February 7th, 2022 by Chris Chapman

Your Guide to Getting the Cheapest Energy Bills

For many, the energy crisis that has been quietly building over the winter came to a head on 3rd February this year. The UK’s energy regulator Ofgem raised the energy price cap – the thing that prevents energy companies from raising prices too much at once – by 54%, meaning annual bills are set to rise by £693 (for direct debit customers). This rise takes effect in April, affecting millions of people who’ll find their finances stretched thinner than before. Making matters worse, Ofgem will review the price cap again in the autumn, when it may well be lifted again.

The causes of these price rises are many and complex, but the simple reality is that, for millions of people, conserving energy is more important than ever before.

Stick with the Price Cap, Don’t Fix

According to MoneySavingExpert.com owner Martin Lewis, all fixed prices on the open market are fixed at a higher rate than the price cap will be. If you switch now, you’ll lose your current cheaper rate that you have until April and may be left worse off in the long run. However, if you’ve been with your existing provider a long time, they may be able to offer you a cheaper deal which might be worth switching to.

Place Reflective Material Behind Your Radiators

When you run your radiators, not all of the heat they produce goes into your room. Some of it goes the other way – towards the wall, where it’ll simply seep through the brickwork and be wasted. You can reduce the impact of this by placing reflective material such as tinfoil or reflector foam on the wall behind the radiator. This will bounce some of the heat back into the room, so you’ll feel warmer for your money.

Cling Film Your Windows

This is something that’ll probably only have a minimal impact, especially if you have modern double-glazed windows. However, in times like these, you might find that every little helps. You probably know that a lot of heat leaks away through your windows, which is why the area around the windows always feel a little chillier. Attaching cling film to your windows does indeed help prevent heat from escaping through the glass as it traps a layer of air next to the window. This effectively works as an extra layer of glazing – it adds a barrier that makes it more difficult for heat to move through the window. You can actually use any material to do this as long as it’s airtight, but cling film (or some specialist insulating film, which is more expensive) is your best bet as it’s transparent.

Use a Heated Clothes Airer

It’s always nice to dry your washing outdoors, but the great British weather means that isn’t always an option. If you live in a high-rise flat or just somewhere with limited outdoor space, it’s probably never an option! This means you have to dry your washing indoors, which can get expensive. Tumble dryers use a lot of energy, and placing a clothes airer in front of the radiator means that the radiator has to work much harder than it usually does to heat the room.

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The best compromise is a heated clothes airer, which uses a very minimal amount of electricity and will dry your washing more quickly to boot! Some models, such as the Homefront clothes airer, come with a free cover. This cover makes the airer even more efficient as it traps warm air and keeps it circulating around the washing, so it’ll dry much quicker and use less energy.

Draught-Proof Everything

Draught-proofing your home takes a little work, but it’s one of the best and most effective methods of reducing your heating bills. Put simply, your aim should be to keep the amount of energy you waste as low as possible. You can’t completely cut out waste energy – some heat will always leak out through the walls of your home, no matter how much you insulate them. However, by draught-proofing your home, you can keep the amount of heat escaping to a minimum.

A lot of heat escapes through your windows, so it’s worth checking the sealant around the windowpane. Even if you have super-effective double glazing, it doesn’t take much of a gap in the seal for that heat to leak away. The same applies to gaps in your doorframe, skirting boards, and floorboards – they can all let cold air in and warm air out. It’s worth investing in some draught-proofing strips – thin rolls of foam or plastic that can cover gaps in floorboards or doorframes – as they’re relatively cheap and will net you big savings over the course of a year.

Turn It Off

It sounds simple, but make sure you turn off the lights and other electrical appliances in rooms you’re not using. Turn off your PC instead of leaving it on sleep mode, turn off the TV instead of leaving it on standby, and try to keep your heating turned off in rooms you aren’t using. You can use your radiator valves to turn down the heat in individual rooms, or you can use your thermostat to turn the heating down across your whole home. This is much easier if you have a smart heater, which lets you program it using your smartphone from anywhere in your house. The more control you have over your heating, the more you can save.

As an aside turning electrical appliances off at the wall is a way to further reduce your energy bills. This can save you around £55 a year, but bear in mind some appliances need to be left on to work properly – for example, turning your broadband modem on and off a lot can affect your internet speeds.

Turn Heating on Only When You Need It

Some schools of thought suggest that you should leave your heating on at a low level 24/7. It’s highly likely you’ve heard this before, with the theory being that it’s more efficient to heat up a room when starting from a higher base point than it is from cold. However, the experts at the Energy Saving Trust argue this isn’t the case. They say you should only turn your heating on when you need it.

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Why? Well, as we mentioned earlier, heat is constantly leaking out of your home. While you can minimise it, you can’t ever stop it completely. If you run your heating constantly, that means you’re wasting energy constantly, too. By only switching your heating on when you need to, you’ll reduce the amount you spend on heat that’ll simply escape your home.

One issue with this is that it can take some time for the heating to warm up a room, so you may end up cold while you wait. You can avoid this problem by using electric heaters with a timer or smart heaters to pre-heat a room just before you need it, so you won’t be left in the cold but you’ll still end up with a nice saving on your energy bills.

Swap the Bath for a Shower (Sometimes)

We all like a relaxing soak every now and then. However, filling up a bath with hot water comes at a cost. While the mental health benefits of a relaxing soak shouldn’t be discounted, swapping the bath for a shower just one night a week will save you £11 a year. Make that swap a few more nights and you’ll only increase your savings.

If you’re already a shower person, try to reduce the overall time you spend in the shower to make even bigger savings. By reducing your average time spent in the shower to four minutes per day, the average family can save around £65 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

Why Are Energy Prices Going Up?

While Ofgem’s announcement of the price cap increase brought it into sharp focus, the current crisis has been building for a long time. It’s an unfortunately perfect storm of global and domestic factors – any one of these things on its own would be bad, but manageable for the energy industry. It’s only the fact that all of these factors are combined at once that’s led to the current crisis. Making matters worse, the UK government is planning an increase in National Insurance come April. This means millions of people across the country will be seeing less in their payslips every month while still having higher bills to pay. The government have announced measures to help in the form of a £150 council tax rebate and a £200 loan (paid back over five years), but most households will find themselves worse off.

The Impact of COVID

As you might expect, COVID has had a major impact on the global economy – energy prices included. Firstly, the shutdown of large parts of the world led to serious supply chain issues. On the other side of the coin, the emergence of the global economy from lockdown led to a sudden surge in demand.

The Depletion of Gas Reserves

The UK’s energy infrastructure is privatised – it’s run by a number of competing companies who aim to make a profit on it, rather than being directly funded by taxpayers. To help maximise profits, the company that owns British Gas has shuttered the UK’s main gas storage facility as stockpiling gas is expensive. However, without a large gas stockpile, companies have no buffer against rising prices – they can’t rely on cheap stockpiles to ride out any increases. This means they have to buy expensive gas and, to make a profit, pass that on to their customers.

A Cold Winter

Last winter was longer and colder than usual. Naturally, this led to a greater demand for heating, depleting gas reserves even further.

Low Wind Power Generation

Last summer was calmer than usual. This had an impact on wind power generation. As wind power generation is lower, the UK has had to rely more heavily on gas to pick up the slack. Therefore, the increase in gas prices is being felt more keenly as energy companies have no choice but to pay them.

The Role of Gazprom

A more controversial subject is the potential role of Russian state-backed gas company Gazprom. The company has faced accusations of market manipulation – refusing to supply gas to artificially inflate the price – from the European parliament and from Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz. Given the fraught political situation in the region (at the time of writing), some have claimed that European gas supplies are being used as a political weapon.