The price cap

Direct Debit customers

If you pay by Direct Debit on one of our standard variable tariffs, from 1 April the cost of a typical dual fuel energy bill will be going up by 9.2%, or £96 a year on average.

• Typical gas bill will go up by 9.4% - including a £2 increase in the standing charge.
• Typical electricity bill will go up by 9% - including a £2 increase in the standing charge.

Receipt of Bill customers

If you pay by Receipt of Bill on one of our standard variable tariffs, from 1 April the cost of a typical dual fuel energy bill will be going up by 9%, or £101 a year on average.

• Typical gas bill will go up by 9.2% - including a £2 increase in the standing charge.
• Typical electricity bill will go up by 8.9% - including a £2 increase in the standing charge.

Prepayment customers

If you have a prepayment meter, from 1 April the cost of a typical dual fuel energy bill on our standard variable tariffs will be going up by 8.1%, or £87 a year on average.

• Typical gas bill will go up by 8.3% - with no change in the standing charge.
• Typical electricity bill will go up by 8.0% - including a £1 increase in the standing charge.

The price cap means the price per unit of energy you pay and your daily standing charge can't go above the level set by Ofgem. It’s not a cap on your energy bill, which will rise or fall depending with how much energy you use. The cap is updated by Ofgem twice a year, depending on how the cost of supplying energy to your home changes.

The tariffs affected by the price cap were:

• Standard Variable
  
• Safeguard
  

But if you’re affected, you’ll receive a letter around the end of February about how the 1 April 2021 price change affects you. You’ll also see your new prices on your bill or statement.

If you're on any of our other fixed tariffs, you won’t be affected until that tariff ends.

Our gas and electricity prices have changed because of the price cap, which has been put in place to protect customers on default tariffs, or on tariffs with (or linked to) standard variable rates. The cap is a limit set by Ofgem on the cost of gas and electricity, which became effective from 1 April 2017 for prepayment customers and 1 January 2019 for customers paying by Direct Debit or Receipt of Bill. It’s then updated every April and October to reflect changes in industry costs - such as wholesale, network and policy costs.

Network and policy costs are making up a bigger and bigger part of your electricity bill. Here’s how a typical bill is made up:

Electricity bill costs

Gas bill costs

These breakdowns are based on an estimate of costs at Ofgem’s annual average consumption - 2,900 kWh for standard rate electricity and 12,000 kWh for mains gas, and also market average margin returns as per Ofgem’s methodology of calculating the default tariff price cap. Learn more about what makes up your energy bill.