You thought SSE’s price increase was big. Well British Gas went and smashed that! They announced on Thursday that electricity prices would be going up by 10.4% and gas prices going up 8.4%. That’s an overall average price increase of 9.4%. These prices come into effect from 23rd November. If you’re a British Gas customer, this is going to sting quite a bit.

Today Energy Secretary Ed Davey has told people that they should be look at alternative suppliers. Well that’s all well and good Mr Davey, but when all the major energy companies are about to increase their prices by a similar amount, there aren’t many places people could go!

However, there may be a silver lining. There are some newer, smaller independent energy companies popping up across the UK at the moment. They are only small scale, say an average customer base of 50,000. But it these smaller companies which have positioned themselves as very much anti-big 6 and purposely keeping their prices cheaper than the mainstream. The good news? They have a lot of room to expand and take on a growing and disgruntled customer base.

There is a wider implication to these rises. The more increases that are inflicted on homeowners, the less spare cash they will have to spend. But worse, it will have an affect on their mental confidence to spend money. When costs rise, they always have a negative effect on consumer confidence, which can be worse than having a lesser amount of cash to spend.

On a bigger note, this will be having an affect on business. Especially manufacturing. Energy is the most vital resource to every company, especially in manufacturing. With fuel costs still high and gas and electricity prices sky rocketing, it is going to have a fairly significant impact on prices, including windows and doors, which our suppliers are going to have to pass down the chain at some point.

However, and there always is a however on this blog, there is a silver lining which plays quite obviously into the hands of installers. These increases, and the ones to follow, will give installers a chance to play up the energy saving advantages of their windows and doors. Installers should be pumping out post after post shouting about the various way their energy efficient windows will save them valuable and ever-expensive heat over the coming winter months.

I wonder who out the big six will be next to announce an increase? Will it be more than the British Gas increases?

Next time: a big thank you!