Top 10 Most Expensive Cities for Electricity Rates in the UK
A recent survey shows just how much electricity and gas prices vary around the country and how much more you could be paying just because of where you live.
You may not realise it but the prices for electricity and gas either as a single fuel or under a dual fuel contract vary greatly just depending on where you live in the UK. This has long been standard practice amongst the energy providers and the difference between the most expensive town (or city) and the tenth is £71 per year.
The survey by uswitch who have been in the energy switching business for years now compared the energy bills for dual fuel tariffs for what is considered an average annual bills (which equates to 3,300 kwh of electricity and 20,500 kwh of gas usage each year). Although this won’t be standard for many customers it’s an industry standard as defined by the energy watchdog ofgem. Here are the top 10 cities based on the research around the UK – is one of these yours ?
- Cardiff £949
- Aberdeen £924
- London £920
- Bristol £913
- Liverpool £906
- Brighton £894
- Edinburgh £893
- Southampton £893
- Birmingham £881
- Manchester £878
How can you reduce your costs ?
Well if you live in Cardiff then you know you are going to be paying more than the average electricity bill for someone in Manchester and that’s a fact and nothing will change that but to get close to that lowest cost figure the one thing you should do is either go to all the energy websites and get individual quotes from each one or use a price comparison service where you just need to enter your postcode and electric and gas consumption data the once to see a list of all the tariffs that are on offer to you.
You can switch providers as many times as you wish to get the latest and lowest rates (although some fixed term contracts may have termination fees which will be shown during the switching process). There is no real need to be loyal over one company or another because at the end of the day all you need is the cheapest provider so you can pay the least amount.
Switching made easy
No matter how many times you switch these days it’s very easy and the new supplier will handle all the paperwork and switching process on your behalf. All you need do is choose the tariff you want to be on which offers the lowest rates and is right for your circumstances (ie: you want to pay by direct debit, or manage your account online so you can enter accurate meter readings yourself or even opt for one of the new renewable energy contracts that provides green electric to your home) and everything is done for you.
As we say there is no limit to the number of times you switch providers and new deals are being put onto the market all of the time (but watch out for any termination fees if you opt out of a contract earlier than the overall time period that any discounts may be applied to the prices you sign up for). You can also enter your information into the price comparison sites each week just to ensure you have the lowest rates for your property at any one time. It only takes around 30 seconds to get a quote so this may be something to undertake today.