Price cap increases- To fix or not to fix?

Cornwall Insight latest:
  

These are GB average figures including VAT. There are significant variations from region to region. They are based on wholesale costs and other factors at close of business on 16 February; these are likely to be close to those used by Ofgem to calculate the Energy Price Cap for April-June 2024.

Source: Predictions and Insights into the Default Tariff Cap - Cornwall Insight

And to pre-empt Jeffus, here are the UK gas wholesale prices for the past six months:
  

The peak here was 136.70 on 23 October last, so it’s fallen by more than half since then.

Hey guys, any updates on second quarter’s price cap? 

Soon!(tm)

The new price cap, for April-June 2024: Get energy price cap standing charges and unit rates by region | Ofgem

Note the sometimes startling changes in standing charges - any change in standing charges has the biggest impact on those with lowest consumption. There are also unusually large variations around the country, ranging from an 10% increase to a 9% decrease. Do your sums carefully!

We have a couple of weeks before deciding whether to stick or twist, but I’ve been poking around elsewhere to see what’s currently available. I was very surprised to see a 2-year fixed rate tariff from Ecotricity with a guaranteed standing charge (SC) for electricity of 41p/day. I wonder if Dale Vince knows something we don’t about where SCs are likely to go over the next couple of years; the 2024Q2 price cap sets the average SC to 60p, but for my region it’s only (!) 56p. The difference is nevertheless staggering.

Comparing the Ecotricity rates with OVO’s equivalent tariff, I reckon that you’d have to be consuming more than 5300kWh/year for the higher price per unit to outweigh the saving on SC. My usage over the past 12 months has been 1142kWh:
  

I’d feel pretty foolish, though if SCs fell significantly in response to Ofgem’s planned revision of the way they’re applied. The exit fees would probably swallow any saving and more. 

*  Trivia: I lived for several years 200m over the hill from New Lawn, the home ground of Vince’s green football club Forest Green Rovers.

Other companies are already sharing the new standing charges and energy costs while OVO are encouraging us to fix. Without all the facts how can we fairly decide?

That’s the point with fixing or not fixing.

You don’t, you can’t, have the facts about what will happen with prices in the future, so to fix or not fix is a gamble that you take on what will happen with prices.

And even if you never look at the fixing options and always stay with variable rates that’s still a gamble, just one that you are taking without thinking about it.
You are already in the game, you might as well consider how you want to play it.

Sometimes fixing is not even about saving money, but about knowing how much you will be paying for the next year (or 2, or however long you fix for).
I have fixed, I know how much electricity and gas I use each year, so I know how much that will cost me each month for the next 12 months.
For some people that is important to know, even if it is more than they might have paid on variable rate.

I fixed in December for 12 months, at the moment with the changes coming in April that looks like it might have been the wrong time for me to fix. (If i did it to try and save money).
Or it might not have been, that will depend on what further changes are made to unit prices and (particularly for me as a low user) the standing charges in summer and autumn.
I won’t know for sure if I made the right money saving decision (gamble) for me until next December. (Well actually I’ll be able to work it out once I know what the autumn rates will be).
And then I’ll have to make another gamble between fixing again or not.

Hey @Sally123,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community, 

Price Increase Notification letters will be sent out from the 4th March and so by 18th, customers on the Simpler Variable Tariff should have a notification of the new prices from OVO. 

I thought SVT prices were decreasing on 1 April 🤷🏼

Spot on @Firedog, Prices are decreasing so we won’t be sending any Price Increase Notification letters this time.🙂

The Standard Variable tariff prices will be update online, you can get a quote here: https://plans.ovoenergy.com/.