Electricity prices

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

That doesn't seem to be available now...

Cheapest MSE could find for me was Outfox The Market FIX'D 19 2.0 E 13.545p 9.450p per day G 2.751p 20.685p per day

[Andy Burns]

I only switched to it 5 weeks ago, but they seem to change rapidly

Bargepoles etc

[Dave Liquorice]

Ta.

Thought so, the really expensive peak coincides with the time many households will be back from work cooking dinner... OK not overly relevant if you cook by gas but we don't have gas... Cooking takes about 1.5 kWhrs on average.

A *very* quick play with a speadsheet results in the SMETS costing £3.35/day, our current (but old, fixed) tariff £2.56/day and Bulb current normal (12.79p/kWhr?) £2.72p/day. That's for the same hourly load profile(*) for all tarrifs.

Take the 1.5 kWhr of cooking out and you get £2.87, £2.38 and £2.53/day. So even with the cheap overnight and good value off-peak those three hours of sodding expensive make a heck of a difference.

(*) Basically 1 kW except for 0200 - 0900 and 1.5 kWhr of cooking in the peak period.

[Robin]

Bulb seem to offer that only to people with a /compatible/ SMETS2 meter, and most aren't - not even ones they've been fitting! And the rates vary around the country. See

I might be interested as we are retired and most of our consumption currently is outside the peak. But that may change when we drop gas cooking. And then there's finding our SMETS2 meter is compatible. Unclear if Bulb will say before one joins them.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff wrote on 08/09/2019 :

Plus the discounts they get from bulk fuel purchases, from the suppliers. You would expect that the bigger the energy company, the more discount they would get, the cheaper they can offer it to their customers, but the reverse is true. The smaller the company, generally the cheaper.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The best deal, of course, is going to depend on how much you use of either. I use Flipper, and they have me with People's Energy.

Elec 12.41524 and 21.2 Gas 2.74857 and 21.2

[Tufnell Park]

They are showing on energyhelpline.co.uk.

[Andrew]

World gas prices have collapsed this year -

So how come retail gas and electricity prices haven't dropped ?.

[Andrew]

Are there no battery storage systems which could be charged at night and keep your essential summer stuff (PC,TV, kettle) going during the day ?

[Andrew]

LPG cooker ??

[The Natural Philosopher]

renewable energy in the case of electricity.

Gas puts energy on the grid at 4p a unit.

We pay 4 times that to pay for all the renewable shit on there as well.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I looked into that.

Usding cheap car batteries it would cost around £7000 to buy the kit and I dont reckon the batteries would last more than ten years

Net loss.

[alan_m]

That is why you can only make a price comparison with someone else if your annual energy usage is near identical. Some tariffs (including standing charges) may suit low energy users rather than high energy users, and visa-versa. Some of the often recommended companies claiming low costs and simple charging regimes (easy to understand bills) tend to suit low energy users rather than those who have mid to high energy usage.

I use Flipper, and they have me with People's Energy.

As a matter of interest which algorithm do they use to select a new supplier and when do they flip?

IMO the industry generally uses a misleading method of calculation to determine savings, especially if you are already on a low tariff fixed price contract. If you have six months left on the contract your existing annual cost will be determined as 6 months at the low fixed rate plus 6 months at the higher price "standard rate" from the same company. This inflated cost will then be compared with, say, a new 12 month fixed price contract from a different company.

Do flipper use the same cost algorithm? If so do they flip perhaps 6 months into an existing contract (and probably get paid commission for doing so) or do they wait a lot longer. Scottish Power used to claim that changing during the contract period to another of their HIGHER priced tariffs offered a cheaper option to the contract you were on - BUT only because of the industry standard method of calculating the current annual cost.

Do you actually check each time they flip that the new tariff gives you lower or equal price energy for remaining length of your previous contact?

[Vir Campestris]

Guy at work is buying a battery pack to deal with that... I asked him various questions, but he seems to know what he's doing.

Andy

[Vir Campestris]

We had an LPG cooker for 5 years up until a couple of weeks back.

The induction hob is the best bit of the new kitchen. (The worst bit is of course the damp floor...)

I _really_ don't miss that damn bottled gas thing.

Andy

[Theo]

competitors for the shiny packaged end of the spectrum

folks doing it DIY

Theo

[Oliver]

11.2100 per unit here.

I've just switched from Utility Point to Green (or something like that) using MSE's Cheap Energy Club comparison site. No cashback. I have separate accounts for gas and electricity.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

You cannot even do that, because the cost varies depending on where you live, your postcode - for the same product, from the same supplier.

[Theo]

The tariffs are region based (on the old electricity boards). So you can compare with someone in the same region. (My Symbio quote was Eastern, BTW)

A lot of tariffs are M pence per unit plus C pence standing charge. This is a straight line: y = Mx + C where C is the y-intercept (the price you'd pay if consuming nothing).

You can plot these lines on a graph and compare them. This will tell you how sensitive you are to consumption - which tariffs are cheapest for which usage, and how much your usage can vary before you fall onto a less-good tariff. You might find, though, that the amount of difference between the top tariff and another 'good' one is fairly marginal.

Theo

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite.

I dunno. They say they check every month or so I'm on the best deal. What attracted me is they charge up front for the service. Not concealed in the form of commission. Nor do they take commission. Meaning (to me) my interests are the primary one.

I've been with them for a few years - not long after they started. Only once been flipped at less than a year - think because there was a problem with that supplier.

No. If I thought myself capable of checking every single deal, I'd not pay someone to do it for me.