Yet another "advice needed" thread (npower vs Scottish Power vs Atlantic)

tomos42

Hi all,

I've been looking at switching electricity suppliers on the energyhelpline website. For our usage it thinks that npower's Sign On-Line tariff is the cheapest, however there seems to be some anomalies between its estimated saving (of £129/year) and npower's own website, who say that we'd be better off staying with our current supplier (Scottish Power), as it's £57.30/year cheaper than their (npower) Sign On-Line tariff.

The second cheapest on the energyhelpline website was Atlantic E&G (Internet Direct No Standing Charge tariff), with a saving of £89/year (£75.70/year on Atlantic's own website, but this may be because they don't take into account the 1 month free offer)

Also, we may only be living in our current flat for another 10 months. I see that a lot of tariffs only offer a discount if you stay with them for >12 months (e.g. Atlantic's 1m free offer above).

Given this information, are we better off sticking with our current supplier, going with npower despite the anomaly or potentially saving less money and going with Atlantic?

I will of course go through Quidco to claim my £10 for using the energyhelpline site, in addition to the £15 from energyhelipline themselves, unless I see any better offers by going direct to the supplier.

Many thanks for your advice.
Tom

Quentin

The Scottish Power online discount is credited to each bill (you don't have to wait a year to get it)

Could you get the tariffs and calculate your own usage to see which works out cheaper - £186 does seem a big anomaly.

(Don't know how you can get the MSE £15 energyhelpline cashback AND the quidco £10 - care to share how it's done?)

tomos42

Thanks for the reply.
That's a good idea - I'll try and work it out manually when I get a moment.

I've no idea if it's possible to claim both cashbacks - I just assumed it was. After thinking about it it's probably not - I clicked on the MSE link first then logged into Quidco to see if energyhelpline was listed. I don't think it's possible to fool it into accepting both cookies though.

payless

just move from Altantic- found myself chasing the annual rebate

For my postcode / usage it was cheaper to take
Npowe for gas but Scottish P for elec

Quentin

If you use quidco for scottish power they give you £35 for taking both g + e.

They have this online2 tariff which pays an extra discount of £63/year plus the usual £10.50 year discount for having both services.

They credit the discount on each bill, so you don't lose out if you want to move suppliers before the 12 months are up. (I think npower pay their discount at the end of the year)

So the £35 + £63 might swing it their way on gas, payless?

tomos42

We don't have gas, but thanks for the suggestion.

So...the general concensus so far is stick with Scottish Power?
We can save a bit by switching to their online elec tariff and switching to DD as we're on their standard 'pay when the paper bill comes' one at the moment.

Does anyone know if you can use Quidco to switch to their online tariff if you're already an SP customer?

EDIT: Just tried and it's not possible.
How green is their Green tariff? It's only a bit more expensive and I'm happy to pay the difference if it's worth it.

Quentin

Worth a try.

Or you could do a "double switch" to get the quidco money.

Switch from SP to the next cheapest via energyhelpline (£15 cashback), then when it's gone through, switch back to SP (£17.50 cashback via quidco).

payless

Quentin wrote:

If you use quidco for scottish power they give you £35 for taking both g + e.

They have this online2 tariff which pays an extra discount of £63/year plus the usual £10.50 year discount for having both services.


So the £35 + £63 might swing it their way on gas, payless?

I got £17.50 from SP via quidco + but also £14 from NP via quidco

If I was swapping dual fuel then yes SP was best ( excluding atlantic - current- but wanted to move)
BUT
for my postcode SP gas was 2.698 per Kw rather than NP's 2.047

tomos42

It's not worth the hassle for me to double switch as I've heard it can take weeks/months to get just one sorted. By the time we've done that twice it may be time to move!

I'll work out the cost manually and if it's significant I'll try and switch to NP or Atlantic. It looks like we can save an estimated £100-£115 just by switching to a different SP tariff though*, so whatever we decide we'll probably save something.

* All figures have been based on usage over Nov - Feb, but our flat is so well insulated we've hardly had the heating on, so I don't expect the usage to be much different over the whole year.

EDIT: Another thing - the SP comparison estimates that the standard tariffs and no standing charge tariffs are identical in cost, even when changing the annual kWh. Surely they should differ when the usage is different? Bleh, can't trust computers - I'll work it out for myself!

Quentin

Switches seem to be getting more streamlined - my last 2 were done in 6 weeks (and included the Christmas period).

tomos42

That's good to know.