There will likely be an 'exceptional circumstances' clause, though they would really have to be in a bind to enact it.
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Energy bills to rise - how much is yours going up by?
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Just got my tariff from Octopus
So it's about 14.5% increase for my electric and 27% for my gas
- A standing charge of 24.38p per day and 19.95p/kWh for your electricity.
- A standing charge of 26.11p per day and 4.00p/kWh for your gas.
So it's about 14.5% increase for my electric and 27% for my gas
Ofgem have appointed Shell Energy to take over Pure Planet customers.
So it's going to be quite a jump going from my current fixed rates of 15.66p/kWh for electricity and 3.26p/kWh for gas (plus 34.2p standing charge across the two).
If I've found the right tariff sheet then Shell are going to be 20.68p/kWh and 4.17p/kWh plus 50.22p combined standing charge.
So it's going to be quite a jump going from my current fixed rates of 15.66p/kWh for electricity and 3.26p/kWh for gas (plus 34.2p standing charge across the two).
If I've found the right tariff sheet then Shell are going to be 20.68p/kWh and 4.17p/kWh plus 50.22p combined standing charge.
fourtytwo
Member
Thank god I don't use GAS, I have an OIL boiler 
and buy my energy when I want to (and no standing charge rip-off)!
However I still use electricity and my fixed price has just gone bust (Pure) so I am being diverted to Shell who will shaft me with the capped SVT that I calculate will be 40% more, on top of that we are all going to be shafted again next year when the cap rises again by a horrendous amount, very few companies seem to be offering fixed price contracts atm and how are you supposed to figure which ones will still be there to honour it anyway.
Not good for consumers and to top it all we have the Govt announcing today a whole raft of so called green measures to further increase our costs via tariff surcharges and increased taxes, makes self sufficiency increasingly attractive.
and buy my energy when I want to (and no standing charge rip-off)!However I still use electricity and my fixed price has just gone bust (Pure) so I am being diverted to Shell who will shaft me with the capped SVT that I calculate will be 40% more, on top of that we are all going to be shafted again next year when the cap rises again by a horrendous amount, very few companies seem to be offering fixed price contracts atm and how are you supposed to figure which ones will still be there to honour it anyway.
Not good for consumers and to top it all we have the Govt announcing today a whole raft of so called green measures to further increase our costs via tariff surcharges and increased taxes, makes self sufficiency increasingly attractive.
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of course 'useage' depends on the good ol' weather
Can you blame them given the volatility in the market? And given that fixed tariffs tend to be a few pence over the current standard variable rate I couldn't see many people wanting to tie themselves in for an extended period either.
I've just seen a 24 month fixed tariff of approx. 33p per kWh and 10.7p per unit of gas. You'd have to be mad to sign up for that, which is probably part of the reason the price has been set so high!
SteveP29
Member
Was paying £83 a month with EDF (Dual Fuel).
Moved house in July, called them to move our account to the new address, gave me the spiel about new builds and energy saving and insulation they have these days.
Knocked it down to £69 a month.
Realised last week when they text me for a reading that the tariff expires end of October.
They offered us £83 a month variable or £103 fixed, both for 2 years.
So basically, by moving house, we saved £42
Hopefully since we're on a variable (and I hope I've interpreted it right) that once they have a proper handle on our usage in the new place, our bill will come down (yes, I understand if the winter is really bad, it'll probably go up)
Moved house in July, called them to move our account to the new address, gave me the spiel about new builds and energy saving and insulation they have these days.
Knocked it down to £69 a month.
Realised last week when they text me for a reading that the tariff expires end of October.
They offered us £83 a month variable or £103 fixed, both for 2 years.
So basically, by moving house, we saved £42
Hopefully since we're on a variable (and I hope I've interpreted it right) that once they have a proper handle on our usage in the new place, our bill will come down (yes, I understand if the winter is really bad, it'll probably go up)
All the predictions are for a large increase in the cap in April. It’s not infeasible that rate could be below the cap then, or at least that’s the bet you make by choosing that fixed tariff.
Baxenden Bank
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Money Saving Expert says:
People need to consider their own personal circumstances, rather than rely on the 'average' quoted. Difficult if you have just moved home, otherwise get your old bills out and work out what you use over the winter.
NOTE: extract of full article, dated 1 October 2021, by Andrew Capstick, Energy Analyst
People need to consider their own personal circumstances, rather than rely on the 'average' quoted. Difficult if you have just moved home, otherwise get your old bills out and work out what you use over the winter.
jamesontheroad
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Lots of chatter now about heatpumps as the golden bullet which will solve our energy problems.
I have some thoughts on this because in 2019 I moved from UK to Sweden. Our first apartment was in a mixed neighbourhood of public and private housing that used a district heating system (i.e. a really big electric boiler that supplied lots of homes with heat and hot water). It was super efficient and energy costs were fairly stable. So much better than every house and apartment in a terrace having their own gas combi boiler.
In 2020 we bought an old (1935) timber house out in the countryside. It had an older (2001) ground source heat pump which the previous owner had (unwisely) hooked up to the heating system in the adjacent barn. It was spec'd for a domestic scale house, so it was basically knackered after almost 20 years heating a system three times as big. I had to get a mortgage extension, but was able to install a brand new electric heatpump that plugged onto the existing loop of buried pipes.
There are basically two kinds of heatpumps: air source and ground source. This doesn't seem to be being discussed in the press right now. On the outside, air source heat pumps look like very large air conditioners, and have to be wall-mounted or placed somewhere in your garden. They generate a bit of noise. Ground source heat pumps are hidden, because they pump water through a closed loop of pipes buried in the ground, but that of course requires you to scrape back a half metre's depth of soil from quite a large area of your precious garden or driveway. Fine if you are a Tory voter in the Home Counties, not so useful if you live in a terraced house in the Midlands.
Anyway, regardless... heat pumps will be the answer for some people, but they are expensive long-term investments. Better insulation in your walls, roof and windows is cheaper and quicker. The bigger problem will not be changing combi boilers to heat pumps, but changing from fossil fuel heating (gas and oil) to electricity. Nobody in Sweden would think of heating their home on gas, because electricity can come from a variety of different sources at different times. Gas and oil locks you in to a fossil fuel from a much more limited range of sources.
I have some thoughts on this because in 2019 I moved from UK to Sweden. Our first apartment was in a mixed neighbourhood of public and private housing that used a district heating system (i.e. a really big electric boiler that supplied lots of homes with heat and hot water). It was super efficient and energy costs were fairly stable. So much better than every house and apartment in a terrace having their own gas combi boiler.
In 2020 we bought an old (1935) timber house out in the countryside. It had an older (2001) ground source heat pump which the previous owner had (unwisely) hooked up to the heating system in the adjacent barn. It was spec'd for a domestic scale house, so it was basically knackered after almost 20 years heating a system three times as big. I had to get a mortgage extension, but was able to install a brand new electric heatpump that plugged onto the existing loop of buried pipes.
There are basically two kinds of heatpumps: air source and ground source. This doesn't seem to be being discussed in the press right now. On the outside, air source heat pumps look like very large air conditioners, and have to be wall-mounted or placed somewhere in your garden. They generate a bit of noise. Ground source heat pumps are hidden, because they pump water through a closed loop of pipes buried in the ground, but that of course requires you to scrape back a half metre's depth of soil from quite a large area of your precious garden or driveway. Fine if you are a Tory voter in the Home Counties, not so useful if you live in a terraced house in the Midlands.
Anyway, regardless... heat pumps will be the answer for some people, but they are expensive long-term investments. Better insulation in your walls, roof and windows is cheaper and quicker. The bigger problem will not be changing combi boilers to heat pumps, but changing from fossil fuel heating (gas and oil) to electricity. Nobody in Sweden would think of heating their home on gas, because electricity can come from a variety of different sources at different times. Gas and oil locks you in to a fossil fuel from a much more limited range of sources.
colchesterken
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Seems to me the way forward was not privatization. which as the man with the beard said privatizes the profits and nationalities the losses, one of the experts interviewed said each customer from a failed utility company will cost the new provider £400 and that cost will fall on all or us to make up the losses of the failed companies, while their shareholders did OK in the good times!
What we needed was a nationalized not for profit energy supplier. independent of government but in some way regulated so that losses and gains were spread across the whole market
Another question! any one know the cost of running a heat pump. they quote the installation cost but never the day to day running cost, I heard they are not as hot as gas, so as some one who still washes up by hand will I need to heat up the water with a leccie kettle for washing up? and other uses that require very hot water
What we needed was a nationalized not for profit energy supplier. independent of government but in some way regulated so that losses and gains were spread across the whole market
Another question! any one know the cost of running a heat pump. they quote the installation cost but never the day to day running cost, I heard they are not as hot as gas, so as some one who still washes up by hand will I need to heat up the water with a leccie kettle for washing up? and other uses that require very hot water
Like everything else heating related: depends. Ground source or air source? How well insulated is your house? Will you be supplementing with solar? The only way to know of for sure is to have a competent assessor do a home survey.
It is important to note that the comparison to "not as hot as gas" is predominantly about space heating - the central heating flow temperature on a boiler might be around 75-90°c which a heat pump will struggle to match. Domestic hot water as comes out of the tap would typically be set for 60°, which heat pumps will do capably
Running costs difference is a function of your current prices and current efficiencies. Where a condensing boiler can be up to 98% efficient at turning incoming energy into heat, a heatpump is over 100%, and can be as high as 500% depending on ambient temperatures, heat output, etc. If gas price/boiler efficiency is less than electricity price/heatpump efficiency (ie how much you pay per unit of useful heat output) then a heatpump is more expensive to run and vice versa. As an example on a tariff of 20.76p/kWh electricity and 4.18p/kWh gas, with a 98% efficient boiler and a 500% (COP = 5) heat pump, the boiler is cheaper by almost a penny/kWh heat
Like @najaB says though, assessing the property, it's usage, ambient conditions and other factors is key though! It's not as simple as plucking the most optimistic efficiency numbers out of the brochures!
jamesontheroad
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Those with interests in the gas-fired boiler industry are firing off a lot of ill-informed crap about electric heat pumps right now, because they do represent a threat to a fairly dominant technology with a lot of vested interests.
In short, no a heatpump does not get the water as hot as a gas boiler by pumping it through a heat exchanger. But that's not the point. By raising the temperature of the water through the heat exchanger first, you then use less electricity to bring it up to the desired temperature. Imagine the water goes out to the heat exchanger at 10° and comes back at 20° (these are arbitrary numbers, by the way) you have to use less energy to heat it up to 40°.
We have no difficulties having long hot showers, washing dishes etc. Hot water is instant and continuous. No need for an additional electric shower, for example.
nlogax
Established Member
Technology Connections (aka Alec) did a great primer on heat pumps several months ago. Essential viewing, I feel. Especially in the current climate (so to speak).
I can't provide exact figures at the moment, but I finally gave in and switched my heating on yesterday, and I'll be keeping a close eye on how many additional units I'll be using over and above my summer consumption.
I've had an air-source pump for a few years now. Compared to the storage heaters that we had before it's a vast improvement, both in terms of electricity used and how warm the house feels. The radiators don't get nearly as hot as they would with a gas system, but they do heat the house quite well. I can adjust the temperature in the system if needs be.
Regarding the hot water, mine isn't as hot now as it was during the summer, but I have solar panels on he roof which do the job, and obviously they're not receiving as much energy from that source at this time of year. Again, I can adjust the temperature of the hot water if required, and will probably do so in the next day or two. To be honest, it won't be by very much as I've got a washing machine that works from cold and I have an electric shower, so the hot water is really only used for dishes, cleaning the kitchen etc.
As mentioned above, insulation is key. Before all these measures were fitted, the housing association came round and refilled the cavity wall insulation, as well as installing extra in the loft. New double glazing has also made a difference, although the weak spots are the doors; draughts are especially noticeable when the wind is coming in from the north, so I'll be looking to add some additional draught excluders. It doesn't help that they installed the non-adjustable radiator in the back porch either!
Sky News are reporting that my current supplier (Bulb) might be going bust next week.
So I decided to have a look around the market and see what tarriffs were on offer.
On my current usage (electricity only) I am paying £85 per month, but when I requested a quote from EDF Energy, they wanted £135 per month.
Looking into the tarriff a bit further, the price per unit of electricity was around 36p per unit, whereas I am current paying about 22p per unit. That tarriff was the only one available to select.
However, if you look and find EDF Energy's standard variable tarriff, the cost per unit is only slightly higher than that currently charged by Bulb.
So the energy companies are deliberately hiding their cheaper tarriffs, and pushing the expensive ones which already incorporate the swingeing price increases that we should expect next spring.
They then have the nerve to say "...choose this tarriff for peace of mind, so that you are protected against future price increases..."
Who are they trying to kid?
No doubt you can get put on the Standard Variable tarriff. But presumably you will have to speak to a call centre after having been on hold for three hours, whilst listening to a message saying "...how important your call is to us..."
So I decided to have a look around the market and see what tarriffs were on offer.
On my current usage (electricity only) I am paying £85 per month, but when I requested a quote from EDF Energy, they wanted £135 per month.
Looking into the tarriff a bit further, the price per unit of electricity was around 36p per unit, whereas I am current paying about 22p per unit. That tarriff was the only one available to select.
However, if you look and find EDF Energy's standard variable tarriff, the cost per unit is only slightly higher than that currently charged by Bulb.
So the energy companies are deliberately hiding their cheaper tarriffs, and pushing the expensive ones which already incorporate the swingeing price increases that we should expect next spring.
They then have the nerve to say "...choose this tarriff for peace of mind, so that you are protected against future price increases..."
Who are they trying to kid?
No doubt you can get put on the Standard Variable tarriff. But presumably you will have to speak to a call centre after having been on hold for three hours, whilst listening to a message saying "...how important your call is to us..."
nlogax
Established Member
Ouch. That's quite mad and a sign of things to come for anyone who use Bulb.
Right now I am assuming all my energy is free. When Green went belly up a few weeks back I was moved to Shell Energy. Still don't have an account number or login info and the monthly DD to Green is now confirmed closed. It's real energy provider limbo-land.
Sky News are reporting that my current supplier (Bulb) might be going bust next week.
So I decided to have a look around the market and see what tarriffs were on offer.
On my current usage (electricity only) I am paying £85 per month, but when I requested a quote from EDF Energy, they wanted £135 per month.
Looking into the tarriff a bit further, the price per unit of electricity was around 36p per unit, whereas I am current paying about 22p per unit. That tarriff was the only one available to select.
However, if you look and find EDF Energy's standard variable tarriff, the cost per unit is only slightly higher than that currently charged by Bulb.
So the energy companies are deliberately hiding their cheaper tarriffs, and pushing the expensive ones which already incorporate the swingeing price increases that we should expect next spring.
They then have the nerve to say "...choose this tarriff for peace of mind, so that you are protected against future price increases..."
Who are they trying to kid?
No doubt you can get put on the Standard Variable tarriff. But presumably you will have to speak to a call centre after having been on hold for three hours, whilst listening to a message saying "...how important your call is to us..."
I’m not sure why you’d want to move to another company to be on their standard tariff. At this point everyone is bumping up against the price cap, so all their standard tariff rates are going to be the same. So the only differentiator is going to be their predictions of the future with their fixed deals.
Your rate with Bulb is almost certainly better than anything out there at the moment, so you might as well stick with it until you end up moved to another provider if Bulb go under.
I’m also with Shell now as part of Pure Planet going bust. Although I also don’t have any login details for Shell, they sent me an email detailing their rates in effect from 17th October when the transfer occurred.
Hopefully Shell are more competent than Scottish Power who I was moved to when Yorkshire Energy went bust. They failed at the start of December 2020, it was the end of January when I got an account and a bill from SP for the period from December. Then it took till February for my balance to be moved over which I had been waiting for before trying to move provider.
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I was just looking at the other companies to see what their rates were.
If Bulb does go bust, I will be moved to another supplier, but the tarriff won't necessarily be the same as Bulb.
It might happen, for example, that the energy regulator insists that former Bulb customers are moved onto the standard variable tarriff with the new supplier, and people can then choose another tarriff if they want to, or move to another supplier.
But it is definitely sharp practice from the Energy companies to give the impression that the only available tarriff is the one where a unit of electricity costs 36p, which is an increase of more than 60% on the approximately 22p charged by all of the big six energy companies on their standard variable tarriff.
fourtytwo
Member
That's the present price cap in action for you that the companies claim (probably rightly) they are making a loss supplying at for new energy purchased (vs forward bought some time ago) and so that's why nobody is offering better pricing. If you think those prices are high wait until the new cap is announced in April 2022, by all accounts it will be astronomical! If bulb goes bust you will be forced onto the current cap rate and there is nothing you can do about it, I speak with experience having been with a company that went bust and forced to shell energy a month ago.
Baxenden Bank
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Actually, and I only found this out by accident, there is no obligation for a supplier to offer the Standard Variable Tariff (SVT) to an existing or transferring customer! It is there to protect those who have never switched or whose fixed tariff has come to an end.
- If your current fixed tariff ends, you automatically go onto SVT unless you sign up for another deal.
- If your supplier goes bust, you are transferred to an alternative supplier at an unspecified tariff (not necessarily the SVT). The new supplier will eventually inform you of your new tariff, but don't hold your breath waiting. You could of course chase them for the information sooner.
- If you want to shop around, you have to take whatever deals the supplier chooses to offer - below, at, or above the SVT.
Again I repeat my advice: Always look at the cost per unit, and how that relates to your personal usage. Do not rely on industry standard figures, or typical customer figures. Do not rely on the quoted '£ per month' unless you can see how that has been arrived at.
Assume what you like. You have been transferred, you have no choice in the matter, your consent has been deemed, you will pay the rate Shell Energy say! Your only alternative is to shop around and commence the transfer process - which is advised against (until you are settled with the new supplier) as it may 'complicate things'.
Your energy is definitely not free.
Shell Energy will eventually inform you of your new tarriff, and how much they expect you to pay per month.
I can only echo the advice given above to look at the rate per unit of electricity (or per therm of gas) and see whether the amount the energy company expects you to pay is anything like your actual usage.
Also take a note of whether your account was in credit at the date that Green Energy went bust, because any credit balance should be transferred over to your new account with Shell Energy.
Good luck trying to get any credit balance refunded.
Baxenden Bank
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It depends on how much energy a company forward bought for, and at what price.
The problem, as mentioned by one of the companies this week (Octopus I think) is that certain supply companies have signed customers on a fixed price/term deal without covering their positions. Basically they went to the market and forward bought energy for a period shorter than the customers contract. So, as that forward bought period comes to an end, they can no longer buy energy in the market at a price below what the customer is contracted to pay. A fault on the part of the supply business (and market regulation) rather than a fault of the SVT mechanism itself I would say. The supplier gambled on prices remaining low, or coming down after a rise, and they called it wrong. Not much different than short sellers in the stock market who cannot then cover their positions when the stock price rises rather than falls.
nlogax
Established Member
Sounds like Bulb has just been acquired by Ovo Energy.
Mcr Warrior
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Currently paying 4.259p per kWh (inc VAT) for gas plus a 30.783p per day standing charge and 21.216p per kWh (inc VAT) for electricity plus a 28.971p per day standing charge. Expecting total annual bills to be c. £175 higher than last year.
Surprises me if true, I saw a report yesterday that stated Bulb was carrying between £600 million to £1bn in debt.
Doubts over rescue deal for Bulb Energy raise fears of imminent collapse
UK’s seventh largest supplier seeks funding as regulator promises to protect families
Why do you say that if your DD is set up for the right amount?
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