Add your feedback on energy supplier Powershop

Umiamz

fewkeste wrote: »

Once you have built some credit up in your pot (account) you can be more selective over which powerpacks you choose to buy. For example I will no longer buy powerpacks with less than 18% discount if I have enough credit in my account.

Out of interest, how much credit do you consider to be enough to allow you to be selective in your purchases?

Tafrock

Umiamz the level of credit I like to build up before limiting my powerpack purchases is around 10 to 12 weeks electricity ie 2 to 3 months

It is of course entirely up to you how much credit you are happy to have sitting in your powershop account.

When I first started the pack discounts were a lot higher than they are now and I built up over £200 in credit

I wouldn't recommend letting it get that high. Mine is now down to a more reasonable £70 which powershop says is 9 weeks worth

I now limit my purchases to 18% or higher. I used to limit them to 20% but my credit dwindled due to powershop not releasing many packs with high discounts

I'm a low user. My bills are no more than £30 a month and My credit is slowly building back up

Powershop should be releasing highly discounted powerpacks more often now winter is approaching. It's what they did last year

They start tailing off again in March

Umiamz

Thanks for that, Tafrock. It sounds like you're just taking electricity with them. I'd be dual fuel, so can most likely afford to let my credit build up a bit more. I'm paying around £80 p.m. with Octopus.

Tafrock

Oh yes I'm just electricity. My gas is on a 2 year fixed deal with zog energy which powershop can't come close too.

Powershop works fine for me with electricity though the difference between the next lowest rival tariff and powershop is not a lot nowadays.

I do like the refreshing approach to the market powershop bring

fewkeste

Umiamz wrote: »

Out of interest, how much credit do you consider to be enough to allow you to be selective in your purchases?

Like Tafrock I like to have two or three months worth of credit in my account (I'm currently in credit until 7th January.)

When you've built up a decent level of credit you can then decide to be more selective about the Powerpacks you buy - deciding not to purchase those with lower discounts.

Also, after a while, when you've built up some credit, you can ask for any unused Powerpacks that have a lower discount than you would ideally now buy as a more experienced customer, to be refunded and either sit as credit on your account to be used for future Powerpack purchases or, it can be refunded to your bank account or credit card.

neilsedaka

I am £176 ahead, in credit, equating to 77 days, electricity only. About right I think, but I will be needing several high discount packs to be offered to me soon to take me through the winter and well into summer 2019.

dave_dph

Umiamz

I've been with Powershop since the middle of April this year for electricity only. My current balance is showing as £221 (approx 17 weeks ahead) which is great, but as I'm on economy 7 with night storage heaters - which have yet to be switched on, this is purely an estimation on Powershop's part.

Since joining, with the exception of a couple of future summer packs and the low discount March future packs, I have bought every powerpack that has been offered. I recently checked my detailed usage summary and I found that none of my purchased monthly jumbo packs have been used, but as these packs have the lowest discount and my electric usage is relatively low during the summer months, this makes sense. Once the storage heaters are switched on I'm sure my credit balance will reduce drastically and the jumbo packs will be used.

Using the app on a smart phone makes the Powershop way of buying power easy, but if you have any problems the customer service team here in Brum are great!

carteruk

I've been with PS for coming up to 1 year and thought I best benchmark ahead of the winter season. Summer joiners may be disappointed in their discount level (c.14%) however the following shows Winter Discounts had been higher, hopefully the pattern continues in the coming months. I think i have have bought most power packs - its tough when you get a 5% discounted powerpack as it feels light yet 5% is better in my pocket than theirs! perhaps I should buy the march pack...

Date Discount p/kwh in SC p/kwh
03/02/2018 32% £0.1000 £0.086
03/03/2018 35% £0.0975 £0.082
03/04/2018 23% £0.1151 £0.100
03/05/2018 15% £0.1284 £0.112
03/06/2018 13% £0.1345 £0.114
03/07/2018 12% £0.1355 £0.115
03/08/2018 12% £0.1337 £0.116
03/09/2018 14% £0.1271 £0.113
03/10/2018 19% £0.1173 £0.106

Averages 12p/kwh (inc all other costs) or 10.5p/kwh exc standing charge. CBA switching twice a year.

(this was created pulling the data from the actual bills rather than in app so im confident in my calcs)

Umiamz

When you say that it includes all other costs, do you mean the daily charge as well? i.e. you've taken the total bill for the month and divided by the number of kWh used?

carteruk

Umiamz wrote: »

When you say that it includes all other costs, do you mean the daily charge as well? i.e. you've taken the total bill for the month and divided by the number of kWh used?

Yes, I've just updated to reflect calcs without standing charge although you cant actually get away from that.
the only other combination would be spread the charge evenly out against all usage rather than monthly usage which works out at 1.5p/kwh(which has just occurred to me is the difference between my 2 averages above!)Given we also have another 3 months of higher usage will see a slight reduction in the differential

Finally, depending on your overall usage then this may also alter how the standing charge impacts things. im would say im a medium/high user and next year will be a higher user due to a hot tub...