Utilities: Securing you value for money with new green energy contract

24 October 2024

If you live in a block, house or Independent Living scheme that has communal lighting and/or heating, or shared outdoor lighting that bpha supplies, you contribute towards the cost of the energy used. You do this either through a service charge, or by making payments to Switch2.

Value for money

We aim to get you the best value we can for your energy. This has been even more important over the last couple of years when we’ve all seen large increases in utility costs.

Keeping utility costs down typically means entering into a contract with a supplier for a fixed time period when there is a good price available. Committing to a fixed rate means unit costs are set; they don’t change until the contract finishes. We work with an independent energy broker that monitors costs and advises us when there is a good rate available.

A new contract, fixed for two years

When the market was more settled we fixed once a year for 12 months. Last year we were advised that fixing for longer than 12 months could secure a better value contract. We’ve looked into this and are pleased to confirm that we have entered into a two-year fixed term contract, which will be in place from April 2025 until March 2027. This relates to energy supplied through bpha only. As the energy price cap (the highest amount that energy suppliers can charge for each unit of electricity or gas a customer uses) is set to increase from October, we are pleased to have secured reduced rates that will take effect from April 2025.

Better for the environment

We are delighted that the electricity contract is ‘green’. That means that the energy is generated from natural sources, such as wind, solar and hydro, rather than oil, coal and gas, which is known as ‘brown’ energy which is non-renewable and emits pollutants.

The difference in costs

The new tariff is below the energy price cap and well below the expected January cap. In the table below you can see the price in pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). One kilowatt hour is the amount of energy you would use if you kept a 1,000-watt appliance running for an hour.

What does that mean? According to EDF, this is how it works for a TV with a 500 W power rating (kW rating of 0.5).

  1. Multiply 0.5 by the time you spend watching the TV – say four hours a day. That means your 0.5 kW TV uses 2 kWh per day (0.5 x 4 = 2 kWh)
  2. If your electricity price per kWh is £0.34, your TV will cost £0.68 per day to run (2kWh x £0.34).

If your usage stays the same, the energy part of your service charge will come down next April. If usage increases, then the costs could remain similar, or increase.

 

 

Energy price cap 1 July – 30 September 2023

Your tariff

April 24 – April 25 (pence/kWh)

Expected energy price cap in January 2025

Your tariff

April 25 – April 27 (pence/kWh)

Gas

7.18p

7.00p

6.4p

4.50p

Electric

29.43p

29.01p

25.62p

25.30p

KW/h prices are taken from sites with ‘average usage’
Standing charges vary significantly between sites and so have not been included but have increased by approximately 2 pence per day on average

 

We were able to set April 2024 –April 2025 pricing at below the energy price cap that was in place at the time (July-September 2023).

Since then, the energy price cap has come down. Our new two-year contract fixes the price at lower than the next price cap, and much lower than the next expected cap.

You can find a history of Ofgem’s energy price cap and how it has changed over the years.

Last year the government announced a new energy bills discount scheme (EBDS) for those on a heat network. We registered our heat networks and discounts were available for us. We have applied those discounts and passed them onto our customers. If this applied to you, you will have received a letter from us.

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