Business energy price predictions.

[Eleven]

I have to renew 25 or so small sites by November 1. I am with Eon at the moment and they have given me their best and final offers.

My thinking is that in light of recent news events (criminalisation of price manipulation*) prices may come down between now and Nov 1, as well as over the coming year. This is obviously only a hunch.

So I am tempted to wait a little longer and then only take a 1-year agreement.

Anyone else care to have a stab at a prediction?

• It was a surprise to me that this wasn't already considered fraud.

[Mr Overheads]

Renewing 25 sites on a single contract length isn't spreading your risk. Let's say you fix for 1 year and then in 1 year the market has doubled (it happened in 2008) you then have to fix all 25 sites at double - could you take the price hike? Better to spread your risk and lock some in at 1year, some 2 and some 3 (perhaps even 18 month contracts to split the seasons come renewal)

Unless of course you have multiple lot's of 25 sites and you are already doing that with other batches?

To answer your question you need a crystal ball but at the moment the consensus seems to be that apart from sanctions against Russia causing Ukraine supply problems and any unforeseen natural disasters (e.g. Fukishima) there is no upward pressure on prices at the moment.

Pitch alert: Happy to see if we can beat the best and final offer from E-on.....

[Mr Overheads]

Don't you just love it when your advice is so warmly received.

[Eleven]

Mr Overheads said:

Don't you just love it when your advice is so warmly received.

Hah, sorry I should have acknowledged your reply. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

I have been preoccupied with other things, for example a bank refinance, which must take priority. In truth I may not get chance to look at this properly until September. The contracts are due for renewal end of October. Do you think I will be costing myself anything by waiting until then?

[m3sye]

Mr Overheads, DM'd you, not sure if you got it?

[Mr Overheads]

Eleven said:

Hah, sorry I should have acknowledged your reply. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

I have been preoccupied with other things, for example a bank refinance, which must take priority. In truth I may not get chance to look at this properly until September. The contracts are due for renewal end of October. Do you think I will be costing myself anything by waiting until then?

Market has risen slightly in the last week, but it depends on your supply types (i.e. 03, 00, 05 etc). For example, some suppliers quote from fixed price books that can be withdrawn at any time and some quote from daily live market prices. Though if they are HH supplies then always live prices. The same applies with the kWh per meter. At certain thresholds it crosses from price books to live pricing depending on the supplier again.

So your buying strategy is "last minute, when I'll finally make time". This is why we have a business, it's time consuming and complex and buying at the right time can save more than just buying the cheapest on a given day.

[Mr Overheads]

m3sye said:

Mr Overheads, DM'd you, not sure if you got it?

Got your DM, not had a chance to take a look properly yet.

[m3sye]

Mr Overheads said:

Got your DM, not had a chance to take a look properly yet.

ok thanks

[Eleven]

Mr Overheads said:

Eleven said:

Hah, sorry I should have acknowledged your reply. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

I have been preoccupied with other things, for example a bank refinance, which must take priority. In truth I may not get chance to look at this properly until September. The contracts are due for renewal end of October. Do you think I will be costing myself anything by waiting until then?

Market has risen slightly in the last week, but it depends on your supply types (i.e. 03, 00, 05 etc). For example, some suppliers quote from fixed price books that can be withdrawn at any time and some quote from daily live market prices. Though if they are HH supplies then always live prices. The same applies with the kWh per meter. At certain thresholds it crosses from price books to live pricing depending on the supplier again.

So your buying strategy is "last minute, when I'll finally make time". This is why we have a business, it's time consuming and complex and buying at the right time can save more than just buying the cheapest on a given day.

It's not always last minute, but it is this time for the reasons I mentioned above.

FWIW I cannot be doing too badly because one of your colleagues looked at our renewal figures about 2 renewals ago. He wasn't prepared to take on the job on a savings share because he felt it wouldn't be viable. There was a minimum guaranteed saving and he didn't think he'd achieve it.

He was prepared to take it on a consultancy basis but then did something which made us feel we could not trust him to do the work in our best interests. Which was the second bad experience we've had with Auditel and whilst I am sure you are very good it has somewhat queered the pitch. Which if I am being honest is another reason I didn't reply immediately to your post, now I come to think of it.

Whilst I've been typing Eon has confirmed no price change since their quote. That's not to say there won't be one, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Mr Overheads]

Apologies on behalf of my colleague whoever that was (would be interested to know privately who that was and more details of the complaint) always disappointing when someone let's the brand down. Especially conccerned about this line

eleven said:

then did something which made us feel we could not trust him to do the work in our best interests.

Personally, I never promise to beat a price, I just promise to do a thorough and quality job, if we can beat the benchmark then so be it. Some jobs margins are very tight and others can be quite large. I only ever to promise to save you time and hassle and to improve the management of the cost area (which in this case from the little I know so far would be market exposure risk in the first instance as per my first post).

Edited by Mr Overheads on Tuesday 12th August 15:56

[Eleven]

Mr Overheads said:

Apologies on behalf of my colleague whoever that was (would be interested to know privately who that was and more details of the complaint) always disappointing when someone let's the brand down. Especially conccerned about this line

eleven said:

then did something which made us feel we could not trust him to do the work in our best interests.

Personally, I never promise to beat a price, I just promise to do a thorough and quality job, if we can beat the benchmark then so be it. Some jobs margins are very tight and others can be quite large. I only ever to promise to save you time and hassle and to improve the management of the cost area (which in this case from the little I know so far would be market exposure risk in the first instance as per my first post).

Edited by Mr Overheads on Tuesday 12th August 15:56

I'd prefer not to tell you who it is. But basically I wasn't sure about him from the get-go so I asked him to price for something that he and I both knew we didn't need. The problem being he didn't know that I knew and proposed to charge me to advise upon it. If he'd been honest and pointed out my error we'd have used him for the other work which was a few thousand quid worth.

The first chap was just blatantly out to defraud customers by taking back-handers from suppliers he recommended.

Yes, switching energy companies is a massive ball ache. However it is less of a ball ache than working with some of the energy companies. To be honest Eon is pretty easy to deal with and we've had few problems (yet). So unless their prices are seriously amiss we'll stay with them.

[Jockman]

I've just renewed both business gas (275,000 kWh) and electricity (330,000 kWh on HH) and yes the prices have risen ever so slightly in the last few days but the rates are still cheaper than I was paying.

The electricity is always more complicated and I've opted for a fully inclusive, fully fixed green tariff which surprised even me. With no ccl to pay the rate was better than any brown tariff and after tinkering with variable ROs and FiTs I realised I was best sticking to an all inclusive product.

Beware the cowboy brokers - I came across one - but I would have no hesitation in recommending Get Solutions, CEC and Makeitcheaper.

I would suggest that any decent broker will get you a better deal than going direct to Eon - Haven, Hudson and Npower are very aggressively priced at the moment - but if really all boils down to whether or not you have the time or inclination to use them.

Good luck either way

[Eleven]

Jockman said:

I've just renewed both business gas (275,000 kWh) and electricity (330,000 kWh on HH) and yes the prices have risen ever so slightly in the last few days but the rates are still cheaper than I was paying.

The electricity is always more complicated and I've opted for a fully inclusive, fully fixed green tariff which surprised even me. With no ccl to pay the rate was better than any brown tariff and after tinkering with variable ROs and FiTs I realised I was best sticking to an all inclusive product.

Beware the cowboy brokers - I came across one - but I would have no hesitation in recommending Get Solutions, CEC and Makeitcheaper.

I would suggest that any decent broker will get you a better deal than going direct to Eon - Haven, Hudson and Npower are very aggressively priced at the moment - but if really all boils down to whether or not you have the time or inclination to use them.

Good luck either way

Thanks Jockman.

Make it Cheaper I've used before and they were fairly good. Might give them another call. They did nause up some of the admin though.

I spoke to Haven several years ago and their offering was, as I recall, complicated. They were also not happy with the level of exposure as I recall.

Hudson I've never heard of and N power I've used to a limited extent when we inherited them on a couple of properties.

[Jockman]

Eleven said:

Thanks Jockman.

Make it Cheaper I've used before and they were fairly good. Might give them another call. They did nause up some of the admin though.

I spoke to Haven several years ago and their offering was, as I recall, complicated. They were also not happy with the level of exposure as I recall.

Hudson I've never heard of and N power I've used to a limited extent when we inherited them on a couple of properties.

NPower have upped their game on the admin side - they couldn't get any worse !!

Hudson are very big and seem to be preferred by Makeitcheaper. Their Green tariff is exempt from CCL so remember to knock off 0.547 from each unit price. This is an average of this year's CCL and next year's. CCL will increase every year I should imagine.

You are right about Haven - they do brown and green quotes, Assured and Pass Through - if you have been looking at their Pass Through rates they are phenomenally cheap but then you add on (and are at the mercy of) ROs, FiTs, TNUoS, DUoS, BSUos......I could go on