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The UK has long been in a position to allow domestic consumers to choose who supplies their gas and electricity bills. I say bills, because that is the only change a customer has a choice over. The actual gas and electricity itself is the same, no matter who provides the bill. This has been created by changes introduced by the government of Margaret Thatcher.
In the late 1990's the energy market regulators and the UK government decided to stop the monopoly that British Gas and the regional electricity companies had in the UK. They "deregulated" the energy markets meaning other companies could supply gas and electricity to regions that were previously unavailable.
The gas market was the first to deregulate and new gas companies or electricity companies could start to supply gas to what were British Gas customers in the UK.
The electricity market was opened up 2 years later. There were originally 14 supply areas in the UK, with regional supply companies. (Now there are 23). Each of these companies could only supply the customers in their respective regions.
The electricity market opened in two stages. First companies were allowed to offer products in other supply regions but the regional supplier had to have their pricing agreed by Ofgem before they could change prices.
This ensured that companies coming in to new areas provided cheaper products than those of the regional “host” supplier.
In UK people are paying huge amount to get gas and electricity. However one can save a lot of cash by searching for cheaper gas and electricity suppliers in their locality. These can be found easily, one should go online to view the miriad of deals.
One cannot imagine living without use of energy. Energy in the form of Electricity has made our life easier by providing us many amenities while Gas has made cooking easier than ever before. With suppliers offering many plans having less rentals and many benefits more people are opting to buy energy from these providers. Getting low cost electricity and gas is always a welcoming step. Money saved on gas and electricity could be used for broadband or telephone for example. Often it may not be sensible to simply go to the cheapest supplier of each utility, but take a package of utilities (Gas, Electricity, Broadband, Phone, TV, Mobile) from one supplier. For example their gas price might be high but their phone price may be low, or even FREE, thus achieving an overall lower cost
Energy providers have come up with many plans so one should select a particular plan depending on various points. That includes how much energy one uses, what is the budget, where one lives and who are the gas and electricity providers in that particular locality, what kind of services one wants from energy suppliers and how is the bill payment to be made. Customer service ratings should always be one of the important criteria as without this feature users will face a lot of problems in getting proper energy supply. Thus if a decision is made on the basis of these aspects one will end up in making good choice of getting cheap electricity and gas suppliers and selecting a proper company. This will offer one hassle free services for a specific provider. Changing from one supplier to another is a simple process, but it is amazing how many horror stories abound. Most of these seem to come from the largest companies, but that maybe simply because they have the most customers, even though they are historically the most expensive.
There are numerous online sites available for making these comparisons. With the help of these sites one can take right decision about which provider should be selected to buy these services. But beware that some sites do not compare the prices of ALL the companies because not all companies agree to pay a commission to the comparison site.The site can offer its own incentive also. One simply needs to enter post code of locality or provide desired information about comparison that has to be made and then the website will come up with many suppliers offering lowest energy prices there. Hence, the providers are giving users affordability with many benefits making their deals worth to go for.
Care also needs to be taken when wholesale prices are changing, because not all the companies alter their prices at exactly the same time. What appears in the table to be the company which is cheapest today, may be the most expensive tomorrow if all the other companies change their price in the morning.
But by all means, go to these comparison sites. Have a look, do some research. You will find some companies have offers to tempt you to sign up, (eg. £30 cash back / a Box of Wine / M&S Vouchers / a charity donation). But here arises another question to consider.
If their prices were REALLY the best, why would they need to have to tempt new customers with special offers?
As a customer, have you ever thought about how much money the BIG SIX companies spend of YOUR money on adverts and sponsorship deals. Do you really want to constantly pay for adverts and sponsorship deals as well as for your energy. Or would you rather just pay ONLY for the energy you actually use. Often the smallest companies are only small because they do not spend huge amounts on advertising, their gas and electricity is the same, their customer service is often better and their average price is better because they do not fluctuate their prices as often
Most companies also offer different tariffs, (Fixed price/Capped price/Green price/No Standing Charge price/Standing Charge price/Dual Fuel price/Cash Bill price/Quarterly Bill price/Direct Debit price/Quantum Meter price). But which is right for YOU? Confusing isn't it?
The adage “You pay your money and take your choice” is very apt n this market place.
