Electricity & Gas
On this page:How to save up to 300 pounds a year in utility bills
British people are more concerned about how to pay their energy and utility bills than any other financial matter. Surveys by organizations and consumers programs like the BBC's Watchdog have revealed that we are more worried about the huge increase in our energy bills than any other effect of the credit crunch.
It's not surprising because, whereas we can cut on luxury and unnecessary expenditures and we can save money on food by buying cheaper ingredients and meals, electricity and gas bills are harder to adjust to our pockets.
The good news is that there is a way to reduce our energy bills. The BBC's Watchdog revealed that you can save up to 300 pounds a year if you switch your supplier.
Switching to a new electricity and gas supplier is easy. But what can be confusing is to compare different prices and tariffs in order to save money. There are several price comparison sites, but it may be difficult even to choose among them.
The watchdog Consumer Focus, the industry regulatory body presiding over the energy sector and campaigning for a fair deal for consumers (which has replaced the previous consumer champion Energywatch), has checked the many price comparison websites, so you can follow its recommendations as a good guidance on which sites meet the best criteria to give you a quote on the latest deals and tariffs.
You can start being energy smart by comparing and switching suppliers on Energy Helpline
, which has been awarded with Consumer Focus accreditation as it demonstrated compliance with all nine requirements of the Confidence Code and now displays the Confidence Code logo on its site.
Energy Helpline
is an online service which is free of charge, impartial and independent and is certified by Consumer Focus the regulatory body.
Energy Helpline helps UK customers save money on their gas & electricity, green energy suppliers, home phone, and business energy and phones through a price comparison service.
Once they have found the right service for them they can sign up online by filling in a few simple details and Energy Helpline does the rest of the admin for them.
Typical energy savings are £365 a year for an average house by switching gas and electricity (average saving 16%), up to £169 per year on "green energy" suppliers, and up to £350 on home phone bills. Businesses can typically cut their energy bills by 15% - 20%.
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What has driven up electricity & gas prices
A spectre is haunting Britain: that of fuel poverty.
The government has embarked on a grand crusade to meet targets for carbon emission reductions set by the EU for 2020. Previously Tony Blair, at a EU meeting in 2007, accepted that the UK would get 15% of all its energy from so-called green or renewable (non-fossil) sources, rather than 15% of only its electricity.
For some time now the British government has tried to put the blame for the hike in utility prices on the energy companies that provide consumers with gas and electricity, saying that they did not act competitively with each other but arranged prices they all agreed on.
But now that argument has become difficult to defend. It's become clear that consumers are simply footing the bill for the people in power's desire to be "saviours of the planet".
The fact is that the renewables are very expensive, and in particular the offshore wind farms on which both the previous and this government are so keen are the most costly of all fuel sources. Many different problems add to the bill. Wind is not predictable, which means that all wind farms must have a backup in the form of another source of energy. Not many people like to have wind turbines disfiguring the countryside where they live, so the offshore solution is preferred but it's also more expensive, not least due to the great costs of transferring the energy to the places where it's needed - whereas traditional electricity power stations were located in the middle of the country for easier access to homes and businesses. The pipes transporting the energy from the offshore wind farms to the various towns and cities stand on great pylons, eye sores that are usually not welcome by local residents, who - particularly those who live in areas designated as of outstanding natural beauty - have demonstrated against them. The alternative solution, having the pipes underground, is, you probably guessed it, very expensive.
That something done in the name of the environnment can be such a blot on the landscape - and seascape - is deeply ironic, not to mention the disturbance that all this causes to the wildlife. Birds in particular are killed in great numbers by wind turbines.
We've got to the point when many British people spend an astronomical 10% of their income on utility bills, and some of them say that they face a choice between food and gas: either they eat less or they'll be cold.
The electricity and gas prices will go up even more if this plan goes on.