Energy switch, going around in circles

System

teddysmum wrote: »

Our fix (Npower) doesn't end until April 30th, but doing a quote gives Iresa as the best buy. What puts me off is always paying in advance and the fact that the company is very new ,so has little experience.

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Energy suppliers pay for their energy in advance of supply so if you want the cheapest price it is not unreasonable to ask customers to pay in advance. I suspect that you pay for your TV licence, Sky, mobile etc in advance so why not Energy?

All payments are used to pay off your future bill, and should the supplier go insolvent then all credit balances are protected by Ofgem.

If the supplier goes bust because of 'inexperience' then Ofgem will appoint a supplier of Last Resort to takeover your account with no risk of a loss of supply.

By way of comparison, a broadband ISP went bust a month or so ago and customers had to scrabble around looking for a new ISP.

AndyPK

Well I've started a switch to them.

Wish me luck. Didn't realise it took 30 days!

System

AndyPK wrote: »

Well I've started a switch to them.

Wish me luck. Didn't realise it took 30 days!

Yes - 17 day switching is a voluntary code. All suppliers have a licence obligation to transfer a supply within 35 days (14 days cooling off plus 21 days).

EdK

I buy fuel for my car. However much I put in the tank, I pay the amount per litre which is clearly displayed to the public. The first litre costs exactly the same as the last litre. Other private motorists buying fuel at that filling station at that time are paying the same amount per litre as me. The fuel company does not raise a separate charge for maintaining the filling station or the infrastructure for delivering the fuel to it. That part of the infrastructure which is common to all fuel companies – the road network – is paid for out of general taxation, all other costs are included in the per litre price. I have no forward contract, if I want to change my supplier, I can go to another garage whenever I need to fill up.

I buy fuel for my house – why can’t it be as straightforward? For each fuel, energy companies could have one single per-kWh charge and we could buy in advance as much as we wanted, from whichever company we wanted. That way the market would probably work and there would not be the iniquitous difference in costs between people who switched supplier and those who didn’t. We would all be pre-payment customers, so the poorest customers would no longer pay the highest rates.

OK. There are differences to be dealt with. Maybe there would need to be limits (equivalent to vehicle tank capacity) to stop the wealthy distorting the market by over-buying to hoard . Household meters would have to record how much had been bought as well as how much used/unused. The common delivery infrastructure would probably need to include household meters instead of these being the property of the supplier. There are complications with gas: variable thermal values, not all households are on the grid so general taxation for the gas grid might not be right (Council Tax?). But these issues must be resolvable, especially if new meters really were smart.

At least the pantomime of the present switching regime could end.The government could stop harassing us to switch to make their market forces theories work, and we could stop wasting our time.

sgt_bilko_2

I'm on the Collective Fix February 2017, so looking for options now and completely confused by it all. We had a smart meter installed last year and they sent through an energy statement in December that showed our gas usage had increased by 50%, so I called them and went through to a department who concluded it was nonsense.

The problem is that a full year has yet to pass by, so they base some of the usage on the smart meter and some on an estimate. Judging by the latest information he had we are consuming less than half the average and our electric is also lower than average, even though I work from home.

It's proving remarkably difficult to obtain a realistic estimate and most online quotes seem to raise our expected direct debit for gas and electric from £49 to around £90. There are all these unknown companies with poor ratings, so all of this is really frustrating.

To top it all the figures for usage supplied in the energy statement are wildly different from the ones they use themselves. On this statement is says our gas was 1092.19 kWh and rose to 1499.75 kWh. When I called British Gas they said it's actually around 6500, which is half the average!! Apparently they run different numbers based on compliance with the regulators.

Unless we stick with British Gas or Sainsbury's the smart meter will also become an expensive paperweight. It's never been complicated like this in the past and the price rises seem pretty extraordinary.

System

EdK wrote: »

I buy fuel for my car. However much I put in the tank, I pay the amount per litre which is clearly displayed to the public. The first litre costs exactly the same as the last litre. Other private motorists buying fuel at that filling station at that time are paying the same amount per litre as me. The fuel company does not raise a separate charge for maintaining the filling station or the infrastructure for delivering the fuel to it. That part of the infrastructure which is common to all fuel companies – the road network – is paid for out of general taxation, all other costs are included in the per litre price. I have no forward contract, if I want to change my supplier, I can go to another garage whenever I need to fill up.

I buy fuel for my house – why can’t it be as straightforward? For each fuel, energy companies could have one single per-kWh charge and we could buy in advance as much as we wanted, from whichever company we wanted. That way the market would probably work and there would not be the iniquitous difference in costs between people who switched supplier and those who didn’t. We would all be pre-payment customers, so the poorest customers would no longer pay the highest rates.

OK. There are differences to be dealt with. Maybe there would need to be limits (equivalent to vehicle tank capacity) to stop the wealthy distorting the market by over-buying to hoard . Household meters would have to record how much had been bought as well as how much used/unused. The common delivery infrastructure would probably need to include household meters instead of these being the property of the supplier. There are complications with gas: variable thermal values, not all households are on the grid so general taxation for the gas grid might not be right (Council Tax?). But these issues must be resolvable, especially if new meters really were smart.

At least the pantomime of the present switching regime could end.The government could stop harassing us to switch to make their market forces theories work, and we could stop wasting our time.

Hi - welcome to the forum. The Government believes that greater competition and more innovative bundling of products will bring down energy prices. (That said, in times of rising prices what they probably mean is that the increase will be less than it might have been). What you are proposing is re-nationalisation which would cost all of us dearly in terms of having to compensate energy suppliers when their customers were taken back into public ownership.

That said, I agree that a single price per kWh for energy would make more sense than the present system of standing charges. The problem is that distribution costs vary by region as does CV for gas.

missmuffett

hi guys I live in wales and am hoping for the big switch to go head as times getting on and I'm on the british gas tariff ending this month, I don't suppose any one has an update on where they are with the new deal please - thanks so much xx

System

missmuffett wrote: »

hi guys I live in wales and am hoping for the big switch to go head as times getting on and I'm on the british gas tariff ending this month, I don't suppose any one has an update on where they are with the new deal please - thanks so much xx

From last week's newsletter:


We're at the final negotiation for a deal for a super-cheap direct debit tariff which should launch in 2 weeks, although it's not 100% signed yet, so there's always a chance it may not happen. Anyone who gets this email, or is registered for our Cheap Energy Club will be eligible, (if not register here) and we'll confirm details next week.

I would do a full market comparison if I were you.

sgt_bilko_2

Hengus wrote: »

From last week's newsletter:


We're at the final negotiation for a deal for a super-cheap direct debit tariff which should launch in 2 weeks, although it's not 100% signed yet, so there's always a chance it may not happen. Anyone who gets this email, or is registered for our Cheap Energy Club will be eligible, (if not register here) and we'll confirm details next week.

I would do a full market comparison if I were you.

I was literally in the process of switching to Avro, figuring that it was worth a punt, since they charge no early exit fees. If something may come along within a week I think it's worth waiting.

justwannabeloved

Hengus wrote: »

From last week's newsletter:


We're at the final negotiation for a deal for a super-cheap direct debit tariff which should launch in 2 weeks, although it's not 100% signed yet, so there's always a chance it may not happen. Anyone who gets this email, or is registered for our Cheap Energy Club will be eligible, (if not register here) and we'll confirm details next week.

I would do a full market comparison if I were you.

Hi Hengus

Is that for Wales and Scotland only ?