Standing charge tariffs vs standard price tariff

Moot

Hi All

Have recently moved into a 3 bed semi from a 2 bed flat and was shocked when Npower sent our first months statement on the standard tariff.

So I have been looking around for alternative tariff however the options are very confusing.

At present I am struggling to decide if we should go with a tariff with a standing charge or not. We are finding very difficult to factor the Standing charge into the price, to compare it against non standing charge pricing.

Does anyone have any advice for someone who feels out like they are stepping into the unknown.

I wish finding an energy supplier was as easy as buying petrol. Sorry if this topic has been discussed previously.

HappyMJ

As long as you use more the primary units then standing charge or not it doesn't matter. The primary units are usually charged on up to 900kWh per year of electricity and about 4500kWh of gas. You need to check each tariff but it is very easy to use more than that.

macman

Unless you are a very low user it makes only a few pence difference either way. Forget about calculating standing chargesand unit costs, just put your annual kWH figs into a comp site and it will do all the work for you in a couple of minutes. Then sign up using a cashback site.
Much easier than buying petrol...

Neil_Jones

Moot wrote: »

At present I am struggling to decide if we should go with a tariff with a standing charge or not. We are finding very difficult to factor the Standing charge into the price, to compare it against non standing charge pricing.

Does anyone have any advice for someone who feels out like they are stepping into the unknown.

The key thing to remember with a tariff with no standing charges is that the first few hundred/thousand kWh are charged at a higher rate and everything after that is a lower rate.

However if you do not use a lot of energy, you'll probably find that the bulk of your usage falls into the higher tier tariff. If that is the case, you may be better off looking at a standing charge option, however in reality the savings work out to about the same, with only a few pence in it.

Find a price comparison site, such as USwitch, Confused or CompareTheMarket. Initially use the national average annual usage, (16,500kWh for gas and 3,300 for electricity) and either find a short-term 1 year fixed, or a supplier with no exit fees.

Then next year, go round comparing the market again as you'll now know exactly how much you use in a year and can feed a comparision site with those.

You don't need to calculate anything, unless you end up in a situation where your prices for your energy don't appear on any comparision sites (such as when the Co-Op changed their prices and sent out an email to customers with (cheaper) "exclusive" prices that bore no resembalance to those on the comparision sites). But this happens rarely.

becksfaz

I'm no expert and new to this site but here is my experience - I changed supplier in the summer due to moving hopuse and I went for a tariff with a standing charge (I put into uswitch what our useage was for the previous 12 months and it did the work for me). My charges are as follows: Daily standing charge for gas is 19p with unit cost of 3.35p. Daily standing charge for electric is 28p, then 8p per unit after. I know, for example, that my Dad pays no standing charge (this is electric) but pays 16p per unit for the 1st 'x' amount of units and then it reduces to 8p like mine. I am a low user of electric so based on my useage I'd pay more for my electric if I was on my Dads tariff.