Sorry, can someone help me with best tariff please?

pbfhpunk

Hi

Sorry about this, I'm probably being really dense but I'm so confused by switching and which tariff is best.

I'm currently on BG Standard, I've used a couple of comparison sites and co-op energy seems to be quite highly ranked and in the top couple of results for biggest savings. But I just want to check I'm doing it right.

I've attached my meter readings from the BG app and you'll see they really vary wildly. The large gas read was because BG hadn't been charging me for gas for nearly a year - not sure why as the switch went through fine. I've been paying £100pm for the last few months to reduce the debit that that put me into, and last month was able to reduce it down to £87, am currently £170 in credit with them but getting it back would take my monthly DDs up to £200+ according to their site.

On the comparison sites I was putting monthly usage as 200kwh for both as that seemed to be the average for each. So I'm not sure if that's factored into the results as all the comparisons come out with I would be paying £500-£600 a year.

Anyway the Co-op fix for longer plan has a tariff 12.70p per kwh where as BG is 12.28p per kwh, also the co-op one doesn't say what the gas rate is, so is gas included in this tariff?

Again apologies if I' being really dense and missing the obvious here.

footyguy

You should be able to obtain your anticipated annual consumption figures from your supplier

Otherwise I would suggest the following:

Electricity. For the 50 weeks 26-Nov-2015 - 09-Nov-2016 you used 2284kWh of electricity.
Pro rata that out to 52 weeks would give you an annual figure of 2375kWh

Gas: A bit more risky here as you do not show a full years consumption, so best to contact you supplier.
And the bit you are missing is the real expensive period Dec2015-Feb2016

As a rough estimate:
In the 9 months data you do have, you appear to have used about 2100kWh, so perhaps assume total year consumption is about 4000kWh?
Because you could well use in the 3 winter months about as much gas as you use during the rest of the year.

To clarify, I have ignored the usage figures indicated, and calculated the usage from the difference in meter readings provided.

pbfhpunk

Thank you. That helps a lot, doing it by annually.

macman

What you need to calculate is your annual consumption. For electricity, you have about 50 weeks, so if you pro rata that up to 52 weeks then 2500 kWh p.a. is about right. But for gas, you are missing about 10 weeks of winter reads, which will be the weeks of heaviest usage. So you can't pro rata that and get any accurate result. Based on 42 weeks, you have used about 5,000 kWh, so not sure where you get 2,400kWh p.a from-that would be extremely low usage, assuming gas CH and DHW.
The average gas usage would be around 12,500kWh-assuming the property has gas CH and DHW.
I'm also puzzled as to why your gas usage is zero in one month-you were still presumably using gas for hot water in the summer?
Edit: footyguy beat me to it...

jbuchanangb

Hello

I ran your numbers through the Which? comparison site using my postcode, and Co-op Fix For Longer February 2018 tariff comes out best.

I used 2387Kwh as you annual electricity and 4340kwh as your annual gas. Both are approx. The electricity because that is the consumption for 377 days, and the gas because of the unusual February reading. Probably the gas is a bit high

There are actually quite a lot of suppliers offering to charge less than £50 pm, so I can't understand how BG could be asking for £200 if you are already in credit.

The gas is 3.61 p/kwh.

Although it is confusing that the unit rate is higher for electricity than the one you are paying, probably the standing charges are lower.

Switching to anything from BG's standard rate will always cost less.

pbfhpunk

Thank you for everyone's help, I've started the switch to co-op energy.

Thanks again

H