I’ve mounted my power payments and I believe you need to too, says SIMON LAMBERT

I’ve never really been one for fixing my energy bills, but I’ve just done it – and I think you should consider it too.

Of course, like any good personal finance expert, I switched supplier in the good old days when all you needed to do was jump ship once to save about £300 a year. 

But with gas and electricity back then representing only a small proportion of our monthly bills, I never bothered again.

That meant that when Russia invaded Ukraine and the energy crisis kicked off, I wasn’t protected.

I then foolishly missed the boat to fix at the start of the spike and was rescued by the emergency ‘energy price guarantee’ – Liz Truss’s one good move in September 2022.

Ever since, I’ve remained on an energy price cap tariff, even as switching returned.

My reasons? I just haven’t seen the point in fixing to save £100 a year or so, I keep hoping prices will go down. And, in Octopus, I’ve finally found an energy supplier that does a good job.

But the conflict with Iran has ended my eternal optimism on energy bills.

Rachel Reeves viewing a chart showing falling energy bills on 25 February – the Chancellor is unlikely to be smiling next time

As markets opened last week and we covered gas prices going through the roof, I realised that household energy costs were only likely to be going one way for a while.

So, I thought that I’d just quickly check whether I could fix my bills.

Using This is Money’s energy bills comparison partner uSwitch*, I could see that there were a number of suppliers that would undercut not just the current energy price cap but also the new lower one that kicks in on 1 April.

(If you use the link above to switch, This is Money may earn a small commission.)

As I mentioned above, I’ve been pleased with my current supplier Octopus’s service. Due to the fact I’m happy to have a smart meter, I get accurate bills and can see exactly how much gas and electricity I am using.

You can do that in great detail, with charts and visualisations – and for a geek like me, this is a real rabbit hole.

So, I also checked what Octopus could do. It too could beat the current price cap and April’s to the tune of about £100 a year.

Fixing felt like a no-brainer, so I took the leap and stuck with my supplier but now I’m on a 12-month fix. Something I didn’t regret as warnings started to come in that average energy bills could hit £2,500 a year.

My own household costs are already considerably higher than April’s £1,641 energy price cap average, so I don’t fancy a return to energy crisis levels any time soon.

Of course, Donald Trump could be right, the war with Iran could end quickly, this could just be a minor short-lived difficulty.

But with Britain’s energy market still an expensive mess, indicating we’ve learnt very little from the last crisis, I didn’t fancy taking my chances. 

Britain is still heavily reliant on imported gas to heat our homes, we largely use the gas price to set the electricity price despite our surge in renewable capacity, and we have very little gas storage. 

For a good expert explanation of what’s wrong with the UK’s energy system, listen to my This is Money Podcast interview with Octopus boss Greg Jackson.

Even if bills don’t hit the levels that has been forecast, I can’t see how they are going to get any cheaper over the year ahead – and I expect the price cap will jump in July and then October. 

Energy deals have been repriced over the past week – and so you may not benefit from the same rates I picked up – but there are still some good value fixes to be had. Our expert Sam Bromley flags some in his regularly updated round-up: Best fixed energy deals that BEAT the price cap. 

I strongly recommend you consider taking one ASAP.