Obfuscation reigns in the energy market

Davedastardly

My experience arising from my recent decision to switch supplier following information provided by the Energy Price Club leads me to believe that forecasts about costs to be incurred as a result of staying with my existing supplier were unrealistically high and that the resultant saving from switching to a new supplier is at best modest. I remain convinced that the energy supply industry resorts to obfuscation whenever possible. Until such time as information about tariffs is simplified and standardised, customers can never be sure what the best deal is. The whole process is akin to a visit to the casino.

lvf

This is a very lackadaisical approach to finding the right supplier and the best deal for you. You write your post like you expect someone to do all of the work and tell you "this is the one". But you have to remember, it is the best deal FOR YOU. Everyone's circumstances are different, and what is best for someone else may not necessarily be the right choice for you.

Regarding your bills, how are they confusing? What don't you understand? These bills are more transparent and straightforward than they have ever been. Ask us, we can help you understand what you are paying for. I'll try to explain anyway.

There are generally two types of charge on an energy bill, for both electricity and gas. The first should be easy to understand, the daily standing charge. For example, if your supplier, let's call them Supplier_A, have a daily standing charge of 20p then you pay 20p per day for the duration of your bill. So for a quarterly bill of 90 days, it is 90 * 20 = 1800p or £18.00. Done.

Now the second charge is your actual use. For electricity almost all meters operate on kWh, so for each time your meter goes up by one unit, you multiply by your unit price (agreed on the beginning of your tariff). So if Supplier_A charges you 12p per unit, and during the quarter you use (and your meter increases by) 1000 units, you multiply 1000 * 12 = 12000p or £120.00. So your total electricity use is £138.00, before the Government gets their slice of 5% VAT.

Regarding the consumption figures, these are only projected. No one that does not know you, or any website online knows your circumstances. You can only be quoted on the information you feed to it. If your usage is varied from last year, that is a major change in your consumption, then of course the information you were given may be inaccurate. As some suppliers offer a higher unit price but lower standing charge, and vice versa, then the quoted tariff for you will change based on the usage figures you have provided.

You can get your usage figures from the last 12 months from your supplier. Once these are received, you can pop them into uSwitch or any comparison site, which will work out a 12 month bill based on the supplier's standing charges for 365 days plus your consumption multiplied by the unit price. Once calculated, it will display the tariffs normally in order of price based on your figures and location.

I guarantee you now that the switch tariff suggested was not unrealistic, but somewhere along the line the details provided were incorrect.

The savings presented to you are only projections and your actual use may differ.

molerat

Using the MSE CEC is the mistake, it gives a misleading and confusing view. Using one of the others, my preference being EnergyHelpLine, is much more straightforward and accurate providing you input accurate usage information. Of course they all make an assumption and that is that you will use the same amount of energy each year. I input high and low figures to see how they affect each supplier giving a more accurate expectation.

matelodave

What also confuses people and gives them a false impression of the savings they will make is the way that the comparison sites do their sums based on you transferring to your suppliers standard variable tariff at the end of the present contract.

This is fine if that's what you are going to do but hopefully if you are on a fixed tariff you'd be looking to swap when it expires.

According to the CEC I can save £300 however in reality it is less than £30 (which gets cancelled out by my contract termination fee) because I will swap when my deal ends and the estimate of my energy consumption profile is miles out (my consumption is massively skewed to be quite high in the winter and very low in the summer).

The only way to compare tariffs is to actually compare tariffs, ie the price per kwh and the cost of the standing charge based on real consumption figures, not on some fictitious guess on what you might save.

That's not to say that comparison sites don't work, but in my view they just point you in the right direction. It's up to you to ensure that the sums do actually work out

JJ_Egan

As above a simple calculation based upon your past usage and tariff prices gives the actual cost to compare .
A forecast is just a guess informed or not .