A lot of the smaller and medium-sized businesses across the UK still don’t know about automatic contract renewal for business energy deals, also known as being “rolled over”, and also don’t know what kind of effect it can have on their energy bills.
When a company is coming close to the end of its energy contract, they need to get in touch with their energy supplier to end their current contract or renegotiate a new one within a certain period of time. If a business fails to do this, their contract will be renewed automatically or “rolled over”.
Businesses that get rolled over can face a number of problems, including higher and more costly energy bills, as well as not being able to shop around for good deals. Any business that wants to save as much money as possible on their energy contract will need to look around a bit before making a final decision.
When an energy contract gets rolled over and the business doesn’t know about it or decides to sign a deal with a new supplier regardless, the supplier they currently have can legally stop the transfer because it would be in violation of the contract’s terms.
Ofgem has introduced a few new regulations in recent years, and are specifically meant to help small and medium-sized businesses from getting rolled over automatically.
One of the more important parts of Ofgem’s regulations is that they require commercial energy suppliers to make businesses perfectly aware of certain terms and conditions before anything is signed and agreed upon. These regulations ensure that businesses are perfectly aware of the contract they are entering into with their energy supplier.
Business energy suppliers must now send written confirmation of the contract to businesses within 10 business days of the new contract or renewal contract being agreed upon so that the businesses will have a physical copy to look over.
The new Ofgem regulations also state that business energy suppliers must send customers a statement containing all renewal terms at least 60 days before their fixed energy deal is scheduled to end. The supplier must explain in the statement that the business will be rolled over if they do not take any action.
Despite these regulations, there are a number of businesses that still aren’t aware when their current energy contract is going to end, which means they could end up getting rolled over automatically without their knowledge.
It is incredibly important for small and medium-sized businesses to know exactly when their contract is going to end so they do not miss the opportunity to look around for the best possible deal using an energy price comparison service like Businesselectric.com.
