Should I commit to a fixed deal, or should I wait?

 Just to note that I don’t think that’s fully correct.
It’s your money and you are entitled to request it be given back to you when it is reasonable to do so.

I believe it’s saying that you can’t request a refund online unless you have a Direct Debit. (Mainly because without a DD having been set up they don’t hold your bank details to send any refund to).

If you don’t pay by Direct Debit then you have to phone to request the refund, and they will confirm which bank account you want it sent to or if you want a cheque.

Unless you are leaving your current supplier and switching to another supplier, or  you are moving home and so closing your account, then they do normally want to keep a ‘reasonable amount’ of the credit balance, usually enough to cover a months worth of future usage.

For more info see: How to get a refund when your account is in credit

PS. It’s seems noticible that a number of those OVO ‘How to’ articles tend to be written with the assumption  that everyone has a smart meter and everyone pays by Direct Debit - of course that isn’t always the case.

TBH I don't see any reason not to have smart meters and/or pay by direct debit. as long as you have a bank account of course, there are some people who don’t.

(Unless you have been influenced by the many, usually unfounded, scare stories out there.
Let's face it there are always some people who like to tell stories to scare other people.
Some Journalists get paid for writing nothing but scary stories).

Whether or not to fix your tariff is another choice, but usually it's a good thing to do.
Yes there is a slight risk that you will loose out if electricity/gas prices or the standing charges fall, so it is a bit of a gamble in that respect.
Do you expect prices to fall much? It could happen but ...

Apart for a short period, (when a fix ended during the recent energy crisis and no supplier was offering new fixes), I have been fixing mine since I moved into this flat in 2021 and have not regretted it.
I usually go for a 1-year fix, but have been know to ‘hop’ to a different (cheaper) one after just 6-months.
And yes, you can usually ‘hop’ like that if a cheaper fix catches you eye, but weigh up if that will mean an early-exit fee or not. (If you are ‘hopping’ from one OVO fix to another OVO fix then there is often no early-exit fee to pay).

Just beware of the Extended Fixed plan. Other fixed plans don’t attract an exit fee (last time I looked, at least) if you switch to another (not less restricted) one, but Extended Fixed does.

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to ​@Firedog for jumping into the thread and sharing your thoughts. Your advice was really helpful, and I hope that it helps you ​@Katy65!

I’ve left a couple of resources below that might also help:

Thanks guys for your help and advice 

Much appreciated 👍 

Hi. I’m on simpler energy, as the rates are going up in July was wondering about going to fixed rate or have you found cheaper tariffs elsewhere and who?

Check carefully! While capped prices are going up a lot on 1 July, there are encouraging signs that that may not be a lasting situation. Meanwhile, many of the available fixes are significantly more expensive than the forthcoming price cap. 

I’m in the same situation; at the moment, with my fix from early last year about to expire, I’m thinking of just  rolling on to the Standard Variable Tariff at least for a few months, then see what happens later in the year.

Thanks. There’s so much about changing supplier and go on fixed rates, it’s so confusing 

I’m also going to stay on he Variable Tariff. The cap changes every three months. Though it’s not always easy to predict, I have a feeling that it may go down after three moths. The same as Firedog, I’m going to see what happens.

Morning ​@ACE.52 and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum.

I can see you’ve had  some helpful responses already about this. It really is hard to tell exactly what to do in this situation, as we can only speculate as to price cap changes going forward. You can find out more about price cap changes in this article:

My advice is to make sure you’re giving your annual usage figures for gas and electricity when you’re getting quotes from other suppliers. If you don’t provide these, the quote may not be accurate, and the initial Direct Debit amount may be wrong. You can find your annual usage figures by logging into your online account, and clicking ‘Plan’ then ‘Plan details’. This’ll take you to a page entitled  ‘Your Plan’, and if you scroll down, you’ll see your annual usage figures labelled like this:

Let us know how you get on, and what you decide to do. We’d of course like to keep you as a customer and hopefully, when you do decide to renew, our rates will be favourable in comparison to the rest of the market.