Saturday October 5 2024
Swindon & Wiltshire News
Bills for domestic customers of Chippenham-based renewable energy company Good Energy will increase by 2.2 percent from April 2, the firm announced this morning.
The company enforced a price freeze back in November, when rival energy firms were increasing their tariffs – nPower by 10.4 percent, British Gas by 9.2 percent and Scottish Power by 8.6 percent.
The firm promised to hold off any increases until Easter.
“We don’t like having to raise our prices but the good news is, even with a 2.2 percent increase, our dual fuel tariff is cheaper than the standard tariffs offered by the ‘big six’, excluding discounts,” said Good Energy chief executive and founder Juliet Davenport this morning.
The average dual fuel bill will rise from £1,173 a year to £1,199 – around 50p a week.
“We recognise that budgeting for energy bills has become increasingly a matter of concern for consumers,” said Juliet.
“So we’ve been working hard to improve our electricity forecasting and trading, which has meant we’ve been able to reduce the amount we spend on power purchase. At the same time, the excellent performance of our Delabole Wind Farm has helped us further control the amount we need to spend.
“However, this has been countered by some of the other costs we incur in supplying gas and electricity to our customers which will rise at the beginning of April, and we need to reflect this in our prices.”
Costs of electricity transmission, renewables and smart metering programmes for gas and electricity are all rising, and additional expenditure has been needed to meet the regulator’s Retail Market Reform (RMR) regulations.
“The renewable energy market is growing, with more than a million people last year generating their own electricity,” said Juliet.
“2013 saw renewables contributing 15 percent of the UK’s energy needs, and these factors that have led to a rise of 1.8 percent in renewables costs on the average electricity bill.
“In a world where the UK is becoming increasingly reliant on energy imports, renewables can play a growing part in helping us to achieve energy self-sufficiency and security in the longer term.”
