Scottish Power - Primary Charges

jayson043

I am with Scottish Power, duel fuel - online fixed price energy march 2014, which has ended.

On my last quarterly bill I see that I have electricity charges based upon 2 parts, one part covers the estimated read covering 29/10/13 to 27/01/14 and the other for the actual part of the bill 28/01/14 to 16/02/14, based upon my own meter reads.

For each part, estimated and actuals I have been charged at the primary rate 21.625p for 224 kWh for the first part (estimated) and 49 kWh for the second part (actual reads).

Am I being charged for those extra 49 kWh at the higher primary rate by mistake, versus if only one charge period was used, assuming at the lower secondary rate - 10.397p ??

I can’t get an answer from them directly. The email replies state lots of facts about my account but don’t answer my question, as if it a template response is from a robot.

[Deleted User]

you will drop down to the lower tariff once the primary units paying the standing charge are used for the quarter. The 2 tier system is being phased out now to an easier to understand daily standing charge and a single tariff for all kwhrs

molerat

The primary rate is charged on a daily basis so it does not matter how the bill is calculated.

Nada666

You were correct to be suspicious - 224 is about the maximum number you should be charged in a quarter (assuming the Scottish Power tariffs still use 900 tier 1 units per year).

However, your first period is an entire quarter (90 days) so the units used over the second period of 20 days would indeed be charged at tier 1 rate also.

Nada666

(And if that is a complete statement of your typical usage - that is, you have no tier 2 units from the first period you are not telling us about - you really need to get yourself to a switching site and check the electricity-only results for your usage - if you are using less than a thousand kWhs per year then change your supplier and tariff - you are paying way more than you need to with Scottish Power (I suspect)).