When you move into your first private rented property, you may decide to sign a tenancy agreement that is ‘bills included’. This means that you won’t have the option of choosing your energy supplier, and it will instead be your landlord or lettings agent’s role to select an energy supplier and pay all the bills.

However, if you have chosen to live in a property where you pay your bills, you have the option of choosing an energy supplier.

The first thing you need to do is find out who your current energy supplier is. Usually, you’ll find this information by checking through any documentation that arrives at the property in the post. It may be addressed to ‘the occupant’ or ‘the tenant’. This documentation will tell you what the balance currently is, what tariff you’re on, and how to set up your account with the supplier and start paying your bills.

If you’re on a fixed tariff, the cost of your energy bills stays the same each month. If you’re on a fixed tariff, it’s better to stay on this until the end of your contract.

Usually, you’ll be put on to a standard variable tariff once your contract ends.

At the current time, you may be better off on a standard variable tariff, due to the Energy Price Guarantee.

The Energy Price Guarantee automatically limits how much your energy supplier can charge you for:

• each unit of energy you use - these are kilowatt hours (kWh)
• your daily ‘standing charge’ - this is the fixed daily amount you pay for energy, no matter how much you use

You’ll still pay more if you start using more gas and electricity.

The highest rate your supplier can charge you depends on where you live and how you pay for energy. Your price will be lower if you pay by direct debit, and higher if you have a prepayment meter.

You don’t need to do anything. Your supplier will automatically use the price limits to calculate either:

• your energy bills
• how quickly your prepayment meter will use up credit

Because of big changes in the energy industry (such as rising costs), there aren’t many deals available at the current time, so it’s difficult to switch suppliers. As such, unless you find a better deal than your current tariff, it may be better to wait until there are more deals available.

Ofgem has a list of price comparison websites to compare deals on energy tariffs. This is below:

• Energylinx
• The energy shop
• Money Supermarket
• My Utility Genius
• Simply Switch
• Switch Gas and Electric
• Quotezone
• Unravel It
• Uswitch

Important: If your energy supplier goes bust, don’t try to switch suppliers before your account has been moved to the new supplier. This is because it can be harder to claim back any funds that you’re owed if you do this.

Page last reviewed: 07/11/2022