British Gas Price Freeze

jem16

Still not sure on this one.

If I remember correctly it would have cost me an extra £360pa if I had stayed with BG and gone onto their Price Freeze 2010. Since changing to London Energy 9 months ago I have now saved £270. The price rise on 31st July will probably affect me and I will lose some of that saving but it will still be cheaper by around £240pa and yes I do realise that there may be more rises.

However BG have now introduced their Fix and Fall tariff with prices guaranteed to fall 5% by end of 2007. Why do this if they expected prices to rise until 2010? This fall around 2007 was also mentioned in this thread.

Will the price freeze also take into account that there is predicted to be an oversupply in the British natural gas market by mid 2007, and that this oversupply will last several years? The article I read says that this could depress gas prices by a third.

Linked to this article;
http://www.auditsunlimited.co.uk/2005/04/gas-bubble-will-deflate-uk-prices-by.shtml

The BG employee may have been correct

Cardew

jem16 wrote:

Still not sure on this one.


The BG employee may have been correct

Agreed nobody is sure - but given the chance to opt in to those prices now I bet a lot would take it!! Don't forget the penalties for opting out in the future are not severe.


The point I was making is there is a lot of bad advice on here couched in very strong terms and often driven by an irrational hatred for BG, Powergen, Scottish Power etc etc.

ScoobyZ

DorsetDave2 wrote:

I think the British Gas offer to freeze prices really needs Martin to do a piece on it as its far too complicated for most of us !

Yep is confusing. Come on Martin have we done the right thing ?

strawberrylane

Of course you have done the right thing. It's a no-brainer to me. I signed up to PP2010 in December 2005 but recently sold my house and have moved into rented. But the bl**dy landlord wouldn't let me bring my PP2010 deal with me so I've just had to ring BG and cancel it. The only silver lining was that they waived the cancellation fees and the guy said to me that they had made a decision not to impose them anyway. So, it seems that even if you do cancel PP2010 they may not impose a cancellation fee (not that you should cancel unless you have to like me sadly).

Cardew

jem16 wrote:

Still not sure on this one.

If I remember correctly it would have cost me an extra £360pa if I had stayed with BG and gone onto their Price Freeze 2010. Since changing to London Energy 9 months ago I have now saved £270. The price rise on 31st July will probably affect me and I will lose some of that saving but it will still be cheaper by around £240pa and yes I do realise that there may be more rises.

Jem16,
I am curious about your tariff and savings.

You have posted a number of times stating that you save £x per year(or will save £y per year) over British Gas fixed to 2010 prices by being on London Energy. However you never quote the price per kWh that you pay.

For Scotland BG fixed to 2010 tariff prices(all incl VAT & DD payment) are:
(I have not included the discounts for dual fuel and on-line billing)
GAS
Tier 1(applies for 4,572 kWh per year) = 3.032p

Tier 2 = 2.113p

ELECTRICITY
Tier 1(applies for 900 kWh per year) = 13.798p

Tier 2 = 7.764p

Now I don’t know what tariff you are on but checking the 2 main comparison sites by entering ‘BG fixed to 2010 tariff’ as the current plan, and then ‘London Energy online dual fuel pre 28 April 2006’ as the current plan, indicates that(for my consumption) London Energy are approx £200 more expensive.

Yet you state that your Tariff will be around £240pa cheaper than BG fixed to 2010 tariff even after the latest 31st July price increase.

It seems to me that for your Tariff to save £240 per year over BG fixed to 2010 tariff you must be paying considerably less than the BG prices for Gas and electricity given above.

Could you let us know what those unit prices are please.

tough_ref

Cardew wrote:

Now I don’t know what tariff you are on but checking the 2 main comparison sites by entering ‘BG fixed to 2010 tariff’ as the current plan, and then ‘London Energy online dual fuel pre 28 April 2006’ as the current plan, indicates that(for my consumption) London Energy are approx £200 more expensive.

Yet you state that your Tariff will be around £240pa cheaper than BG fixed to 2010 tariff even after the latest 31st July price increase.

It seems to me that for your Tariff to save £240 per year over BG fixed to 2010 tariff you must be paying considerably less than the BG prices for Gas and electricity given above.

Could you let us know what those unit prices are please.

I know that if you are in the LEB (or other EdF host areas), then you get the local prices which are a helluva lot less than the price other EdF customers pay elsewhere in the country. Perhaps that could be the reason.

JC

Cardew

tough_ref wrote:

I know that if you are in the LEB (or other EdF host areas), then you get the local prices which are a helluva lot less than the price other EdF customers pay elsewhere in the country. Perhaps that could be the reason.

JC

jem16 is in Glasgow which was why I used the pre-april 2006 on-line London Energy prices for Scotland in the comparison.(with BG's prices for Scotland)

The current EDF prices for Scotland as shown on their website and in the Comparison sites are some 30% higher than BG's fixed to 2010 tariff.

Incidentally I am in the Midlands and pay less for my electricity - 11.907/7.157p for Tier1/Tier2

jem16

Cardew wrote:

Jem16,
I am curious about your tariff and savings.

You have posted a number of times stating that you save £x per year(or will save £y per year) over British Gas fixed to 2010 prices by being on London Energy. However you never quote the price per kWh that you pay.

I have posted the figures already. In fact the last time you and I had this discussion I gave you the figures then. Your area is dearer than mine for London Energy Online.(now EDF Energy)

For Scotland BG fixed to 2010 tariff prices(all incl VAT & DD payment) are:
(I have not included the discounts for dual fuel and on-line billing)
GAS
Tier 1(applies for 4,572 kWh per year) = 3.032p

Tier 2 = 2.113p

ELECTRICITY
Tier 1(applies for 900 kWh per year) = 13.798p

Tier 2 = 7.764p

I'm obviously not able to check those figures as the tariff quoted on the BG website for PF 2010 is presumably after the last increase which won't have affected you but I'll presume you got them from somewhere accurate

I've just looked back through this thread and found that I had posted a saving of £296 on moving away compared to the BG Prize Freeze (post 71) which seems to agree with your figures, although this did take into consideration dual fuel and online billing discounts at the time.

Now I don’t know what tariff you are on but checking the 2 main comparison sites by entering ‘BG fixed to 2010 tariff’ as the current plan, and then ‘London Energy online dual fuel pre 28 April 2006’ as the current plan, indicates that(for my consumption) London Energy are approx £200 more expensive.

Yet you state that your Tariff will be around £240pa cheaper than BG fixed to 2010 tariff even after the latest 31st July price increase.

At the time of posting this, EDF had announced their increases as 19% for electricity and 9.1% for gas. I worked out my savings based on this. However when I got the letter from EDF the increases were 20% for both, despite their letter telling me that it was 10.7%.

I have now calcualted my savings based on the new EDF tariff and the prices you have just given me. I am still saving £114pa (on my consumption)over the BG Price Freeze tariff. Plus remember that I have saved £225 in the last 9 months by moving.

It seems to me that for your Tariff to save £240 per year over BG fixed to 2010 tariff you must be paying considerably less than the BG prices for Gas and electricity given above.

Could you let us know what those unit prices are please.

EDF Online tariff for my area - includes VAT but not discounts for loyalty and self-read meter readings.

Gas

2.678p(first 1465 kWk used each quarter) was (prior to 31.7.06)2.231p
1.907p was 1.590p

Electricity

11.34p(first 225 kWh used each quarter) was 9.45p
7.22p was 6.03p

Now the next increase could well wipe out any savings, although I will obviously have saved quite a bit in the meantime.

jem16

Cardew wrote:

jem16 is in Glasgow which was why I used the pre-april 2006 on-line London Energy prices for Scotland in the comparison.(with BG's prices for Scotland)

The current EDF prices for Scotland as shown on their website and in the Comparison sites are some 30% higher than BG's fixed to 2010 tariff.

The London Energy Online tariff was never available on their website - it was only available from the comparison sites. The standard tariff is very much higher - in fact £417pa higher for me.

I have noticed that there is no longer an EDF Online tariff available on Energyhelpline and UK Power says the online tariff v4.1 has been removed.

I shall be keeping an eye on things but at the moment I am still on the cheapest tariff.

Cardew

jem16 wrote:

I I'm obviously not able to check those figures as the tariff quoted on the BG website for PF 2010 is presumably after the last increase which won't have affected you but I'll presume you got them from somewhere accurate

Thanks for this.

I have the original leaflet giving all the ‘BT fixed to April 2010’ regional prices and there were 2 electricity prices quoted for Scottish areas – Scottish Hydro and Scottish Power. To give you the benefit of the doubt I quoted the higher BG Scottish Power area tariff(13.798/7.764p) The Scottish Hydro area tariff was 14.102/7.145p. Should you be on the latter your savings would be less.(obviously gas is the same in all regions)

For the Midlands the BG fixed tariff is already showing an advantage over any tariff that was available when I opted for BG. As you said London Energy was a better proposition for you than for my area - at that time. I was aware that your tariff was only available online.

The whole historical London Energy/EDF pricing structure is a mystery. None of the comparison sites appear to have accurate(historical) details of the various online tariffs and they seem to think BG’s 2010 tariff is cheaper for Scotland(which from your prices is not the case) Your tariff appears to be much cheaper than any recorded on the comparison sites. Given that EDF are under no obligation to keep your prices so low(relatively) I wonder what is the incentive for them to do so? Especially as their current prices are some 40% more expensive than yours.

Still there is another 44 months to see what will happen!