Ditch bad deals – or you could lose £380

ENERGY consumption is up a third this summer due to people staying at home due to the coronavirus crisis – increasing average bills by £32 a month.

And while tariffs have not been hiked in recent months, it means trawling the market for a better deal is more important than ever.

A new cap being put on how much energy suppliers can charge customers who are stuck on expensive default standard tariffs being introduced in October is expected to save such customers £84 a year. But this is still small change compared to the hundreds of pounds energy users might save by shopping around for the lowest price fixedprice energy deal on the market.

The comparison website Compare the Market believes those that do not switch could find themselves out of pocket by more than £380 a year because of the change in consumption habits caused by lockdown. Wholesale gas prices have fallen to a ten-year low this summer. And while some challenger energy providers, such as Bulb and Octopus Energy, have passed on some of these reductions, the ‘Big Six’ providers – British Gas, SSE, E. ON, EDF Energy, npower and Scottish Power – have not been quite so generous and left tariffs pretty much the same or only made slight reductions.

Figures from Ofgem show that for the first three months of the year there was a fall in the price paid for gas of 1.9 per cent; and for electricity a rise of 6.8 per cent, compared to the same time in 2019.

The major reason bills are going up is because the use of home appliances – such as dishwashers, washing machines, ovens, televisions and lighting – has soared, with half of all properties now having someone working from home instead of an office.