Scottish Power Online Standard (No Standing Charge) tariff

Zither

Hello All,

Is anyone on this tariff? Is it any good? Apologies for such a basic question but the price comparisons sites are total dutch to me.

I ask as I live in a small 1 bed studio flat (electricity only). Scottish Power recently e-mailed to revise my direct debit to £90 per month, which I think is quite alot given my circumstances. Just paid my last bill and it was £65 for the month.

Does this sound about right??? Would be really grateful for any opinions.

Many many thanks.

anniecave

It depends on your area as to whether this is a good tariff or not. What is the first part of your postcode (eg AB12)?

If you take the last year's worth of bills, how many KWH of electricity have you used over a 12 month period? Are you on economy 7 (where you get cheaper electricity at night but pay more for daytime units)? If so how many of the KWH were night units and how many were day?

Zither

Hi Annie,

Thanks for your reply. My postcode is NE8. I don't think I'm on Economy 7, at least I don't remember signing up to anything E7 based (sorry for vagueness).

God basic 101 question - how do I know how many units I've used? I know my readings over the last 5 months but not sure these equate to KwH? I googled my energy 'product' earlier but I couldn't find the details for £ p KwH. Actually scrap that, I've just found the KwH units section on the SP website...

I swear I'm not this useless normally! Utility bills are pretty much the final frontier to me...

anniecave

have you only been in the property 5 months? or longer?

For electricity, the actual readings on the meter are KWH. So if the meter reading today is 10000 and the reading next week is 10200 then you have used 200 kwh in that time.

If you have bills going back that far, you can work out your annual consumption from previous bills.

The consumption in a flat can vary massively depending on your insulation, double glazing, how high the ceilings are etc. I used to live in a 2 bed flat with a friend and we were using approx 11,000 kwh in a year. That was in an old building with bad insulation, no double glazing, high ceilings. Other people I know use half that as they hardly need to put the heating on as they live in a block and get the benefit of their neighbours heat! Most of your cost will be heating in the winter!

Just doing a quick uswitch search based on your details, it would appear that you could save money if you switched to scottish power's online energy saver 11. It might be between £100 and £200 per year cheaper, depending on your usage. What price do you pay for your kwh at the moment? on your last bill ? (there might be two prices, one for the first so many units, a different price for all units after this?)

Plushchris

The "online" standard tariff is not their best, its effectively just their standard tariff with an online discount (about £15 per year)

As above, the online saver is their best online tariff but its always worth checking with comparison sites to see if thats actually the cheapest deal out there for you.

Dont get hung up on unit rates either, they are only half the story, all suppliers have different (and awkward) ways of applying discounts which means just comparing unit rates will not get you the best deal.

latecomer

go to uswitch or any other comparison site, enter your usage for either a month, quarter or year and then let it figure it all out for you. The only difficult bit is pressing the switch button

And dont forget to do it via a cashback site like quidco

Celyn

Zither wrote: »

...
I ask as I live in a small 1 bed studio flat (electricity only). Scottish Power recently e-mailed to revise my direct debit to £90 per month, which I think is quite alot given my circumstances. Just paid my last bill and it was £65 for the month.

Does this sound about right??? Would be really grateful for any opinions.

...

£90 per month sounds like a BIG lot to me. I am also electricity only and currently pay £34 per month. Let's suppose that might go up a bit for the winter - it would still be a lot less than £90 per month. Admittedly, I try to be very mean with the electricity and if you use lots of heat and tumble driers and whatnot, you will pay more, but I still think £90 for one person seems excessive.


Edited to add:

Forgot to say that I live in Glasgow, so not an especially warm or especially arctic climate.

Zither

Hi Guys thanks alot for all your replies. Really appreciated.

Annie, I didn't realise it was as simple to work out KwH use as that! I should say that it's an electronic meter - because of this I thought it was just an arbitary number.

Annie, Plush, thanks for the info on Online Energy Saver 11. Can I switch to this at any time? I know it's silly but I'm reluctant to switch providers. I switched from Npower (the devil) to SP and NP caused nothing but trouble and stress. I hate capitulating but I really can't be doing with all the hassle again. Latecomer, I did check out uswitch briefly but because of inconsistencies in how I paid my bill I.e last time I payed for 3 months, this time I paid 1 month (just to see what the monthly charge actually was) I didn't know if its results were accurate/representative.

Here's my energy use for the last several months (sorry for poor format) ....Does this look kind of right? (I know that's an almost impossible question to answer...)

Electricity (kWh)
Bill period No. days Total Daily Average
26/08/10 - 22/09/10 28 609 22
06/06/10 - 25/08/10 81 1381 17
24/02/10 - 05/06/10 102 2685 26
08/06/09 - 23/02/10 261 678 3

Celyn, I'm thinking I should be paying approx the same. Bearing in mind it's (kind of) summer, Apparently I used nearly half as many KwH in the last month as I did in the 3 months between June and August and I haven't been away on long hols. I'm pretty miserly when it comes to leaving lights etc on too. Ditto on the tumble dryer - I use the rack instead haha!

Gotta go to work now - too much excitement in my life at the mo!

Again, thanks all.

Scottish_Power

Hi Zither

I would recommend contacting us to check what our billing system holds as your annual consumption. Everytime we receive an accurate meter reading on your account our billing system will calculate what we expect you will use over a 12-month period. Checking alternative tariffs would be a good idea as well to make sure you are getting the best rates from us.

We are coming up to the coldest months of the year and if you are electricity only then there will be a large increase in your use over the next 6 months. I would recommend updating meter readings online as often as you can (at least 1 per month) over the next 6 months so that both you and our billing system have accurate consumption figures to work with.

Let me know if you have any further questions and I will be more than happy to help.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

Celyn

Hello, Colin of Scottish Power, may I piggyback on this thread a bit, please? This last week I have tried to enter my meter readings via the Scottish Power website, but it doesn't like that. Its objection, reasonably enough, is that it says that the new numbers are smaller than the previous numbers, and therefore not possible.

Fair enough - I can see why that might explode its computery brain. However, the reason for that is that the electricity meter was replaced with a new one (old one being too old, or some such reason) a few months ago, so I suppose the new meter started at zero. Tried to do it by 'phone but got through to some entirely different company. Eventually I texted the readings instead, so I hope it will become simple. Should I worry lest there remains some confusion?

ALSO, it really hadn't occurred to me that I could enter meter readings every month. That sounds like a great idea. When I think that years ago I used to go mad writing it all down on paper and doing sums and so on, why the heck did it not occur to me to do the same thing the easy way? :embarasse Slap on head for me.

Scottish_Power

Hi Celyn

I will be glad to help. Couple of possibilities here:

1. Your new meter details have not been updated onto your billing system
2. Meter readings on your new meter have been updated incorrectly and the readings you are trying to enter are lower than the previously billed readings.

Either way this is easily rectified. I can correct this for you or you could email our customer service team and provide them with the meter serial number of the new meter in your property and the current reading. From this they will be able to check your account to make sure we have the correct meter details on record for you and also check if there are any issues with previous meter readings.

The online system is great if you want to keep track of what you are using. If you update a meter reading at the start of each month and generate a statement, over the year you will be able to see exactly what you are using. Do this again for the next year and you can do a year on year comparison to see if anything has changed. The online computery brain feeds on meter readings. Keep it healthy.

If you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower