E.ON confirms price rise for January

The last of the Big Six energy providers has confirmed the smallest winter price hike.

E.ON has become the last of the Big Six energy providers to announce an average 3.7% rise in energy bills which will come into effect on January 18th.

The energy price rise from E.ON is the lowest to be announced by the Big Six, narrowly behind EDF which is pushing prices up by 3.9% on 3rd January.

Dual-fuel customers will pay 3.7% more (around £48 a year), electricity-only customers will pay 3.7% more (£20 a year) and gas-only customers will see their bills go up by 4.6% (£37).

The Government confirmed on Monday that changes would be made to remove some social and environmental levies which would in turn reduce household energy bills by around £50 a year until 2015.

E.ON's rise has taken this into account. It said that without the reduced levies its price increase for dual fuel customers would have been £30 more, at £78 a year. EDF was also able to take the reduced levies into account when announcing its price increase, having acted later than other major suppliers.

British Gas has confirmed it will cut its prices to account for the changes, but Scottish and Southern Power (SSE), npower and Scottish Power are yet to announce similar plans.

Tony Cocker, Chief Executive for E.ON, said: “We have moved quickly to pass on the benefits of changes announced by the Government at the beginning of this week.

“Whilst there can be no guarantees, the likelihood of further price rises over the next 18 months caused by an increase in the cost of social and environmental obligations has receded due to the recent action taken by the Government.”

Energy price rises

In the past few months all of the other Big Six energy companies have announced rises. Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) was the first followed by British Gas, npower, Scottish Power and EDF.

Here's a rundown of all the Big Six price rises so far and when they kick in.

Not happy with your supplier? See if you can save money by switching

Avoid the rise

All the Big Six providers have now announced price hikes. However, there is still some difference between the price of tariffs so if you’ve not yet switched, you could save money by doing so.

When looking at price alone, Co-operative Energy is the cheapest supplier with the Fixed Price to 31 March 2015 tariff. This costs an average of £1,168 per year, which is £323 cheaper than the average bill amount.

Here you can see the 10 cheapest tariffs currently on offer.

* based on typical gas and electricity bill for someone who has never switched costing £1,420 (Source: OFGEM 2013) uplifted by 5% for recent price rises to £1,491 pa. Source: Energyhelpline.com, 2/12/13. All calculations are for an average usage dual fuel household paying by monthly direct debit. Average usage as defined by OFGEM is 16,500 kWh pa of gas and 3,300 kWh pa of electricity.

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