Scottish Power trumps EDF with gas prices cut

Published 12th Mar 2010

Scottish Power has said it will reduce its gas prices by 8%, double the cut announced hours earlier by EDF


Scottish Power has become the latest company to reduce the price of its gas, doubling the cut made by rival EDF Energy just hours earlier.

The company's 1.6 million gas customers will see the size of their gas bills fall by 8% – a typical £66 a year – from 31 March. EDF Energy also announced it would cut its prices, but the 4% reduction has been described as a "token gesture" by one expert.

EDF's cut, which amounts to about £30 a year off a typical gas bill, will take effect from 26 March. It follows recent cuts from British Gas, E.ON, Scottish & Southern and npower of between 6% and 7%.

Mark Todd, director of price comparison website energyhelpline.com, said: "Although any cut is welcome, this is a token gesture by EDF and hardly worth the wait."

Gareth Kloet, head of utilities at Confused.com, branded all the recent energy cuts a "disappointment" and "too little too late."

"Energy suppliers are acting like a pack by all cutting by around the same amount, despite the fact that energy regulator Ofgem recently concluded they are making profits amounting to around £105 a year per energy customer," he said.

"The fact that most of these companies, with the exception of British Gas, are delaying the reductions until the end of March is also poor. When they put prices up they do it with immediate effect."

He added that some customers could now save up to £400 a year by switching to an online tariff and paying by direct debit, rather than paying by cash and cheque and staying on a company's standard tariff. This is because the gap between the cheapest online tariff and the cheapest standard tariff has widened significantly over the past few months.

Scottish Power said today that customers could make further savings of up to £382 by paying by direct debit and managing their account online.
Estimation warning

Meanwhile, two out of five householders are overpaying for their gas and electricity and failing to ask for a refund, according to latest research by Gocompare.com.

Those that are overpaying are owed, on average, £124.34 by their energy supplier, while one in 10 is due as much as £500, it said.

Mark Greening, head of utilities at Gocompare.com, said: "You should never let your utility company estimate your energy usage – it is a sure-fire way to end up shelling out more than you really need to.

"It is not unusual to build up a credit during the summer, and following the bitterly cold winter we have experienced, any overpayments made could have helped soften the blow of the big bills that most of us have recently received."

He continued: "However, if you find yourself in credit after your winter bills have been paid then make sure you ask for your money back – it is better to have the extra cash in your bank account than in your energy provider's."

Source: ' Guardian '

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