Npower to Southern Electric? please help (tenant)

macman

That might explain why it's so low. Yes, I meant direct debit/monthly payment.

dustinjames

have spoken to npower, my supplier.
after giving my current reading, he says my bill will be £200! yes its been building up since i moved here.
£317 total bills ive had to pay / 9 months = £35 per month

i say comparison site says "go fix 5" npower tarriff is much much cheaper.
he says also "sign online 21" is a better deal.
but he said standard tariff is still ok, not a major thing to worry about. He said most people are on standard.

he says after paying off all this accumulated debt, my current tariff sounds like £40 per month for me.
Go fix might be £35ish per month.

i think i use 3000kwh per year.
reading give me an average of 250kwh per month.

go fix tariff says if price is increased for electricity, it wont affect me, as my deal is fixed.
sign online 21 tariff says if i use MORE than my said usage, the extra usage will be cheaper than other tariffs.

not sure what to do.
- whether to go with letting agents advice of switching to southern electric
- try a diff npower tariff
- change to another supplier

macman

It will clearly say on your bill what your current debt is and what your bill is for actual consumption. 3,000kWh pa is £25 per month, excluding any debt of course. So the advisor was talking nonsense.
Yes, most people are on standard, because they are too apathetic to change-it is the most expensive tariff.
Switching supplier is not a issue for you at present, as you can't switch until you have cleared your debt.

dustinjames

"3,000kWh pa is £25 per month," i dont get how you worked this out.
the current bill does not say what current debt is.
it just says ammended figure, eg previous estimates fig to current actual reading, giving me a total of £ to pay.
after working it all out, i will have paid £315 for 9 months, so thats £35 per month on average on my current tarrif.
so 3000kwh is £35 for me currently. So if i was giving meter reading every month, my bill would have been around £35 per month.
Does that sound like too much?

if i want to switch supplier, i guess ill have to pay off this £200 bill immediately in one go (not sure i can afford this)
Npower said they could put me on a plan, eg to pay x amount per month, if i cant afford the £200 in one go.
might do this: and try a diff tarriff with npower.

cheers.

macman

3,000kWh pa is 250kWh per month. At approx 10p per kWh, that is £25 per month.
Yes, if you want to switch you have to clear the debt.

dustinjames

im not paying 10p per kwh then....should i be?

250kWh works out at £35 per month, no debt, real usage, looking at my bills.

macman

That's a typical price. Why don't you just check on your bill where all the unit rates are shown?
£35 would represent 14p per kWh!
If you are paying £35 a month it can only be to catch up on accumulated debt due to previosus estimated bills. Once you get to zero balance, you should be paying a DD of about £25.
The DD is just the cost of your annual consumption divided by 12.

dustinjames

up to jan: 13.98p and 12.96p
after jan: first 121 at 16.620p....next 519 at 13.320p

its always been 13 to 14p (looking at my First bill from ages ago)

no, what i mean is, £35 per month is how much i pay, without ANY debt build up.
i use £35 per month in electric, with actual readings, on average, with Npower.
£315 / 9 = £35

£25 DD is too little, that would mean a debt buildup then. So i would want to pay at least £35 DD, on this current plan.

cheers.

macman

But that is because you are on the most expensive tariff-npower standard. 2 mins work on www.energyhelpline.co brings up 5 npower tariffs that are cheaper. The cheapest (npower Sign Online 21) will save you 25% on your annual spend of £387 (about £96pa). Your DD would then reduce to about £25.

dustinjames

sorry to keep disagreeing, but my DD would be £35 based on usage info, and ive just spoken to npower.

I tried uswitch today, cheapest deal was npower sign online 21.
I called npower to discuss my debt etc.
Weve agreed a direct debit of £52 for 12 months.
so thats £35 for usage, and £17 debt payments.
But i can pay off whatever extra debt i wish any time over the phone they said.

hang on, i told uswitch i use 3000kwh per year, they came up with £305 for annual electricity cost.
thats £25 per month. the £35 per month calculation was done by the npower guy a few days ago on the phone,
the guy on phone today just read what was noted on computer, but im sure the £35 DD was calculated based on my
3000kwh per year usage figure i told them. Slightly confused.

But npower did say, if i end up building credit, eg paying more in DD than im using, i do get it back.