Just days after the announcement by the leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband that the party would freeze energy bills if they were elected, one energy company has cashed in on the public support for the idea and offered a fixed deal until March 2017.
Npower, the German-owned energy company has launched a new online advertisement stating “Why wait for Ed? Fix your energy prices until March 2017”. The product on offer is £7 a month more expensive than their standard current price – and was launched well before the Labour announcement.
net_efekt / CC BY 2.0
This fixed rate deal is added to two others on offer by Scottish Power (fixed until November next year) and EDF which has been available since July.
The Labour Shadow Energy Secretary Caroline Flint has pointed out that the fact that the energy companies are offering fixed deals which will last this long means that their talk about blackouts due to price freezes are just scaremongering. She says that the Labour idea will ensure that all consumers get a fair deal.
Despite the number of fixed deals currently on offer, it seems that the numbers of people switching is falling with recent DECC figures showing that just 2% of UK households changed their energy supplier between April and June this year. This is a fall of 1% from the previous year.
Who knows whether Ed’s price freeze promise is part of a comprehensive solution to a new and better energy market. It looks like the energy companies at least agree that it’s going to be a popular marketing stunt.
