Please help!! Electricity bill up £104!!!

newbie04

My partner and I have just recieved a letter from Scottish Power telling us that our monthly direct debate (Ecomony 7 heating) will increase from £42 to £146 with effect from next month! I have phoned and asked why there is such a hike and they have stated that the last reading they have was taken in December 2007. I know that can't be right as I've been in on several occasions recently when a wee man has come and read the meter.

Anyway I made some enquiries into the tarrif that I am on with a view to switching suppliers however I was informed that the meters which I have are 'Comfort Plus' and as such only Scottish Power can provide/maintain same and I would not be able to switch without installing a new meter or in fact meters. Is that correct?

To further add to my frustrations Scottish Power are unable to offer me any other tarriff unless I combine it with a gas package. As far as I know gas is not available in the street where we stay and all flats have Ecomony 7 so that would be impossible!!!

Am I stuck paying SP's standard tarriff?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum. Presumably you live in Scotland?

Historically Scotland, in particular, had a host of 'weird' off peak tariifs that were not available in the rest of UK. These required specially metering and of course the accounting systems to bill customers for these tariffs.

The only off peak tariff available throughout UK is Economy 7 which gives a 7 hour period of cheap electricity between the hours of 11pm to 8am.

There was an article in the Scotsman complaining about customers being tied to that tariff and I found this quote:

Comfortplus (2 mtr 1 register each) is avaiable only in Scottish powers area (MPAN 18) and is a weather sensitive tariff giving you up to 14hrs off peak for storage heaters and thing on heating elements (their is different varions of the tariff i.e. comfortplus whitemeter(1 mtr 3 registers ) etc)

So it looks like the information you have been given about new metering being required is correct.

In case you 'jump out of frying pan etc ---' you need to get full details of your consumption, and costs, to do a comparison with other tariffs from other companies..

newbie04

Thanks very much for getting back to me. It doesn't sound like there's much we can do. Being that the weather up in Edinburgh is very unpredictable it's madness trying to work out how high to turn up the heaters.

I've had a wee look at the Energy Saving Trust website and might give the local office a buzz tomorrow to see if they can suggest anything although it's looks like we may have to stay put regrettably.

Thanks again.