Electricity prices drop whilst Gas remains high

Home Utilities like Gas and Electricity supplies, water and telephone bills are all expenses that can creep up on you with little indication of how much you’ll be paying until the bill drops through the letter box. With money being tighter than ever a lot of homeowners have found that its little things like bills that are secretly costing them a substantial sum of money.

It’s no surprise then that most UK residents have now taken a much more interested approach to their bills and considering all manner of different ways to cut them down to a more manageable level. This has been done in all manner of ways like turning off all lights and electrical goods when they’re not being used to more extreme measures like switching your supplier for a cheaper or more reliable company.

Luckily for customers of nPower (and possibly the future customers who may switch to them) they have recently announced that they will be dropping their electricity prices by 8% by the end of this month (March 2009) this would equate to a saving of £43 for customers however the cost of Gas will not be dropping unfortunately.

nPower is the last of the six major energy providers in the UK to drop their prices after significant increases this time last year. The cost of the natural resources that fuel our gas suppliers supplies has been cited as the blame for double-increases over the past year or so with Gas prices being especially high.

The increase in energy costs has had many customers switching suppliers which in itself is a long process as well as potential problems with being billed by both your new and old providers if the process isn’t carried out properly. Despite this issue a large percentage of UK residents have committed to getting cheaper energy by switching providers.

This willingness to switch may have started the trend of lowering energy prices to retain their current customers, since the beginning of the year energy prices have slowly been competing with each other to lower percentages. This is all good news for the customers as they should be seeing a reduction in their bills and potentially more in the near future.

Another potential reason is that last year regulators Ofgem announced it was to look into the discrepancies between resource costs and the charges being made to customers, there was talk that the major six suppliers had been involved in collusion to fix prices and charge the customer more. The initial report had been released at the beginning of March of this year

The report found that the energy providers weren’t guilty of passing on the increases to customers but failing to pass on reductions when the prices came down. Despite being cleared of any accusations it would seem with these recent reductions the suppliers are aiming to try and not look like the bad guy in these financially uncertain times.

The key to dragging your own gas and electricity bills down is obviously being more aware of your usage and how you can reduce it but also keeping an eye on other companies or bundled energy deals where you get both your gas and electricity from one company.