Energy News

Is EDF Energy about to raise its prices?

By Martin Fagan - martin@consumerchoices.co.uk

The quiet withdrawal of EDF’s cheapest fixed price energy plan signals price hike.

News that EDF Energy is pulling the cheapest fixed price energy plan from the market could be a worrying sign that it is about to follow four of the “big six” energy companies and raise its prices.

Historically, when an energy supplier quietly withdraws its cheapest or most competitive fixed plans from the market, price rises have been swift to follow.

If EDF Energy does increase its prices - energy companies almost always announce price hikes on a Friday - it will be the fifth of the “big six” suppliers to have done so in the last two months.

In early June, Scottish Power said it would raise the cost of gas by 19% and the cost of electricity by 10%.Two weeks later, British Gas announced an 18% rise in gas prices and a 16% increase to electricity prices.

In July, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) said it would increase prices for electricity by an average of 11% and gas by 18%, effective on 14 September 2011 and earlier this month, E.ON announced it will raise gas prices by 18.1% and electricity prices by 11.4% from 13 September.

If EDF does increase prices in the next few weeks, it will leave npower as the only “big six” company not to have ratcheted prices up in the last few months.

"The news that EDF Energy is pulling its cheapest fixed price plan will start alarm bells ringing,” said Tom Lyon, energy expert at uSwitch.com.

"In this case, EDF Energy has brought out a new fixed plan that, at £1,051 a year is £42 a year more [expensive] than the plan it is pulling. Even then, its new plan is still the cheapest of the ‘big six’.”