[Mailman]

Originally Posted by meldrewreborn

@Mailman

ML made the point that price changes for prepayment meters would have had to be notified to whatever body adjusts the rates imbedded in the meter/card/key (I'm not at all certain how its done!) by now so we can be certain that little change will happen in April.

I'd expect fixed rates to be lower than SVR - otherwise there is little point in offering them.

Yes to 1 above.

As for 2 you are correct , but don't discount that some folk may be enticed at a fixed rate having a slight premium (say 5%) if they are prepared to pay a lttle more for 'piece of mind'. Obviously if Eon Next were to offer a fixed rate at lower than the EPG rates in April (with no exit fees) customers would probably flock to them - I know I would.

Then we have the situation in July probably (and possibly October) where these Cap forecasts are set to be lower than the present EPG (£2500) rates. So any fixed rate offerings announced post-April are almost certainly going to take the rest of 2023 into account. My guess is that some suppliers may offer rates that lie between the April EPG rates and the forecast July Ofgem capped ones but with an exit fee to deter switching off any fixes starting between April and July 2023.

Could be wildly wrong about all of this. 🤣

EDIT: Just had a thought that the EPG provides a discount for fixed rate tariffs ATM (I should know I am on v18 with EPG applied) so unless there is a new rule along the lines of 'EPG reductions will not place place for fixed-price tariffs commencing after April 1st 2023' there is no incentive to have any fixes higher than SVT as they would automatically reduce in the way that they have done since October 2022. So maybe in will be post-July 2023 that we start to see these fixed tariffs re-emerge.

[meldrewreborn]

Originally Posted by JoeSoap

@Mailman @meldrewreborn

I don't think it's out of the question to see fixed rates at higher levels than the SVR and it certainly happened at various times last summer. Some choose to fix for the sake of budgeting just in case the SVR rates rise during the term of the fix. There seems to be more awareness of projections now. I had never heard of Cornwall Insight until last summer for instance and it was the first time I had used their projections to decide about fixing. There was always a short lag between them revising their predictions upwards and the energy companies raising their fixed rates. I fixed during one of those windows but it all became pretty much irrelevant in the end once the government stepped in.

I echo your comments, although last summer was a really exceptional time in the energy market with prices rising so quickly in a very short time period. So yes fixing became attractive because of the fear that prices were going through the roof. Hence the desire to fix at levels above the price cap. Like you my fix became next to worthless because of the EPG, perhaps the one good legacy of Trussenomics. I have the feeling that the energy suppliers may have bought forward gas in particular forward to enable them to offer lower price fixes for a year or more ahead. While this would be unusual given the market distinction between Suppliers and Generators, nothing in all this would surprise me any more.

I still think that not all suppliers are as healthy as others, and parent companies may have their own issues (EDF and Macron), so I am sure that the united front we've seen from the energy suppliers on pricing will crumble as soon as the SVR prices drop in the summer.

[retrotecchie]

@JoeSoap

Wholesale gas prices have now dipped below the 100 pence per therm mark for the first time in over a year. Good news for the wholesale markets, but I wonder how long it will take for that to be filtered through to domestic prices? Always good to know that prices should start to come down now, but just like forecourt prices, they hike them soon enough, but don't seem keen on reducing them as quickly.

[JoeSoap]

@retrotecchie

I like where we're currently at on the graph.

[retrotecchie]

@JoeSoap

Definitely getting better. Not as low as it was mid pandemic, but much closer to those levels than we are to the last October price cap numbers, that's for sure👍

[retrotecchie]

@retrotecchie

We're now around 82p/therm. Getting even better 👍