Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis is letting households know about a new tariff only offered by Octopus Energy which could save customers of other suppliers like British Gas and EON hundreds of pounds a year.
Octopus Energy offers something called an ‘agile tariff’ which for the right customer who can take advantage of it could create huge money off your current bills.
There is a way costumers of other firms can switch to Octopus’ new tariff and reap energy bill savings of up to 40 percent.
Speaking on the Martin Lewis Podcast for BBC Sounds, Martin said: “Agile tariff is where the rate changes half hourly.
“Now that’s electricity only, that’s good for those who have lots of flexibility, who can charge your electric car at the right time, you can move your heating to night energy storage heaters when it’s cheaper, you’re at home during the day and suddenly the electricity is cheaper for half an hour and you can turn the washing machine on, then the Agile is really good.
“People over the last six months have been paying 30 to 40 percent less than the price cap in some cases on those tariffs.”
The current price cap sets unit rates so that the average household would pay £1,690 per year. A 40 percent saving there would equal a whopping £676. Of course, these are average amounts so if you normally use twice as much electricity as an average household, your saving on this tariff could also be twice as much, or half as much if you normally use much less.
Martin added: “So they can be incredibly cheap and effective, generally more sophisticated users but they can really really work well.
“Of course the caveat: if wholesale rates really really jumped then of course what you pay would jump, there’s no protection, there’s no ceiling on what you would pay.”
Martin added that the tariff is only available to existing Octopus Energy customers but that if you did want it, you could move to Octopus’ variable tariff and then once you’re on the price cap tariff you could then move again.
If you don’t think you can make an Agile tariff work for you, British Gas, EDF and EON are all currently offering fixed rate deals for between 5 and 7 percent less than the current price cap.
With price cap rates only expected to drop by around 3 percent this year according to Cornwall Insight prediction, they could represent a good opportunity to save money instead.
The upside of these is that they do offer price protection for 12 months – if the price cap suddenly jumps, your bill would stay the same in unit rate terms until the fix ends.
