Gas & Electricity Price Fixes: Worth it?

We moved house 2 years ago. Right when the energy prices started going crazy so having come from a fixed deal with OVO I had no choice but to go on the Standard Variable Tariff with the incumbent supplier, Octopus.
I’m happy with Octopus and now I’m being invited to look at their fixed deals.
Do we have any energy price fortune tellers on the forum? Is this a good time to fix? Are prices going to rise or fall? I’m not about to do anything to change our consumption levels (like swap the gas boiler for a heat pump, but an electric vehicle, add solar panels) so I ought to be able to predict our usage fairly accurately.

I m on an octopus fix and just below market rates.  There’s a penalty of 75 gbp if you break it and go to another supplier, you can however break it and refix with octopus with no penalty.  So I fixed, if a better octopus fix appears I can refix at no cost, so win win.

So far v happy with octopus, I control dd via app and just top up if not enough credit for winter. They installed a smart meter foc and the little box which measures consumption.

They will go up over winter, in fact I think the cap may already have been announced, so If you can fix at or below your current unit price it’s worth doing so.

All the suppliers will let you move to a different fixed tariff that they offer before the end of a current fix with no penalties, so it would also be a good idea to look again next spring to see if they have an even better offer then.

I’ve just fixed on Octopus, the rate is comparable to their current variable rate but since the price cap is predicted to go up next time that variable rate will inevitably increase. Fixing seemed like a good idea, particularly since there are no exit fees anyway.

As far as service goes they’re ok – I’ve had a couple of issues with them and they’re responsive and quite quick to sort things out. On the other hand, I’ve been with various other energy suppliers over the years and never had any problems that needed sorting out, so there’s that.

Just changed to octopus and fixed for both gas and electricity and they’ll also allow me to feed back into the network from my solar panels which Scottish Power didn’t offer. Extremely glad to be shot of Scottish Power and British Gas who are both utterly useless

I’m on tracker with octopus. 21p for E and 5p for G it’s always lower than the standard tariff.

The CS is OK in my experience nothing great to shout about. Previously they’ve messed up my export tariff, took ages to resolve, currently seem unable to bill me on the 1st of month on one bill with the export and E&G import. A manual meter reading is getting  mid month done for some reason unknown to them, which means they issue a bill. Many times they claim it’s resolved but its not, I fund my energy costs  from the many £50 customer  goodwill payments they give me. So it’s not that bad.

I did a comparison recently and even if it increases by the same rate a fix is still more expensive than a tracker. That’s EDF…

Octopus Agile here. Cheap power tomorrow with expensive power at other times. 9.5hrs of slow 3 pin car charging at less than 3p/kWh, some negative. 90 miles of cheap motoring coming up.

Is it worth fixing now? It depends…

Prices are going up on the 1st October, that is already announced. Prices are not expected to go up much in January but they probably will a bit. If the pattern of recent couple of years is anything to go by they will drop again in April but by how much we just don’t know.

Suppliers offering fixed deals now are doing so with foresight as to how much it will cost them short term to gain you as a customer. The energy market has become more active again since the crash and this particular cap is the largest increase this year – so suppliers know a lot of customers are going to be switching. Their fixed deals are pricing this in currently – but act quick. The best deals have already happened.

Short version – yes it’s worth a fix as long as it is under the SVT rates and only if you are not a heavy user in the spring and summer too. The trackers might be a better option but if you can, do some sums.

Yes the 10% increase in the cap is already announced for 1 October, so to some extent priced in, but typically you will find fixes that will be better than staying on the variable rate. See MSE https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/are-there-any-cheap-fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it/

@retrorick does Octopus Agile only work if you are on it with knowing the rate on an hourly basis? We’re not really organised enough to turn the washing machine etc on at specific times, so assume it wouldn’t be any good for us but maybe that’s an incorrect assumption?

I’ve been on an Octopus fix since May, thinking I was being clever, but have just realised that we’re on the  Economy 7 rates on the tariff- I looked at our rate and saw that it was above the incoming price cap and couldn’t figure out why. Duh. We don’t even have E7 heating, it was ripped out years ago, so electricity use in the off peak period is just about nil.

On the fixed tariff, E7 day rate is 30.39p/kWh, with the single rate being 24.69p/kWh, a 20% difference. Worth watching out for, don’t know how much extra we’ve paid over the years.

 90 miles of cheap motoring coming up.

I’ve got to try and crawl home tonight with only 5% charge left in my car. So I’ll be charging from 0%-100% at tomorrow’s cheap Octopus Agile prices, we even have a few negative price slots. That’s if I manage to get home.

does Octopus Agile only work if you are on it with knowing the rate on an hourly basis?

Half hourly prices and yes, you have to be on the ball. To what degree, is up to you and you can automate stuff, but it’s probably not really for people who have busy work/home lives IMO. If you have a battery or EV then it makes sense, but again there are more straightforward tariffs that serve EVs.

Seems I can’t easily fix my gas price on octopus without also moving off the Octopus Go tariff.

Those few hours of cheap electricity get us through most of the day even with reduced solar as the skies darken and the nights get longer.

Seems I can’t easily fix my gas price on octopus without also moving off the Octopus Go tariff

but I can with Octopus’s great staff through email.

but I can with Octopus’s great staff through email.

sorry, what does this mean? I’m in a similar, want to fix my gas, but stay on Octopus Go… seems I can’t do it, unless your coded message implies otherwise?

It means email Octopus and ask.

We just took another year fix, like others slightly below what we have been fixed for last year, and 8% below incoming price cap.

With the chaos in Russia, gas wholesale prices are going to go up this winter surely?

Thanks! I read it about 10 times and still couldn’t decipher that meaning.

Will email tomorrow.

The cap goes up 10% in October and predicted another 3% in Jan – the Octopus fix is 6% for 15 months ( in my region)

Half hourly prices and yes, you have to be on the ball. To what degree, is up to you and you can automate stuff, but it’s probably not really for people who have busy work/home lives IMO. If you have a battery or EV then it makes sense, but again there are more straightforward tariffs that serve EVs.

We’re on Agile and I don’t bother checking prices at all, we just charge the battery at night in the winter as it’s generally cheaper. Some nights it’s expensive, but it all averages out in the end. I could automate the charging to find the cheapest slots, but I really can’t be arsed.

Will email tomorrow.

Or phone. It’ll potentially unlock some deals that you can’t access online, e.g changing from E7 to flat rate^^.

Existing customers can get a 15m fix, where online comparisons only give you 12m

With the chaos in Russia, gas wholesale prices are going to go up this winter surely?

Assuming things plod on much as they have the last few years, Won’t it be more to do with how mild or severe the winter weather is across Western Europe and how fast stocks are depleted? I thought the likes of Germany had now severed all reliance on Russian gas? Would be interested to know

Wholesale prices generally go up in winter (more demand) and then reduce in summer (less demand)

Personally I dont think there will be much difference in total costs over the next 12 months if you fix or stay on the capped rate.

It’ll be more important to read the small print on the rates, as some of the deals have different fixed/variable charges, so it depends on if you have high/low consumption to if you’ll really save or not.

I’ve given up on fixing and moving suppliers, I think the whole process is ridiculous

I had no end of trouble trying to sort out who owed what when I had 2 companies go bust in short order, ended up getting threatening letters sent even though the last ‘bill’ said I was owed 1k.  Then of course when they went bust access to the account with the online meter readings I had been doing disappeared and I had no proof of what the hell I owed or not.  All down to some idoit meter reader than transposed 2 digits, so every time I moved I had to spend hours on the phone trying to recitfy

After the hundreds of hours I will not move to a small provider

My bill is going up approx £250 with eon.  Enough for me to consider getting back on the merry go round

I’ve given up on fixing and moving suppliers, I think the whole process is ridiculous

I always read these threads with interest, check with my current supplier (EDF) and find they’re still cheaper than Octopus – currently by around £12 per month.

Thanks! I read it about 10 times and still couldn’t decipher that meaning.

yes, making a sentence that started with a quote did make it appear obtuse.

The swap to the 15 month fix happened that midnight – visible in the app when I looked the following morning.

I emailed Octopus support to say I’d like to have the gas fix but stay on Go and outgoing. Their helpful staff replied and said they’d sort it.

However, I am still on 15 month fixed for gas and electricity imports. Hoping it’s sorted tomorrow. As long as the sun shines it’s OK. But on dark, rainy days when there’s washing and drying to be done we can end up having to buy expensive electricity if the battery runs out.