MSE News: Scottish Power to hike energy prices

cuddles123

My change from OES 12 to Capped June 2013 has come through. There ia an announcement on my account page on their website saying that I will not be affected by the price rise.

gauly

jingleberry wrote: »

*If you notify us that you wish to cancel your agreement before 1st August 2011 and we receive a request for your supply from another supplier within 15 working days, we will not apply the price increase or the cancellation fee for your product. If you have an outstanding debt, we may object to your supply leaving us, but we will give you time to pay the debt and leave us without incurring the increased prices.

Thats good news, but I don't quite get what they are saying - do you read it:

A) Before 1st August you notify them, then have 15 days to start the move.

Within 15 working days you notify them that "you wish to cancel your agreement before 1st August"

Just wondering because I would like to leave it as long as possible to give the other companies time to announce their rises.

Premier_2

gauly wrote: »

Thats good news, but I don't quite get what they are saying - do you read it:

A) Before 1st August you notify them, then have 15 days to start the move.

Within 15 working days you notify them that "you wish to cancel your agreement before 1st August"

Just wondering because I would like to leave it as long as possible to give the other companies time to announce their rises.

I think it means you have until 01 August to give notice you intend to cancel. (The terms actually allow 20 working days, but SP have extended this a bit - perhaps SP are thinking like you? i.e. give time to allow other suppliers to show their hands and then you might not wish to switch)

But you only have 15 working days from the time SP get the notice for the new supplier to contact SP - this is in line with their existing terms.

silly_moo

Premier wrote: »

I think you have made a mistake

Taking the unifi tariff as an example, and just looking at electric for region 18 (scottish power region)

SC rate is 30.06p per day and 12.235p per unit
NSC rate is 24.424p tier 1 (initial 900kWh per year) and 12.235p thereafter
(all vat inclusive)
Note how tier 2 unit price is identical to the SC unit price

Lets assume you use the full quantity of tier 1 units - 900kWh
The "premium" of tier 1 units is 24.424p-12.235p=12.007p

900kWh (the maximum) of "premium" charge is 12.007p x 900 = £108.06

Alternatively with SC, you pay 360 (thats how many days SP think are in a year!) x 30.06p = £108.21

i.e. effectively the same (and probably would be after roundings are excluded)

As all other parts of the traiff (e.g. discounts, etc) are common, how can SC ever be cheaper than NSC??? :huh:
NSC would be cheaper than SC if you use less than 225kWh (900kwh/year) in any one quarter, as you will avoid paying some of the "premium" which is, in effect, the standing charge distributed over tier 1 units.

(You can do a similar comparison for gas)

I've checked my calculations and have to admit you're right. My formulas were all fine but for 3 months I was on a SC tariff before I moved onto the OES and had to guesstimate the number of primary rate kWhs as I couldn't read this directly from the bill. I estimated the primary kWhs for 90 days instead of 80 days and so all NSC calculations were slightly biased.

I'll edit my initial post showing that NSC is in fact marginally cheaper. I wouldn't like to be responsible for someone going for a SC tariff on the basis of my estimates!

SnakeDoctor_2

I'm on Online Energy Saver 13 and live in the East Midlands. I've just checked the before and after tariffs and: -

Gas
Primary - 22.65% increase
Secondary -18.26% increase

Electricity
Economy 7 Low - 1.40% increase
Economy 7 Normal Primary - 21.79% increase
Economy 7 Normal Secondary - 0.72% increase

So much for Electricity 10% and Gas 19%

jingleberry

gauly wrote: »

Thats good news, but I don't quite get what they are saying - do you read it:

A) Before 1st August you notify them, then have 15 days to start the move.

Within 15 working days you notify them that "you wish to cancel your agreement before 1st August"

Just wondering because I would like to leave it as long as possible to give the other companies time to announce their rises.

The way I read it, you can give them notice of your intention to move (and rejection of the price rise) any time prior to 1st August. If SP receive this notice, they will not apply the price rise to your account at all, and will not charge you the exit fees, provided they receive confirmation from your new supplier that the move is going ahead within the subsequent 15 days.

So there is a danger that you give notice to SP but, for whatever reason, your new supplier does not get around to contacting SP within the subsequent 15 days. So I think the way forward is to initiate a move to your new supplier, but delay giving notice to SP for a few weeks, ideally until you are sure that your new supplier has been in touch with SP. For example, if SP contacted you to try and talk you out of moving, you would know for sure that they had been made aware of your intention to move. Clearly you must not delay giving notice too long since you have to meet the 1 August deadline.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

LDH wrote: »

Hi

Please can somebody tell me how large the percentage increase will be for me?
On the last quarterly bill, i used 1460kWh of electricity and 195KWh for gas. My tarriff is Scottish Power 'Online Standard'. Unfortunately, i'm not in a position to sign up for any 12 month contracts to save money.
Below are the current and the new increased prices for the tariff, for both the daily service charge and the price per unit.

Many thanks.

[FONT=&quot]Electricity prices[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Current[/FONT][FONT=&quot]†[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]New[/FONT][FONT=&quot]†[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Daily Service Charge[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]15.39p[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] 26.20p +70.3%
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]All/Day Units kWh[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]11.176p[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] 11.176p No change
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Gas prices[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Current[/FONT][FONT=&quot]†[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]New[/FONT][FONT=&quot]†[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Daily Service Charge[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]24.17p
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] 30.69p +26.97%
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]All/Day Units kWh[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2.958p[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] 3.506p +18.52%
[/FONT]

Based on your figures for last quarter, 91 days:

Electricity old: £177.17
.............New: £187.01 +5.55%

Gas old: £27.78
....New: £34.77 +25.1%

Overall increase, based on last quarter 8.21%.

saintscouple

trying to look at this from as many angles as i can - Am i correct in thinking the SP Direct October 2012 tariff will be unaffected by the price rise in August?
And if so, can i switch to this tariff from OES12 without a penalty?
I've looked at my account online and there is a link to switch tariff, but can't see the October 2012 there - perhaps can only be done on the phone, or am i not looking in the right place?

LDH

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,



Based on your figures for last quarter, 91 days:

Electricity old: £177.17
.............New: £187.01 +5.55%

Gas old: £27.78
....New: £34.77 +25.1%

Overall increase, based on last quarter 8.21%.

Many thanks for your figures :-)

macman

James123 wrote: »

No, not 3x as much. Gas is around 4 pence per kilowatt hour and electricity is now at 9p. I've just managed to fix my electricity prices. I was looking to fix the gas, but the sneaky !!!!!!s charge a higher rate in the winter periods anyway.
It's true that there used to be a huge disparity between gas and electric prices, but not any more. If you factor in servicing charges and a maintenance contract as a low to medium user I'd doubt that gas is cheaper. Of course, you also have to budget for a new boiler every 8-10 years. You also have to consider that, with gas, you only get around 75% of the heat you pay for - even with these nice new boilers. We've basically learnt to live with an inside temperature of around 16 degrees, so try hard not to use energy if we're to pay our Council Tax Bill (that's another story). I obviously understand that electric prices track those of gas, but the gap is certainly closing - hence gas 19% rise and electric 10%.

Taking BG Standard tariff as a datum point, Tier 2 price is currently 3.5p for gas and 10.7p for electricity. That's 3.06 times difference.
A modern condensing boiler is much more than 75% efficient-and why would you need a new one every 8-10 years? Nor do you need a maintenance contract-just an annual service from an independent local RGI.