MSE News: Scottish Power set to unveil tariff offering dual fuel by the day 19 September 2016 at 3:06PM in Energy 30 replies 6.3K views

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Scottish Power will allow customers to buy gas and elec by the day when its new ‘Power Up’ dual fuel tariff launches...

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'Scottish Power set to unveil tariff offering dual fuel by the day - but is it a good deal?'

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teddysmum

I can't see the benefit of this, unless the undisclosed tariff is lower than the standard rate.


There is no tie in period for the variable standard tariff, anyway, so the only benefit would come from price.

michaels

I really can't see how this is any different from being on their standard variable tariff (or whatever the price comes in at) except that you are billed in advance?

Pincher

It's a recipe for admin Armageddon.

How do they know you under used or over used?

Is there a contract? When you are beyond the three months block, and you carry on using energy, what stops you from doing it?

Who pays for the vacant period for a Buy To Let?

A smart meter is a MUST.

Scottish_Power

Hi everyone,

While we haven't released the exact prices yet, PowerUP will be based on our most competitive prices. Savings can be made by topping up further in advance, for example you can save more by topping up with a 6 month package compared to buying individual days. There are also no standing charges, our aim with PowerUp is to create a tariff that is easy to understand with just a simple unit price and a forecasted consumption based on your previous usage.

For each PowerUp customer we will have an individual daily forecast based on the time of year and previous consumption which allows us to provide a daily update on your usage based on our forecasts. As it is designed to work with existing credit meters (not PrePayment of Economy 7 at the moment) we will also ask for meter readings as a minimum every 28 days, however you can enter these more frequently to get an even more accurate balance and forecasts.

There are no contracts, 'PowerUppers' can switch back to any of our tariffs at any time without penalties or change supplier at any stage (usual switching timelines apply).

@Pincher, Buy to Lets would be treated the same as an existing Credit Meter tariff, the responsible party for the property would be responsible for any usage up until the property changes hands.

There's a bit more info here https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/powerup/what-is-powerup with more to come as we roll out to existing customers.

Thanks,

Gordon

VT82

So it's prepay, but with convoluted options of getting bulk buy discounts and paying in installments?

Why call it 'days' when it's got nothing to do with days? It's quite clearly just charging you for how many units you use.

gmafunesm

As a Scottish power customer I can tell you they are THE WORST COMPANY I have ever come across I had an issue with my meter board coming off the wall and in the end I went round them and contacted the company responsible direct. They are ridiculously bad at answering the phone and any promises will only be empty ones. I am planning on leaving them the minute I've paid my current bill some time in the next 24 hours.

Cardew

Not long ago Ofgem made it mandatory for companies to simplify their tariff structure.

However we still have standard tariffs and tariffs fixed for varying lengths of times some with penalties for leaving early, others no penalty; and pre-pay tariffs.

On top of this we now have a plethora of collective tariffs, the details of which you can only find out by joining a comparison website(who want to know what you ate for breakfast!!) and of course you must be on the internet.

Now we have this - a daily tariff.

The world has gone mad!

Scottish_Power

VT82 wrote: »

So it's prepay, but with convoluted options of getting bulk buy discounts and paying in installments?

Why call it 'days' when it's got nothing to do with days? It's quite clearly just charging you for how many units you use.

Hi VT82,

This video might help to explain it a bit better as it shows how the app will work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6yBBDVRpMk

Everything is displayed in days , your balance is showed in days remaining and you buy energy as day based packages. The key however is that these days are personalised to your usage, it's what we estimate you will use in a day based on your previous consumption and the time of year, so each day has a different forecast. You are correct though we are still charging based on a unit price and kwh's used. The benefit of this though is that by using less you can make your days last longer, similarly though using more than forecasted can results in days running out quicker than forecast. This is why it's important to enter meter readings regularly as we will keep refining the forecast.

How many people can relate to how long a traditional kwh unit of energy will last them? We are selling in days as it's a simple and easy way to display how long your energy will last you. It's just like topping up a full tank of petrol, you know roughly how long this will last you.

Thanks,

Gordon

Scottish_Power

gmafunesm wrote: »

As a Scottish power customer I can tell you they are THE WORST COMPANY I have ever come across I had an issue with my meter board coming off the wall and in the end I went round them and contacted the company responsible direct. They are ridiculously bad at answering the phone and any promises will only be empty ones. I am planning on leaving them the minute I've paid my current bill some time in the next 24 hours.

Hi gmafunesm,

I'm really sorry to hear this, we have made significant improvements to our customer service over the past year and now have some of the quickest call waiting times in the industry, If there is anything we can do to help before you switch or during the transfer process please let me know.

Thanks,

Gordon

Scottish_Power

Cardew wrote: »

Not long ago Ofgem made it mandatory for companies to simplify their tariff structure.

However we still have standard tariffs and tariffs fixed for varying lengths of times some with penalties for leaving early, others no penalty; and pre-pay tariffs.

On top of this we now have a plethora of collective tariffs, the details of which you can only find out by joining a comparison website(who want to know what you ate for breakfast!!) and of course you must be on the internet.

Now we have this - a daily tariff.

The world has gone mad!

Hi Cardew,

We believe days are the way forward and have designed this to be one of the fairest and hopefully simplest to understand tariffs on the market. There are no standing charges or exit fees so all you pay is a simple unit price multiplied by your forecasted usage. Customers are telling us they struggle to relate traditional units to a time period of how long this will last so we believe by displaying everything in days it will be simpler to understand.

You can watch the video here to find out a bit more about how it works and see the app in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6yBBDVRpMk

Thanks,

Gordon