EDF May 2018 price rise: How much will my bill go up?

EDF Price Rises May 2018

British Gas opened the floodgates to price hikes by announcing that it would raise its prices by 5.5% in May 2018. EDF was the second of big six to raise their prices, and while not as eye-wateringly high as British Gas, the price increase will hit 41% of EDF’s customers, over one million customers, hard in the current economic climate.

EDF announced a price increase of 2.7% on their electricity prices. For the moment gas prices will stay the same. This means that the typical standard dual fuel customer on a variable rate will end up paying around 1.4% more for their energy bills. Customers who pay by direct debit will see their bills increase to an average of£1158, while customers who pay by cash or cheque will see their average bill rise to £1248.

EDF, just as British Gas, E.ON, Scottish Power and Npower is blaming the price rise on factors outside of their control such as government incentives, rising wholesale prices and the installation of smart meters. Béatrice Bigois, managing director of customers at EDF, said: “We know that price rises are not welcome and we have worked to offset rising energy and policy charges by cutting our own costs.” However, customers may not be reassured by these promises as these price rises follow increases in 2017 when EDF prices rose by 7.2%, supposedly for the same reasons.

Will I be affected?

As with the British Gas price rises, the customers who are most affected by the increase in electricity and bills are those who are on a standard variable tariff (SVT). If you are unsure if you are on one of these tariffs it’s easy to find out by looking at your bill.

Standard variable tariffs track the price of energy on the wholesale market, and so your bill changes every month. Customers are usually on these standard variable tariffs because they have never switched supplier. Also, many customers end up on these tariffs by default when their fixed tariff contract ends.