Energy Supplier EDF Cuts Gas Prices

Further to announcements by OVO Energy and Co-op that they are cutting energy prices, EDF has now announced it is cutting its gas prices.

More consumers will now find that their energy bills will fall as EDF, one of the ‘Big Six’ energy suppliers has announced it is cutting its gas prices by 5% with effect from 7 February 2012.

This cut by EDF means an average energy bill with them will drop to just over £1,200.

Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com, says: “Pressure to cut prices has been mounting and now one of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers has let the cork out of the bottle. As well as being the last supplier to increase their prices last year, EDF Energy has become the first to announce a price cut.

“It’s good news for consumers, but look through the fizz and the bubbles and we’re left with the cold reality that prices are still substantially higher than they were just over a year ago.

“The fact is that prices rocketed by £224 or 21% in the last 18  months^[1] - at the moment EDF Energy customers will only see their gas bills decrease, and the cut doesn’t go anywhere near cancelling out the most recent price hikes.

“However, hopefully this move will put more pressure on the rest of the big six to follow suit and cut their prices too.

“But households can mitigate the impact of high energy bills by shopping around for a cheaper deal and cutting back on the amount of energy they use. Moving to dual fuel, paying by direct debit and signing up to a competitively priced deal will save you up to £420^[2], far more than price cuts will give you based on today’s evidence.” 

According to uSwitch, based on a medium user consuming 3,300 kWh of electricity and 16,500 kWh of gas with bill sizes averaged across all regions, best energy deals are:

Best buy energy deals:
Supplier	Plan Name			Price
First: Utility	iSave Dual Fuel V9			£1,030
Ovo Energy	New Energy Fixed			£1,061
npower	Go Fix 10			£1,078
ScottishPower	Online Energy Saver 17			£1,085
E.ON	SaveOnline 11			£1,106
Co-op Energy	Pioneer			£1,145
British Gas	Online Fixed			£1,150
EDF Energy	Price Protection 2013			£1,165
SSE	Online Standard			£1,179

 

MoneyHighStreet comments: “As well as of course ensuring you are on the best energy deal to suit your needs, switching supplier if need be, there are other ways to help save on your energy bills.

“Steps you can take include to insulate your loft, add cavity wall insulation, lower your washing machine temperature, turn appliances off, turn your heating down by 1 degree, switch off lights and even only filling your kettle with as much water as you need can help.”

1. Customers affected taken from individual supplier announcements as follows: SSE (announcement 29/10/2010) increase to affect around 3.6 million customers, British Gas (announcement 12/11/2010) increase will affect around 8 million customers, ScottishPower (announcement on 19/11/2010) move to affect around 2.5 million customers, nPower (announcement on 10/12/2010) move to affect around 6.2 million customers, E.ON (announcement on 11/01/2011) move to affect around 4.3 million customers. EDF Energy (announcement 3/2/2011) will affect 3.3 million customers. These add up to 27.9 million customers. uSwitch.com estimates 10 million standard plan customers based on 26 million households and Ofgem statistics showing that 7 million customers are on price guarantee plans, 3.5 million are on online tariffs, 3.8 million electricity customers and 2.6 million gas customers are on PPMs. The average increase from the first wave of price rises for a customer on a standard plan, based on a medium user profile using 3,300kWh of electricity and 16,500kWh of gas paying on receipt of bill, was £63. Taking this increase over 10 million standard plan customers totals £630 million added to consumer bills. On the same basis, the second wave of increases added £1.61 billion to bills.

2. Between 1^st July, 2011 and 31^st October, 2011 at least 10% of people who switched energy supplier for both gas and electricity with uSwitch.com saved £420 or more.