Energy comparisons

[Andy Burns]

Despite the "up to 6 weeks to switch" warning, I guess it's far simpler staying with e.on for them to bump the tariff, completed already ...

[Bob Eager]

Done, thanks! Saving £151 p.a. (my calculation).

[Dave Liquorice]

But damn expensive lecky and dubious marketing. Lecky only, NORWEB Area, DD, paperless etc etc 14.312p/unit 16.422p/day.

The result page quotes the "saving" per *week* not per year as every where else doe. The "£3.61 more per week" doesn't sound as bad as the £187.46 more per year it really costs...

Compared against:

nPower Standard Variable DD 16.884p/unit 0.00p/day Extra Energy Bright Fixed Price Nov 16 v2 9.923p/unit 23.817p/day

Age UK is never the cheapest and the break point between nPOwer and ExtraEnergy is around 3.5 units/day (1277 units/year).

Below 1.6 units/day = nPower Age UK ExtraEnergy Above 1.7 units/day = nPower ExtraEnergy Age UK Above 3.5 units/day = ExtraEnergy nPower Age UK Above 6.4 units/day = ExtraEnergy Age UK nPower

[AnthonyL]

One day I'll get around to looking. I'm on EON no contract but I have E7, never changed supplier since I've lived here but Electricity only as no gas in the village.

Use around 8-10 units/day depending on season/weather at an all in cost of around 15 to 16p/day.

[Dave Liquorice]

tariffs

My spread sheet just plug the figures in and fiddle with the value units/day cell. B-)

May well be very advantageous to look and switch.

Our E7 Scotish Power Online Fixed Price Energy 31-Dec-15

13.380 p/unit day 5.327 p/unit night 27.390 p/day

If that is total day and night units it strikes me as rather low.

Another spread sheet fed the above E7 and the ExtraEnergy tarrifs indicates you need to use 0.67 units/night to break even on the standing charge and 0.65 night units for every day unit. That works out at 40% of use at night rate, on average.

[Bob Eager]

All switched over in less than a day (as an existing E.on customer). Thanks for the heads up and comments, everyone.

£171 for the year plus the cashback...!

[Andy Burns]

Depends, my electricity is ~1550 kWh/year, which is half that

I presume the pence per day is a factor of ten out ...

[Andy Burns]

Apparently the cashback is half of MSE's bung ...

[Bob Eager]

That's fair enough.

[Johnny B Good]

It looks like a reference to the quarterly standing charge divided by

91.3 . £13,70 a quarter looks to me like a reasonable ball park figure for the quarterly standing charge.

AFAICR, ever since the energy supply industry was privatised and deregulated, the various competing suppliers have sliced and diced the unit charges and 'quarterly standing charge' into new and inventive billing schemes.

The three basic ways of packaging electricity bills is to charge a slightly higher flat rate with no standing charges, charge a high initial rate for the first so many units used per month or quarter with a more economic rate for the rest of the billing period or else, stick to the more traditional flat rate plus standing charge model of old.

This doesn't include the less obvious 'nice little earner' charging schemes where they don't make a standing charge for very low consumption users or the other one where they do the opposite, only apply the standing charge if you don't use enough units. All that has happened afaics, apart from more shareholders having their noses in the trough, is to create a minefield of choice for the hapless consumer.

[Andy Burns]

Are there any like that left? I thought they all dried up when each supplier was restricted in the number of tariffs they could offer at once and the high/low ones all worked out the same as standing charge ones provided you used more than "so many" units anyway?

[Johnny B Good]

There were a few usage cases where such special billing schemes offered a saving over the more traditional schemes but you had to accurately predict your month to month or quarter to quarter energy consumption to "stay in the zone" otherwise, as you said, you'd be no better off and possibly worse off than if you'd stuck with a more conventional tariff.

[Dave Liquorice]

Those still exist (nPower Standard Variable DD) 16p/unit only of value for low users, ie less than a handful of units/day.

Tier 1 and Tier 2. Don't think any of those exist for new customers, they might in legacy form.

Which is the same as the first but with a non-zero daily standing charge.

Don't think I ever came across those examples, I'm assuming that you get whacked with a standing charge (or increase unit price) if you go above certain amount of ueage.