Has Scottish Power Prepay Electric gone up by 30 percent

greengarnet

Hi there. I'm confused about a letter I got from Scottish Power this morning regarding their electric price increase and wonder if anybody knows what's going on.

I am a prepayment key customer with economy 7 electric only (no gas at property). Area 14 and we have no debt with them and never have had as we're quite new customers.

They have announced a 9% increase to the press and on their own web site they say the increase is 8.56%.

But the letter I got this morning shows a day unit price increase of just under 30% and a night unit increase of about 9%. I just don't understand what's going on. I'll give the figures from the back of the letter.

Daily Service Charge - was 32.91p a day - will be 30.14p
All/Days Units kWh - was 11.832p - will be 15.348p
Night Units per kWh - was 5.976p - will be 6.536p

They say the standing charge decrease is to make their pricing more consistant and easier to compare against other suppliers.

Is that an almost 30% day unit increase or am I being thick.
Does anybody know anything about this. I called them and they said putting you through to the pricing department but just hung up on me. I called back two minutes later and got a message saying call centre is shut because of a fire alarm. The call centre closes at 1pm on Saturday so I never got through.
I'm shoving £35 a week in the damn meter as it is (being all electric), we can't afford to pay £13-£20 a week extra once it gets really cold for our electric and this is well freaking me out.

Any info or comments would be appreciated.

Scottish_Power

greengarnet The price change is accurate as you have quoted. If you e-mail [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] we can do a cost comparison for you and see if there is anything else that we can do to help. Thanks David @ ScottishPower

greengarnet

Thank you for your reply. I have just spoken to someone in your customer service department who said the same thing. However, when challenged over the percentage increase being near 30% for day units we were told that the price for the Midlands had gone up by just over 7% and it would be no where near 30%.

The current day unit rate is 11.832 pence and the new day unit rate will be 15.348 pence as has been confirmed by you and you customer service operator on the phone.

That makes the difference between the two prices 3.516 pence. Can anybody explain to me how 7-9% (depending on where you read about the increase) of 11.832 pence is 3.516 pence.

Wywth

greengarnet wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. I have just spoken to someone in your customer service department who said the same thing. However, when challenged over the percentage increase being near 30% for day units we were told that the price for the Midlands had gone up by just over 7% and it would be no where near 30%.

The current day unit rate is 11.832 pence and the new day unit rate will be 15.348 pence as has been confirmed by you and you customer service operator on the phone.

That makes the difference between the two prices 3.516 pence. Can anybody explain to me how 7-9% (depending on where you read about the increase) of 11.832 pence is 3.516 pence.

Where do you get the 7-9% figure from and what does it relate to exactly?

According to you

greengarnet wrote: »

They have announced a 9% increase to the press and on their own web site they say the increase is 8.56%.

...and this specifies what it relates to, which is not the difference in price of the normal unit price only of a PPM customer in Area 14.

greengarnet

I got that 7-9% increase from various national media sources and from Scottish Power themselves. No two places where I came across the price increase announcement gave the same number but it was always somewhere between 7% and 9%. I'm sorry but I don't really understand why a percentage increase wouldn't be referring to the unit price of a Pre-Payment Metre customer.

notbritishgas

greengarnet wrote: »

I got that 7-9% increase from various national media sources and from Scottish Power themselves. No two places where I came across the price increase announcement gave the same number but it was always somewhere between 7% and 9%. I'm sorry but I don't really understand why a percentage increase wouldn't be referring to the unit price of a Pre-Payment Metre customer.

I am afraid it is all smoke and mirrors.

When they announce an increase eg 9% it does not mean that every tariff will increase by that amount, it means that the average person on their standard tariff using the average amounts of about 16500 gas and 3200 electric will rise by 9%.
With some companies specific non fixed tariffs have not risen at all.
Having said that I thought that PP tariffs were now roughly the same as the credit standard tariff.

Edit: From later posts I see that SP have actually published the % increase for PP tariff, but not for PP E7 tariff..

Wywth

greengarnet wrote: »

I got that 7-9% increase from various national media sources and from Scottish Power themselves. No two places where I came across the price increase announcement gave the same number but it was always somewhere between 7% and 9%. I'm sorry but I don't really understand why a percentage increase wouldn't be referring to the unit price of a Pre-Payment Metre customer.

Well as you said, according to the Scootish Power Website, the increase for a PPM customer supplied only with electricity from SP is 8.56%

and it quite clearly says:

Based on an average ScottishPower domestic electricity customer with annual Standard Rate electricity usage of 3,300kWh, who pays by prepayment. Prices correct as at 3rd December 2012.

How much do you use per year and what percentage of that is consumed at the low rate?

welshsue

I am currently with scottish power on a prepayment meter and am obviously concerned with the price hikes so decided to call them this morning to see if they could assist with pricing as I am disabled so on a limited income. The gentleman I spoke to very abruptly told me that prepayment meter prices will be as per the letter, no movement on them and if I wanted to swap to a standard meter then they will charge me £45.92 for the meter and £150 security deposit and a credit check... couldn't believe it, after telling them I'm on a low income they now want me to pay an additional £195.92 to swap meters... Hence I am now looking into alternative suppliers who have lower prepayment tariffs.

greengarnet

Thank you very much for your replies.

We use 10,600 units per annum with 25% consumed during the night at the lower rate.

I know that sounds a lot but we are in a rented property with electric guzzling heating, with gas or solid fuel of any kind not allowed for health and safety purposes. We can't change the appliances even if we could afford to. The fire uses 1 kWh per hour per bar and it costs £1 for every hour the hot water is on during the day. We wash our hands in cold water a lot and sit round the house in fluffy jogging bottoms, thick fleeces, wooly hats, socks and gloves and we still put £35 a week in the metre at the moment. There's only one of us working at the moment due to redundancy and the other one hasn't had a pay rise in five years. We've cut back everything we can and I'm worried this is gonna push us over the edge financially.

Wywth

greengarnet wrote: »

Thank you very much for your replies.

We use 10,600 units per annum with 25% consumed during the night at the lower rate.

I know that sounds a lot but we are in a rented property with electric guzzling heating, with gas or solid fuel of any kind not allowed for health and safety purposes. We can't change the appliances even if we could afford to. The fire uses 1 kWh per hour per bar and it costs £1 for every hour the hot water is on during the day. We wash our hands in cold water a lot and sit round the house in fluffy jogging bottoms, thick fleeces, wooly hats, socks and gloves and we still put £35 a week in the metre at the moment. There's only one of us working at the moment due to redundancy and the other one hasn't had a pay rise in five years. We've cut back everything we can and I'm worried this is gonna push us over the edge financially.

I'm sorry, but the figures you supply are unbelievebly high

First off, whilst 10,600kWh may be ok for an all electric property, it would only be that if you were using night storage heaters and then it would be more like 75% used overnight!

Secondly, an electric water heater is rated at a maximum of 3kW, so to have it on for an hour will not even cost 50p for an hour during the day even at the increased rates, or less than 20p if you take advantage of the low cost electricity you are being supplied

notbritishgas

greengarnet wrote: »

Thank you very much for your replies.

We use 10,600 units per annum with 25% consumed during the night at the lower rate.

I know that sounds a lot but we are in a rented property with electric guzzling heating, with gas or solid fuel of any kind not allowed for health and safety purposes. We can't change the appliances even if we could afford to. The fire uses 1 kWh per hour per bar and it costs £1 for every hour the hot water is on during the day. We wash our hands in cold water a lot and sit round the house in fluffy jogging bottoms, thick fleeces, wooly hats, socks and gloves and we still put £35 a week in the metre at the moment. There's only one of us working at the moment due to redundancy and the other one hasn't had a pay rise in five years. We've cut back everything we can and I'm worried this is gonna push us over the edge financially.

Wywth wrote: »

I'm sorry, but the figures you supply are unbelievebly high

First off, whilst 10,600kWh may be ok for an all electric property, it would only be that if you were using night storage heaters and then it would be more like 75% used overnight!

Secondly, an electric water heater is rated at a maximum of 3kW, so to have it on for an hour will not even cost 50p for an hour during the day even at the increased rates, or less than 20p if you take advantage of the low cost electricity you are being supplied

I think the fire could be the reason day usage is high.