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

modsandmockers

windup wrote: »

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.

You've already spent ten minutes thinking about it on this thread alone!

Nada666 wrote: »

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

Why is it that only 30% of energy users appear to agree with you (despite all the public information campaigns)?

Carrot007

I assume you want to pay the price your supplier agreed to pay for the elec/gas (+ some % to make it worth their while) rather than the current market rate, which has nothing to do with how much they paid and can be less or more depending on where the markets went.

And after they have chanrged X people the rate they paid months and years in advance are you happy for the rest to be billed at the penalty rate they get charged for not knowing the usage in advance?

Unfortunatly PC1-4 markets are able to opt out of having the provider have the half hourly data needed to bill this granularly so they cannot settle on this.

In the future it will go this way. Don;t excpet it to save you momney though.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

modsandmockers wrote: »

Why is it that only 30% of energy users appear to agree with you (despite all the public information campaigns)?

Far fewer than that switch bank account - despite it being in their pecuniary interest to do so. Perhaps some people are just happy where they are? Not everyone is motivated purely by price.

Bark01

modsandmockers wrote: »

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

Yes, and she buys them in the current future hedged market. Not in a spot market where the prices are always changing in flux.

Ebe_Scrooge

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.

Really ? And you wouldn't feel slightly miffed if your supplier had charged you 150 ppl, then the first garage you drove past was selling it at 107ppl ?


For those of us with oil-fired central heating, many suppliers offer just such a scheme - you pay a monthly direct debit and they fill your tank up when they see it's getting low. Yes, it's very convenient. It's also very expensive, as the price they charge per litre is almost always significantly more than what you can get by phoning around 2 or 3 local suppliers a couple of days before you want a delivery. It's a very expensive convenience.

windup

it was an analogy, introduced to the topic by the op

electricity/gas companies provide a service, and make a small profit, just like every other company, no miffs at all.

The idea that the population would prefer a system of continual topups and price haggling rather than fixing once a year is bizarre. Life is complicated enough, fortunately most of us have moved beyond the coalman days

pelirocco

If you think home prices are difficult you ought to try business tariffs , you cant swap and change you are tied into your contract , you cant get quotes online , if you dont renew at the end of the contract you go straight on to your existing providers sky high rate

modsandmockers

Let’s imagine that the petrol suppliers were to get together and say - “Hey guys, we’re losing out here - let’s do it like the gas and electricity suppliers do it…. Let’s charge car owners, say, a fiver for ‘standing charges’ every time they drive onto the forecourt. Oh - and let’s get them to sign a contract which will allow us to put a gizmo under their filler caps so that they can only buy their petrol from one company’s outlets, and at one company’s prices (doing it that way will mean we don’t have to pass on any price decreases until the contract comes up for renewal). And it’ll be even better if we vary the ‘standing charge’ fairly randomly between different retailers so that we can all charge different prices per litre, thus making it as difficult as possible for the punters to work out their fuel costs per mile. Obviously, if wholesale prices look like they’re about to start going up again, we’ll just have to bump up the ‘standard’ prices so that we can pass the costs on to the 70% of car owners who have given up the struggle to understand the way to benefit from the ‘special’ deals (ha ha) which are so easy (ha ha ha) to access if only they had the time to spare and arithmetical skills to do the calculations.”

The MSE forums would probably burst into flames!

windup

false analogy

you aren't locked to a gizmo, you aren't locked to a provider, unless you choose to be, you can shop around all you like, the stuff is delivered to your door and billed and negotiated on your behalf, there is a cost associated with that called standing charges, it can be hidden in the cost per kwh if it really aggravates so much, but you're paying it whatever.

If you buy shares, there's a cost associated with that, if you buy petrol, there is a cost associated with that, if you buy onions from Tesco, there is a cost associated with that, if you were able to buy electricity from different companies by the bag, the same concept applies

There's at least half a dozen websites that do the maths if it's beyond someones capabilities.

modsandmockers

Bark01 wrote: »

Yes, and she buys them in the current future hedged market. Not in a spot market where the prices are always changing in flux.

It's the tariff system that draws consumers into the futures game - every fixed price tariff which has an exit fee requires the consumer to take a gamble as to whether, and by how much, prices are likely to go up or down during the life of the tariff.