There must be a better way to buy electricity and gas…

saverbuyer

sacsquacco wrote: »

in Northern Ireland the dominant supplier Power NI operate a smartphone app for balance check and top up. All the suppliers operate online top ups. Inconvenient keys and cards and running to the shops to top up are a thing of the past.Operating costs for smart prepays are much lower so the prices are dropping. Prepays are gaining in popularity because of the convenience.

In N.I. with online top up, my understanding is you still have to input a number into a keypad. Still a bit of a hassle IMO.

Bark01

SMART prepay is the future - no two ways about it. It'll just take a number of years to gain traction (and work!)

Once in home prepay takes off, there will be no justification for PPM costing more than DD as it will bypass the current third party pay point system.

The current system places a physical restriction on the number of PPM tariffs that can be in market at any given time and also adds a number of weeks onto the launch time frame for any new tariffs.

The Petrol pump analogy is terrible. Petrol prices can change hourly and change from each station to the next.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

saverbuyer wrote: »

In N.I. with online top up, my understanding is you still have to input a number into a keypad. Still a bit of a hassle IMO.

Like putting a PIN into an ATM? Dreadful

lstar337

windup wrote: »

I would be more than happy for someone else to fill the tank automatically for me whenever it is about to run out, and to pay for it with a fixed monthly direct debit.

Same here. I find trips to filling stations tedious.

modsandmockers

jack_pott wrote: »

My beef with energy pricing is that the government needs to ban regressive tariffs and make progressive ones compulsory, and that wouldn't be very practical with a prepay scheme.

The point would be that tariffs will no longer exist - you simply pay an agreed price for an agreed amount of fuel - just like buying petrol. You can buy a day's worth, a week's worth or a year's worth.

Bark01 wrote: »

Petrol prices can change hourly and change from each station to the next.

That's the point - you know exactly what the cost is going to be at the time and place that you buy it. With gas and electricity there are three dozen suppliers offering two different products on around three different tariffs each - that's around 200 different prices to consider, any number of which can (and do) change at any time. Finding the best deal, and then signing up to it, is a complicated, time-consuming and on-going project. As somebody said earlier in the thread, most people have better things to do.

modsandmockers

sacsquacco wrote: »

Over in Northern Ireland smart prepayment meters are very popular, about 40% are on them now, they re a big success and they re showing the rest of the UK how its done. The suppliers are getting more confident in their economy of usage and are offering prices less than the standard prices. Ovo and Utilita use the same meters. I can see a future where smart prepayment could possibly be the cheapest form of buying energy

sacsquacco wrote: »

in Northern Ireland the dominant supplier Power NI operate a smartphone app for balance check and top up. All the suppliers operate online top ups. Inconvenient keys and cards and running to the shops to top up are a thing of the past.Operating costs for smart prepays are much lower so the prices are dropping. Prepays are gaining in popularity because of the convenience.

antrobus wrote: »

Already offered by Ovo Energy since March. Haven't you seen the TV advert?:)

These schemes sound like a step in the right direction. Presumably they still require the customer to be tied to a specified supplier. Can you imagine being restricted to a specified retailer for any other aspect of your daily needs?

Bark01

modsandmockers wrote: »

The point would be that tariffs will no longer exist - you simply pay an agreed price for an agreed amount of fuel - just like buying petrol. You can buy a day's worth, a week's worth or a year's worth.

That's the point - you know exactly what the cost is going to be at the time and place that you buy it. With gas and electricity there are three dozen suppliers offering two different products on around three different tariffs each - that's around 200 different prices to consider, any number of which can (and do) change at any time. Finding the best deal, and then signing up to it, is a complicated, time-consuming and on-going project. As somebody said earlier in the thread, most people have better things to do.

Yes, but when you buy petrol you actually buy the fuel and have to store it yourself…

If you want you can buy gas canisters up front and go off grid, but the battery technology to allow this kind of storage is still years away; by which time SMART tariffs will have settled down and we will be in a completely different energy environment.

modsandmockers

Bark01 wrote: »

Yes, but when you buy petrol you actually buy the fuel and have to store it yourself

My neighbour currently buys all her gas and electricity on prepay meters - I'm not aware that there is any problem with storage.

windup

I know exactly what the prices will be for the next 12 months, and think about it for 10 minutes once a year. Why on earth do you think buying it as you go, (daily, weekly, whatever) from different suppliers at different prices is going to be a simpler or more cost effective system.

Nada666

modsandmockers wrote: »

The point would be that tariffs will no longer exist - you simply pay an agreed price for an agreed amount of fuel - just like buying petrol. You can buy a day's worth, a week's worth or a year's worth.

That's the point - you know exactly what the cost is going to be at the time and place that you buy it. With gas and electricity there are three dozen suppliers offering two different products on around three different tariffs each - that's around 200 different prices to consider, any number of which can (and do) change at any time. Finding the best deal, and then signing up to it, is a complicated, time-consuming and on-going project. As somebody said earlier in the thread, most people have better things to do.

Crazy. Gas and electricity gets delivered to my door. The amount of electricity I need to use to find the best price is pretty much zero whereas it takes a hell of a lot of petrol to cruise round stations comparing prices. I suppose there are sites that can tell me the price of petrol - but fathoming out distances and cost-benefits is hardly less complicated than choosing a domestic fuel tariff. Madness.

It is neither complicated nor time-consuming to switch tariff.