Utility bills - surprising situation..?

[WindyCommon]

I haven’t revisited my utility bills for a little while. The fixed rate tariffs I was on came to an end last year, and the replacement tariffs then available weren’t attractive. As a result I’m on standard tariffs for both electricity and gas.

I am signed up to the MSE Utility Club service, so updated my details and requested a full scan of available fixed price deals across all suppliers.

This says that the standard tariffs I’m on are the cheapest option available. There are no fixed term plans in the marketplace that are cheaper.

I find this surprising. Oil/energy prices have fallen since I last looked at utility bills, so I guess I was hoping to find better deals available than last year. I certainly expected to find fixed rate deals below standard tariffs - there are not many products/services where no discount is available for those prepared to make a long term commitment to a supplier; especially for a commoditised product where switching isn’t that difficult.

What does this tell us?

1. It might indicate that suppliers expect energy costs to increase. Fixed rate offers always abound when prices are falling, so the opposite could hold true.
2. The accepted mantra that “...standard rate tariffs are always a rip-off, you should get yourself a fixed rate deal...” appears questionable. Anyone coming to the end of a fixed rate deal shouldn’t hurry to sign up for a new one.

In the usual way, I’m interested to hear of PH’ers recent experience (& thoughts) on this subject.

Edited by WindyCommon on Monday 14th January 14:59

[xjay1337]

I've NEVER found the default rate(s) to be cheaper.

I recently re-did ours.
It was going to go from around £700 a year to over £900 on the standard plan.

Simply signing up to a new plan kept that to around £700.

[Mr Pointy]

Plug your annual consumption figures into something like Bulb & see what they quote. It's not fixed but you still might save:
https://bulb.co.uk/

[coetzeeh]

Electricity commodity costs inceased by circa 35% in 2018.

Also bear in mind grid charges and green taxes increased too and accounts for 60% of your total bill.

Last point - Suppliers forward purchase/hedge the commodity years in advance so short term price chnages prices may not always flow through to bills immediately.

[Jambo85]

Several of the small energy companies have gone bust in the last wee while too, which says something about the viability of the low fixed costs models. I am with one of the remaining ones just now who recently went through the PR disaster of changing their monthly payments from a fixed monthly amount year round to a much higher amount in the winter, implemented just before Christmas. It's an indicator of the (fairly obvious) cash reserves required to provide these fixed low cost tariffs.

[Jockman]

WindyCommon has a point.

I run the MiL's utility bills since FiL passed away and we're about to enter the 49 day exit fee free period so I had a nose at what's going on on switch with Which?

Gobsmacked to find it is best for us to let the fix roll over on to the default product. IIRC there were a couple of deals from new entrants offering a twenty quid saving or so. Not worth the bother.