What's the catch?

OhWow

I use 2044kWh electricity. Both energyhelpline and uswitch are showing the cheapest deal for electricity to be Npower Price Fix April 2015 which uswitch says has no cancellation charges if I leave before 30 April 2015.

How can a fixed deal have no cancellation charges and be the cheapest deal? Is there something I'm missing?

Nada666

There is no catch if you only take electricity with that tariff.

They charge their gas customers £210 in standing charges - that is why the electriticy on that tariff comes out as inexpensive. Plus npower give you a flat direct debit discount regardless of consumption - so at less than two-thirds of national usage you receive a third extra discount than with most other suppliers.

Pincher

I wouldn't worry about the no cancellation penalty clause, quite a few deals in the last year had it from various suppliers. What I would be careful about, especially NPower, is when the discount is applied. If you leave early, do you still get the discount?

Had a quick look on moneysupermarket.com, for dual fuel for my post code:


Provider: npower Tariff: Price Fix April 2015
Fixed until 30th Apr 2015

Fees & charges (inc. VAT)
Standing charge £0.501 per day
Electricity
All kWh 14.606p per kWh
Gas
All kWh 3.148p per kWh
Early exit fee £0.00


Rather a lopsided tariff. Lovely gas unit rate, hideous electricity unit rate.

OhWow

According to energyhelpline for my area London

Standing Charge 0.00 p per day (£0.00 per year)
pence per kWh 14.753 p
Discounts The direct debit discounts are included in your daily standing charge and will be discounted on each bill so that over a year you’ll receive a discount of £42 (incl. VAT) on your electricity.

Pincher

So Npower is trying get round the OfGem directive on standing charges. This is really good news for low users of electricity. Even for dual fuel, if you are a high gas user, but have low electricity usage, it's still good.

A prime example of how having a diversity of tariffs is good for customers.

OhWow

We are lowish gas users. Ebico seems to working out cheapest for our gas 3800kWh.

Nada666

Pincher wrote: »

Rather a lopsided tariff. Lovely gas unit rate, hideous electricity unit rate.

I had forgotten the unit price was high for normal users. But for very low use the competitors were a 25p tier 1 rate from Scottish Power and nearly 18p from Ebico.

The December 2017 tariff is also worth considering.

brewerdave

God -I wish I could get our energy usage down to the OP's - ~5800kwh TOTAL? That's my elec. usage alone without heating/hot water!!!

Pincher

Probbably some kind of Trappist commune where you flagellate yourself and then wear hair shirts. What I want to know is can you still post on the Internet despite the vowel of silence?

Nada666

Pincher wrote: »

Probbably some kind of Trappist commune where you flagellate yourself and then wear hair shirts. What I want to know is can you still post on the Internet despite the vowel of silence?

Or an insulated flat. Not that low. They use (excuse talking about OP in the third person on their own thread) 2,000 kWh of electricity - so that's 1,000 kWh on top of a minimal base. Plus it only takes 15 or 20kWh to provide an evening's heat to a room. Knock off 1,000 kWh of gas for cooking and hot water leaves 2,800 kWh for heating. That gives you 140 sessions of heating. If you only need 9 per week (two at the week-end) that gives you 15 whole weeks of heating. Not abstemious at all.

Pincher

I had hoped the smiley gave away that I wasn't serious.