19 February 2007
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Original content:
<div class="rxbodyfield" xmlns:o="urn:www.microsoft.com/office" xmlns:st1="urn:www.microsoft.com/smarttags" xmlns:st2="urn:www.microsoft.com/smarttags2" xmlns:w="urn:www.microsoft.com/word" xmlns:x="urn:www.microsoft.com/excel"><p>Energy supplier npower has joined the 'tit for tat' price-war with the announcement that it is to reduce it gas and electricity prices by 16% and 3% respectively.</p><p>Although customers will have to wait until April 30th for the cheaper tariffs, the continuing trend for suppliers to vie for consumers' cash means that after months of waiting, bill-payers will finally notice a reduction in their outgoings.</p><p>Under npower's new prices, consumers will pay £920 a year for a standard plan compared to the £953 paid by British Gas customers1 after the price cuts take effect, providing cheaper energy for new customers as well as npower's estimated six million current ones. </p><p>Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at the price comparison and switching website uSwitch.com, welcomed the news from npower but said that if it had wanted to pass on the full reduction in wholesale gas prices over the last 12 months, it would need to have reduced its prices by 22% for gas and 16.9% for electricity.</p><p>This was not a fault of npower alone however – according to Ms Robinson all the suppliers have been withholding the benefits of falling basic costs of energy from their customers for far too long. </p><p>"It's time for them all to put their customers first and pass these savings back instead of lining their shareholder's pockets," she said.</p><p>Ms Robinson encouraged suppliers to "step up to the bar" and pass back the full savings they had gained from the reduction in wholesale prices now, rather than waiting for the price war to squeeze it out of them later.</p><p>The remaining four energy suppliers out of the so-called Big Six will now be feeling the pressure to reduce their costs in an effort to keep up with British Gas and npower's price war – which can only be good news for consumers' pockets. </p><p>Could you save money by switching? <a href="http://www.uswitch.com/Energy/Index.aspx?">Compare your current energy bills on uSwitch.com and see how much you could save on your bills.</p><p>1 Based on a medium usage (20,500 kWhs gas, 3,300 kWhs electricity) customer paying quarterly by standard credit, on standard tariffs, averaged across all regions.</p><p><a href="http://www.adfero.co.uk" target="_blank"><img alt="track" src="http://feeds.directnews.co.uk/feedtrack/dn.gif?feedid=362&itemid=18064877" style="border:0 0 0" />© Adfero Ltd</a></a></p></div>