The Company has a loose affiliation with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Energy Costs (APPGEC), where Court Assistant David Lewis is the technical adviser: see http://www.royalpa.co.uk/?p=the_appg_on_energy_costs. This relationship is managed by the Fuellers Industry Group.
Notices of APPGEC meetings are circulated to all Fuellers, and any Fueller may attend meetings in which they may have an interest. Members of the Company who attend APPGEC meetings are requested to make a voluntary payment of £20 per meeting.
The next APPGEC meeting is on Tuesday 24th January at 6:30pm.
The meeting will look at how retail energy is priced. This is an area that is always politically charged and, following publication of comparison tables by Ofgem showing the proportion of customers still on standard variable tariffs and the potential savings from switching, (see extract from website below) there have been suggestions by ministers of further interventions in the retail market, even before the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority have been implemented.
Minister Greg Clark said “Millions of people across Britain continue to pay too much for their energy’. In response some of the big suppliers froze prices for this winter. However, supplier GB Energy collapsed in November citing rising wholesale prices as the cause.
The meeting will include a definitive description of how prices are set by ICIS, the leading price reporting organisation, and a contribution from Energy UK, the trade association.
If any Fueller wishes to attend the meeting should send an email to me at david.lewis.lws@ntlworld.com. David will be happy to collect any payments, either cash or cheque, prior to the meeting, or payments can be given to Phil Royal on the night.
An extract from the Ofgem website:
"How do ‘standard variable’ rate tariffs compare?
These figures represent a typical dual fuel customer paying by direct debit and with typical consumption. The potential savings figures from the differences we show are indicative. This is because savings for individual customers on standard variable tariffs will vary, and depend on factors like how much energy you use, as well as any eligibility criteria for the cheaper tariffs we’ve compared against. The figures are also only representative of a snapshot at one point in time, and tariffs may change or be withdrawn at short notice.
Table: ‘Standard variable’ rate tariff information
| Supplier (1) | Number of customer accounts on standard variable tariffs (2) | Proportion of customer base on standard variable tariffs (%) (3) | Average annual cost of a standard variable tariff (£) (4) | Difference between a supplier’s standard variable tariff and its cheapest tariff (£) (5) | Difference between a standard variable tariff and the average of the cheapest tariffs from the 10 cheapest suppliers (£) (5) (6) (7) (8) |
| British Gas | 6,639,056 | 74% | 1,044 | 129 | 166 |
| Co-operative Energy | 96,158 | 42% | 1,121 | 245 | 244 |
| EDF Energy | 1,943,277 | 56% | 1,069 | 136 | 192 |
| E.ON | 3,170,499 | 73% | 1,057 | 41 | 179 |
| Extra Energy | 36,641 | 14% | 1,130 | 154 | 252 |
| First Utility | 175,208 | 19% | 1,071 | 157 | 193 |
| Npower | 1,737,642 | 59% | 1,077 | 180 | 199 |
| Ovo | 225,952 | 35% | 1,064 | 67 | 186 |
| ScottishPower | 1,541,307 | 50% | 1,081 | 129 | 203 |
| SSE | 3,864,044 | 91% | 1,068 | 98 | 190 |
| Utility Warehouse | 503,955 | 94% | 1,012 | 150 | 134 |
Source: Pricing information sourced from Energylinx as at 28 November 2016. All prices include VAT. Customer accounts information based on Ofgem data, received from suppliers for March 2016. All information is based on the most recent complete data Ofgem holds and it will be updated periodically.
