OFGEM has today (25th Feb) confirmed the average costs for gas and electricity will drop by 7%, or approximately £10 per month, from the 1st of April. You can read their press release by clicking here.
These price announcements are released every 3 months, and are calculated by reviewing wholesale costs, as well as the cost of supplying energy to us. OFGEM then sets a Price Cap that energy suppliers mustn’t exceed, for any customers who are on a variable rate tariff.
The drop announced today has largely been possible due to the Chancellor announcing in her Autumn budget, that some of the costs added to bills to pay for schemes, would be removed, with a stated intention to reduce everybody’s bills by £150 from the 1st of April this year.
Today’s announcement shows we won’t see the full benefit of the £150 reduction, as there has been a rise in network costs, which are passed on to billpayers. This means, without the Chancellor making those changes, our bills would likely have risen in April.
The average costs tend to be true for a small family living in a 3 bedroom, semi-detached house, built after 1930. How much you will actually pay depends on how much energy you use, and we’d urge everybody to read their energy bills to see how many kilowatt hours (kWh) they are estimated to use annually. The national averages are 2,700kWh for electricity, and 11,700kWh for gas. If you’re using more than this, then it’s possible you could be wasting energy, and might benefit from adapting your behaviours to use less (you can use a smart meter to monitor this) and/or ensure you’re using any heating controls to save on waste (as heating our homes is the most costly thing we use energy for), and/or checking to see whether you could install energy efficient measures such as increased insulation, more efficient heating, or even renewable energy technologies.
Residents of Cheshire, Merseyside, and West Lancashire with questions about any of the above, are welcome to call our Save Energy Advice Line free on 0800 043 0151, or email advice@epplus.org. Lines are open 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday.