E.ON announces price rise for residential customers
E.ON has announced it will be increasing prices for the majority of its residential customers with effect from Friday 4th February 2011.
Standard prices will rise by 9% for electricity and 3% for gas with customers on E.ON's social offering WarmAssist protected from this change. This will equate to 16p per day for the average dual fuel customer. The move comes as a result of rising industry costs, in particular wholesale energy prices which have increased by 35% since last spring.
Having offered one of the lowest gas prices throughout both last and this winter, E.ON remains one of the cheapest gas suppliers offering a saving of £46 compared to British Gas for standard single gas customers. This is the first increase made by E.ON since August 2008, with E.ON having cut prices three times since then.
Graham Bartlett, Managing Director of E.ON's Energy Solutions business, said: "It's been over two years since we last increased our prices, and, unlike other companies, we held off from increasing them during the incredibly cold temperatures we saw in late November and December. But we now have no option but to make this change due to increases in the prices we pay for gas and electricity, although our customers won't actually see the increases until next month.
"In fact, we're even protecting our most vulnerable customers from this increase, with most unaffected until the winter's over, and looking to help everyone where we can.
"For example, we'd urge our customers to get more Energy Fit, by using the information and tools available to become more energy efficient, so helping everyone to save on their bills."
More than one in five customers are unaffected by today's announcement as they are already on capped and fixed price products, including StayWarm. The rise will not be applied to E.ON's most vulnerable customers on WarmAssist for which there are no current plans to increase this tariff. For Age UK customers, the price rise is delayed until April 2011.
In addition E.ON is launching two new products which protect prices and offer customers peace of mind in an uncertain market:
Price Protection April 2014 - a capped price product for existing customers only which protects prices from further rises until 1 April 2014;
Price Protection April 2013 - which protects prices against further rises until 1 April 2013 and which will be available from Thursday 13th January for both new and existing customers.