Period electricity bills?

[robgil]

Who supplies you then? eon seem to be front loading their tariffs at 25p per unit for the first 900 Kw's so I contacted ecotricity who can only match your present suppliers tariff, which sounds odd to me.
So who is cheap and who isnt?
I know this isnt a period property price comparison web site but I thought I'd ask.

 

[MdB]

Do you want to know who is cheaper now or who is cheaper in 3 months time?

As for the "25p per unit for the first 900 Kw's", most suppliers have this as an option. The alternative options without this have a higher per unit costs.

As an extra bonus question, has anybody found any supplier that does good Economy 10 prices? The only comparison sites only do Economy 7 which makes it hard to compare.

 

[robgil]

Dont use a comparison web site , I did and it was wrong!

That 25p for the first 900 kw then 13p afterwards was the best uswitch could come up with.
So I called their most expensive option (southern electric) directly and it came out much much cheaper.
18.94p for the first 225 units then12.9p there after. They also have other quite reasonable tariffs that I need to look into and calculate the cheapest option as we are still on quite high usage. uswitch my back side! :lol:

 

[biffvernon]

I contacted ecotricity who can only match your present suppliers tariff, which sounds odd to me.

What's odd about that? They match the price of the regional supplier. Ok, so they might be cheaper than a temporary deal you might find if you shop around but their mission is to increase the proportion of renewably generated electricity and thus help save the planet, not give you cut price energy.

Plus they are a great little firm, not part of the big six, invest all their profits in building more renewable capacity instead of shareholder dividends (they are not a plc) and when you phone them up you are spoken to by a real human being in Stroud who knows how to answer your question. Ecotricity are the best supplier for those who care. (Some may argue that Good Energy are almost as good.)

 

[AMc]

We use Good Energy who have a standing charge per day but no staged cost per unit; their tariff depends on your location.
We appear to be paying 17.05p per day then 14.11p per peak unit and 7.57p unit Economy 7.
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/switch/our-prices/tariff-prices

They are more expensive than the suppliers who have a fossil fuel mix but we are able to pay slightly more to support the market for renewable generation.

I know they can bill on Economy 10 but when I looked into that tariff for our air source heat pump consumption I was told it needed a dedicated circuit which would have prevented us running the pump 24hr when the weather is really cold so it didn't suit us so I didn't investigate further.

Good Energy are also a decent company to deal with - when we got our first heat pump bill of several thousand pounds they allowed me to make an increase in the direct debit and wait until we had 12 months of bills before working out our actual monthly payment - as you use so much more electricity in the heating season with all electric space heating there needs to be a surplus at the end of summer and a deficit in spring or the bills are impossible to manage. At the end of the summer I still owed them close to £2000 which I paid in full and adjusted the direct debit again.

If you want to go with them then their "recommend a friend" scheme gives us both a £25 discount - PM me
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/recommendation

[side note- ]My previous experience with direct debit with a gas company was when the debit wasn't covering the gas consumption over the winter quarter they doubled it to cover the short fall and an expectation that we'd be spending that much every quarter. When that built up a large positive balance in their favour they resisted adjusting the payment to where it should be and flatly refused to return my money until they had several hundred pounds of my money - only agreeing to give it back when we moved to a house with no gas [/side note]

 

[MdB]

I know they can bill on Economy 10 but when I looked into that tariff for our air source heat pump consumption I was told it needed a dedicated circuit which would have prevented us running the pump 24hr when the weather is really cold so it didn't suit us so I didn't investigate further.

You only need the dedicated circuit if you want the meter to control the heat pump so that it only comes on during the cheaper tariff period. Our E10 meter has that feature but we don't use it, indeed there are times as you say when you need to run the pump 24hr when it is cold so I'm glad I didn't wire it that way. The downside is that you need to keep your heat pump controller in sync with the E10 meter but that isn't too difficult to do.

 

[skier-hughes]

[side note- ]My previous experience with direct debit with a gas company was when the debit wasn't covering the gas consumption over the winter quarter they doubled it to cover the short fall and an expectation that we'd be spending that much every quarter. When that built up a large positive balance in their favour they resisted adjusting the payment to where it should be and flatly refused to return my money until they had several hundred pounds of my money - only agreeing to give it back when we moved to a house with no gas [/side note]

Our elec company won't give me my £500 back unless I up my payment by £25 per month, which means they'll be getting £20 per month more than we use each month??? I'm currently looking at other options.

Graham

 

[AMc]

You only need the dedicated circuit if you want the meter to control the heat pump so that it only comes on during the cheaper tariff period. Our E10 meter has that feature but we don't use it, indeed there are times as you say when you need to run the pump 24hr when it is cold so I'm glad I didn't wire it that way. The downside is that you need to keep your heat pump controller in sync with the E10 meter but that isn't too difficult to do.

Is your pump 3 phase? I'm not sure if that was a factor. I did investigate it quite thoroughly and it seemed that if I wanted E10 then I couldn't have 24hr heating but I may have got duff advice but the price differences with E7 and E10 weren't dramatic enough to warrant rewiring anything as I'd just had it all done in the first place

 

[biffvernon]

[side note- ]My previous experience with direct debit with a gas company was when the debit wasn't covering the gas consumption over the winter quarter they doubled it to cover the short fall and an expectation that we'd be spending that much every quarter. When that built up a large positive balance in their favour they resisted adjusting the payment to where it should be and flatly refused to return my money until they had several hundred pounds of my money - only agreeing to give it back when we moved to a house with no gas [/side note]

Our elec company won't give me my £500 back unless I up my payment by £25 per month, which means they'll be getting £20 per month more than we use each month??? I'm currently looking at other options.

Graham

Are these companies based in Nigeria?

 

[robgil]

I contacted ecotricity who can only match your present suppliers tariff, which sounds odd to me.

What's odd about that? They match the price of the regional supplier. Ok, so they might be cheaper than a temporary deal you might find if you shop around but their mission is to increase the proportion of renewably generated electricity and thus help save the planet, not give you cut price energy.

Plus they are a great little firm, not part of the big six, invest all their profits in building more renewable capacity instead of shareholder dividends (they are not a plc) and when you phone them up you are spoken to by a real human being in Stroud who knows how to answer your question. Ecotricity are the best supplier for those who care. (Some may argue that Good Energy are almost as good.)

Nothing odd about it except I would rather them sell me electricity for the amount they buy it for plus whatever profit they wish to make. Simply matching my previously very expensive supplier will not give me any incentive to invest in green fuels even though I would like to. I have electric heating at the moment so every penny counts, perhaps when our tariff cost drops by switching to a cheaper supplier I might consider switching again to ecotricity.

As for them taking money and not giving it back, I never direct debit for anything and always use a meter reading to pay the bill, we got hit with a £1200 bill last spring because we paid too little over the previous billing period, that was a shock.

 

[robgil]

If you want to go with them then their "recommend a friend" scheme gives us both a £25 discount - PM me
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/recommendation

I will have a read through, how about 60/40? :lol:

 

[MdB]

Is your pump 3 phase? I'm not sure if that was a factor. I did investigate it quite thoroughly and it seemed that if I wanted E10 then I couldn't have 24hr heating but I may have got duff advice but the price differences with E7 and E10 weren't dramatic enough to warrant rewiring anything as I'd just had it all done in the first place

Our pump is 1.5kW (input) single phase.

For me, switching to E10 was simply a matter of phoning my supplier up. They arranged the fitting of the new meter at their cost and didn't ask any questions as to usage.

 

[Lime]

I keep tight control of my supplier since having problems switching my Economy 10 to another supplier (long story, a letter from my MP got them to take notice).
The suppliers that offer Economy 10 seem very thin on the ground.

I'm with Spark Energy for both gas and Economy 10 electricity.
No standing charge.
Gas (per annum) first 2600KWHr @ 7.620p the rest @ 2.930p
Elec. Day (per annum) first 900KWHr @ 20.600p the rest 13.370p
Elec night Economy 10 (whole house consumption) one rate @ 5.390p per KWHr.
Then VAT on top.

 

[MdB]

Thanks for that Lime. From memory those prices are a bit better than what I'm currently paying. Will check this evening.

 

[skier-hughes]

Probably Biff, Mines Scottish Power, who now I've phoned them up are prepared to offer me a much improved rate, so my bill will go down, my payments will go down, but still if they return my over payment want me to pay more than I use...... but is about 15% cheaper than I pay now :?
Will ecotricity match my best offer? I wouldn't mind switching if they'll meet the cheaper price rather than my current price, will have to call them.

 

[biffvernon]

I would rather them sell me electricity for the amount they buy it for plus whatever profit they wish to make.

The don't, to a large extent, buy electricity - they generate their own. Their trading profit is reinvested in more generating capacity.

 

[biffvernon]

Will ecotricity match my best offer?

No, they won't - they just match your regional supplier. Sometimes one has to put one's money where one's mouth is if wants to save a planet.

They have issued 'Ecobonds' that give an interest rate of 7.5% to customers. They used the capital raised to build the big solar pv system quite near where I live.

 

[robgil]

I would rather them sell me electricity for the amount they buy it for plus whatever profit they wish to make.

The don't, to a large extent, buy electricity - they generate their own. Their trading profit is reinvested in more generating capacity.

So how do I know that the electricity coming from my plug sockets is green electricity? :lol:

Seriously though , what happens if they sell more than they produce? I think that is why they charge you the same as your current supplier, they can buy it for less then supply you at the same rate, they cant lose when demand for green elecy over powers supply, although I could be wrong.

I am going to switch to southern elecy then switch again to ecotricity when they see how much southern are charging me.

 

[MdB]

I am going to switch to southern elecy then switch again to ecotricity when they see how much southern are charging me.

No point. They will match your regional supplier, not the one you currently are with - See Biff's posts.

 

[skier-hughes]

or save one's money to buy pv panels with?