus discounted rate ended in September and I joined Home Energy because they were the cheapest.
Since joining Home Energy I have had no price rises yet even though there was an Energy Cap increase on 1st October.
If Home Energy maintain a discount of 18% from price Cap my energy cost for the year would be £2,082

There is no exit fee to leave Home Energy so my thought is to remain with Home Energy for now and monitor.
Who knows what could happen in the next year that would impact energy costs. The government was suggesting that they were going to go something about costs. I know Martin Lewis has been campaigning about the Standing charges. In my calcs it shows that just to have Electric & Gas Connections costs around £250 per year, rising up to £375 per year for EV Tariffs.

wakeupalarm

Does anyone have the new rates from Jan 1st?

IOWJJBTM2025

Hi - Since joining Home Energy on 12th September 2025 I have not had any rate change or any notification that it will change yet.
Just been online and these are the current rates.

jcb208

Just had an email prices are rising  but craftly they never said what the new unit price is,only been with them 2 weeks,they can at least tell us the new unit rate, not the yearly estimate

IOWJJBTM2025

jcb208 said:

Just had an email prices are rising  but craftly they never said what the new unit price is,only been with them 2 weeks,they can at least tell us the new unit rate, not the yearly estimate

Yes - just had the same email but opened the attached PDF and found this which gives the rates

IOWJJBTM2025

The cheapest fixed deal for me today according to the cheap Energy Club (using my estimated consumptions) is Ecotricity. According to the cheap energy club it will cost me £47 per year more than Home Energy but I noticed they have not updated the new Home Energy rates for Jan 1st.
According to MSE the latest guess is that energy costs may reduce by 5% in April next year and another 1% in July next year.
If I move to Ecotricity my energy cost for the year will be £2,138.33 with a possible rebate of £150 as per info that Martin Lewis has asked government to confirm from the budget.
If Home Energy rates remain the same for 12 months without any discount I would pay £2,089.61
If I include the questionable forecasted 5% and 1% Discounts to the Home Energy rates the yearly cost would be £2,013.04.
As you can see the cost differences are not massive - at the most £10 per month including a lot of speculation.
If I move to Ecotricity I am tied to them for 12 months unless I pay £150 early exit fee.
Of course Home Energy rates could change at any time but if they keep their rates competitive I have no reason to move.
My plan is to sit tight and monitor. I have no tie in with Home Energy and can leave penalty free at any time.
If other fixed tariffs are released I can review and move if the rates are favorable. This of course works for me based upon my estimated consumptions which have been obtained from averaging readings over the last 3 years. If it helps anyone here is the estimated usage that I used to compare. I have split out my usage so that I can also compare EV tariffs but I am yet to see one that is cheaper. I did look at Octopus special tariffs but my car or my charger are not compatible.

victor2

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

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IOWJJBTM2025 said:

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Which usage figures are closer to real life? 
With your usage total figures, there is no way you'd be spending £2K on utilities, £1K is much nearer the mark. But I see you have an error in your total electricity usage in that you've only added up the first 3 rows...

IOWJJBTM2025

victor2 said:

Which usage figures are closer to real life? 

With your usage total figures, there is no way you'd be spending £2K on utilities, £1K is much nearer the mark. But I see you have an error in your total electricity usage in that you've only added up the first 3 rows...

Hi Please see update: -

The above works out really close to the actual.
Gas is very close - you can see we use a lot more in the winter because the heating is on more.
We average 8.7 kWh per day Electricity in the house and it is really consistent.
The Car charging 160 kWh per month was accurate but has increased over the last two months since my son started using the car. He took me to hospital in it last week. Heated steering wheel on, Heated seats on, Air Conditioning on at 30 degrees. Then after using he plugs it into the house and I pay to charge it.

boatman

My unit rate has gone up from about 19.5p up to 20.86p now.. standing charge up from 51p to 54p.. works out about a 6.66% increase.. not exactly 0.2% they claim for most price cap rises..

Qyburn

boatman said:

My unit rate has gone up from about 19.5p up to 20.86p now.. standing charge up from 51p to 54p

Low prices, good for you.