E.ON Reduces Gas Prices by 6%

The ball is rolling now after British Gas and Southern Electric reduced their prices now E.ON has reduced its gas prices.

Similar to the Southern Electric gas price reduction announced recently, where on average their prices for an average household reduced prices by 4%, E.ON have just announced that they are reducing gas prices by 6%, with electricity prices remaining the same.

Together with this announcement on tariffs Eon also say that they are looking at changing the look of their bills so they are easier to understand.

E.ON Gas Reduction Overview

Here is an overview of what it means for new and existing customers who take electricity and gas as a single or dual fuel:

• Gas prices reduced by 6%
• Average consumer better off than British Gas
• Price changes only from 31st March 2010
• Equivalent to £42 annual saving
• Warm Assist customerS receive reduction backdated to 1st March 2010
• No changes to electricity prices
• Around 1.9 million E.ON customers will benefit from this change

Like with the recent announcement from Southern Electric, the changes are to take effect once the cold winter months are out of the way whilst the British Gasreduction was made immediately so it’s a shame than some of the energy companies are taking this stance with price reductions not being made available immediately to benefit their customers right away. It’s good that E.ON are helping those people on the warm assist programme now by reducing their gas tariffs immediately.

The staff here are electricity prices still recommend the British Gas tariffs as they are still very competitive in almost all areas of the UK and they reduced their prices first in these latest reductions although E.ON have always had keen rates if you pay your bills by monthly direct debit and manage your account online (so you don’t get a paper bill and can add your own meter readings so you don’t get those high estimated bills).

E.ON have 5.5million customers in the UK and have made two previous price reductions in the last 12 months which amounted to 9% on electricity in March 2009 and 3.3% on gas prices back in May 2009. If you are thinking of switching supplier to take account of these latest reductions then our advice is three-fold:

1. If you are with Npower it’s worth waiting to see what their reduction is likely to be (due soon now 3 companies have reduced gas prices)
2. Get quotes from the big 6 energy companies websites for your post code to see what the best tariffs are at the present time – currently it’s only gas prices which are being reduced so electricity prices may follow
3. Alternatively use a price comparison website where you’ll be able to see all the energy companies at a glance

Tariffs are different depending on what you choose – some have fixed terms whereby you are locked into a company for 18 months or so although you can still switch out you may have to pay an early exit penalty of between £30 and £50 depending on which supplier and which tariff you choose so check the small print before signing up to anything.