Gas Price Cut
SSE has become the latest of the large energy suppliers to cut its prices by reducing the cost of household gas by 4.1%.
However the fact that the price cut will not be introduced until the end of April 2015 has outraged many of its customers and energy firms as a whole are being accused of “token price cuts” and failing to pass on larger savings to their customers.
British Gas, EON, Scottish Power and SSE have all announced price cuts since the beginning of 2015, meaning an average customer on a standard or variable rate tariff could save around £35 a year, however consumer groups have voiced concern that many of the energy companies are not treating customers fairly following a significant fall in wholesale gas prices since the Autumn of 2014.
Gillian Guy, the chief executive of Citizens Advice is quoted as saying
Energy firms are engaging in a phoney price war and token energy price cuts to standard tariffs do not reflect the big savings that energy firms can pass on to households
Citizens Advice also says people could save up to 25% off bills by switching from a standard rate tariff to a fixed rate.
Recent price change announcements |
||
|---|---|---|
| EON | Gas price cut 3.5% | 13th January |
| British Gas | Gas price cut 5% | 27th February |
| Scottish Power | Gas price cut 4.8% | 20th February |
| Npower | Gas price cut 5.1% | 16th February |
| SSE | Gas price cut 4.1% | 30th April |
| EDF | Not yet announced | |
Suppliers on the other hand continue to argue that the wholesale price only makes up around half an
ordinary gas bill.
EDF is the only one of the big 6 power companies not to have announced household price reductions and Npower’s 5% price cut is the largest price cut announced by a major supplier so far in 2015.