I'm on a fixed plan - Will the price cap increase affect my direct debit amount?

Thanks for the reply Jess, that's what I thought the increase was for. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

I’ve just looked at MyOvo portal and it is suggesting that my standing order should be increased by a lot, or I will be in debt to the tune of £511. I am electricity only...

_BUT_ my unit rate is 27.84p/kWh, Standing Charge is 36.11p/day and the estimated anual usage is 2599 kWh.

When I calculate this out it comes to £855.36 for a year which is £71.28/month and my current Standing Order is £70. I am already £108 in credit and supposedly getting 5% interest on my credit balance so:

What am I missing? where does the £511 debt come from?

PhilipJ

Hi @PhilipJ451 and thanks for posting this. 

We’ve made a guide on the factors involved in estimating a monthly payment amount here:

If you’re on a fixed plan, we’ll aim to get you to a £0 balance by your contract end date. Otherwise you’ll be on the Simpler Energy plan, the variable rate where the prices are set to increase on October 1st. More info on this and available support, here:

That looks at the next 12 months of usage and costs. Higher prices will mean a debt unless the payment amount is increased. You can see this visualised here:

https://account.ovoenergy.com/payments/direct-debit/calculator

Hope this helps,
Tim

So is the Direct Debit calculator for those on the variable rate plan now taking account of the higher unit rates from 1st Oct.

Even though the higher unit rates from 1st October can't yet be see on myOVO? 

Hi Tim_OVO and thanks for your reply. This is the kind of information I was hoping to find but I just couldn’t think of the right phrase to search for.

I will echo the question from Jeffus in a different way; is the £520 debt predicted for my account because of the expected rises in prices over the next 12 months ?

I wouls also say that the link to “Price cap changes...” has a number of comments at the end some of which suggest that you should be clearly printing the unit prices and standing charges rather than a generic annual per household estimate.

For info, I am on the “Simpler Energy” plan, do you know what the unit rates (and standing charge) will be changing to in October? If no, then when will we all know?

regards

PhilipJ

@PhilipJ451 

OVO have said they will give a minimum 10 days notice for the new rates prior to 1st October.

You can already see the rates ofgem have calculated. They vary by region. Of course suppliers can decide to charge less but i doubt they will by anything material.

Money saving expert has put the regional rates on their website so these will be a very good proxy for now. 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/#tool

Hi Jeffus,

thanks for the info, I’ll take a look

regards

PhilipJ

I’m on Simpler, my recommended payments from October are much higher so I’d say the calculations involved are factoring in a likely increase in costs.

It’s tricky to know what’s happening under the hood as this is a billing platform made by Kaluza that makes these predictions. I’ll try and find out the answer and get back to you. As we can be confident that prices for Simpler plan customers will rise in October, it certainly makes sense that they’re predicting it for those months...

I suspect it is just factoring the known ofgem price cap rates for Oct and that OVO are simply going to charge at the limit of the regional price cap.

It is interesting though as OVO hasn't actually published what new rates they are going to charge. So it feels a bit strange the rates have been loaded into the direct debit calculator somewhere but customers can't see the rates. 

Be good to confirm it is no making any assumptions about the cap in Jan, April, July. I assume not.

Am curious to know if this is a new feature or if the same thing happened at the April cap.